Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 10:42:07 -0600
From: Weiqi Gao <weiqi DOT gao AT edwardjones DOT com>
Subject: Re: TEX
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Message-id: <3A27D4DF.A4A824CA@edwardjones.com>
Organization: Edward Jones
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References: <Pine DOT SUN DOT 3 DOT 91 DOT 1001128093709 DOT 27656J-100000 AT is>
 <3A23C076 DOT FF08F697 AT lps DOT u-psud DOT fr>
 <9003-Tue28Nov2000200904+0200-eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 15:25:58 +0100
> > From: taupin <taupin AT lps DOT u-psud DOT fr>
> >
> > > What, DocBook cannot produce ASCII, PS, and HTML?  Really??
> >
> > Everything generated with TeX (whatever TeXinfo, LaTeX, Plain TeX) can
> > be transformed to PS using DVIPS.
> 
> I asked about DocBook, not about TeX.  I thought that DocBook is a
> different package, not based on TeX.

Some clarifications may be in order:

1. DocBook is an SGML DTD (and most recently an XML DTD) that specifies
what needs to be in a SGML file for it to be a valid DocBook SGML file.
2. A validating SGML (nsgmls, for example) is used to to the check in
step 1.  Some editors, (Emacs, for example) have a special mode
(psgml.el, for example) to help editing an DocBook SGML file, providing
TAB completion of element (tag) names and attribute names and values.
3. The DocBook Modular stylesheets is a set of DSSSL stylesheets that
knows how to transform a valid DocBook SGML file into another format
(HTML, ascii, TeX, RTF, etc.)
4. A DSSSL engine (jade, for example) is used to actually apply these
stylesheets, generating .html, .txt, .rtf, .tex files.  The .html, .txt,
.rtf files are ready for consumption, but ...
5. The TeX file generated uses macros in a TeX macro package called
jadetex.  Note that this is a straight TeX macro package, not an LaTeX
one.
6. A TeX processor (tex, for example) is used to convert the .tex files
into .dvi, .ps, ant .pdf formats.
7. The current setup of the tools from Red Hat Linux 6.2 uses a command
jadetex (which is tex preloaded with a dump of jadetex.tex) to generate
the .dvi and (through dvips) the .ps files.  It uses a command
pdfjadetex (which is pdftex preloaded with a dump of jadetex.tex) to
generate the .pdf files.

Some URLs:
http://docbook.org (DocBook)
http://www.nwalsh.com/docbook/dsssl/ (DocBook DSSSL stylesheets)
http://www.jclark.com/ (James Clark and his tools).

--
Weiqi Gao
weiqigao AT networkusa DOT net