DocBook is an XML language designed to mark up the semantic content of technical documentation. Much like HTML, it uses tags to separate content areas from one another. For example, in HTML a paragraph is marked up like this:
<p>This is a paragraph. It may contain many sentences.</p>
The DocBook markup is similar:
<para>This is a paragraph. It may contain many sentences.</para>
Unlike HTML, DocBook allows very little latitude for specifying the formatting of the text. Such decisions are left to stylesheets further down the document production chain. Thus DocBook tags seek to specify the meanings of their contents without specifying the appearance. This philosophy allows DocBook documents to be formatted into a variety of products, for example, Rich Text Format for use with a word processor, HTML for viewing in a web browser, or PDF for printing hard copy.
The Moin wiki already "understands" some DocBook markup. You may view that markup by pulling down the "More Actions:" menu from any page. Thus by using the wiki markup, you are automatically generating DocBook markup. For example, to start a new paragraph, you simply leave a blank line between two areas of text:
This is a paragraph. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. This is another paragraph. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences.
will automatically generate:
<para>This is a paragraph. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences.</para> <para>This is another paragraph. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences. It may contain many sentences.</para>
It will be left to the stylesheet whether to indent the paragraph, right justify it, left justify it, or render it in a larger or smaller font. This means that an article written for one book or journal may be easily repackaged for another without changing the original document. This is powerfully flexible. To see what Docbook tags are handled automatically by the Moin wiki, see DocBook/ImplicitWiki. Other tags may be included explicitely in the text. To see examples of some useful tags, see DocBook/ExplicitWiki