This book is for people who want publish DocBook XML files using the DocBook XSL stylesheets. It is a "how to" guide that gets you up and running quickly, and then provides the details you need to gain access to the full power of DocBook. The book covers:

(This book does not cover the SGML version of DocBook, nor the DocBook DSSSL stylesheets.)

You don't need to be an XML expert to use DocBook XSL. You will need to know about XML elements and attributes, since you will be working with DocBook XML files. And you will need to know how to execute commands by typing them on a command line rather than through a point-and-click interface. If you know nothing about XSL, you can still use the stylesheets to generate high-quality output. You can also customize to a degree using the built-in stylesheet parameters. Learning some XSL will enable you to more fully customize the output. This book can teach you basic XSL, and provides dozens of examples that you can use and learn from.

This book won't show you how to write DocBook documents. The best reference for writing in DocBook is DocBook: The Definitive Guide by Norman Walsh. That book has been made available by O'Reilly Books for reading from the web at http://docbook.org/tdg/en/html/docbook.html. Keep that link bookmarked for future reference. A printed and bound version of the book is also available from O'Reilly Books, but it is a bit out of date now. The online book documents the most recent version of the DTD.