DocBook (markup language)

DocBook is a markup language for technical documentation. It was originally intended for writing technical documents related to computer hardware and software but it can be used for any other sort of documentation.

One of the principal benefits of DocBook is that it enables its users to create document content in a presentation-neutral form that captures the logical structure of the content; that content can then be published in a variety of formats, including HTML, PDF, man pages and HTML Help, without requiring users to make any changes to the source.

The DocBook format, being based on XML, is readable by humans as well as computers. A DocBook file can be processed into many different output formats, each with a completely different appearance and even a different arrangement of content elements.