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<h2 class="title"><a id="manpages" name="manpages"></a>Converting
to man pages</h2>
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<a id="id2476295" class="indexterm" name="id2476295"></a><a id=
"id2476302" class="indexterm" name="id2476302"></a><a id=
"id2476309" class="indexterm" name="id2476309"></a><a id=
"id2476315" class="indexterm" name="id2476315"></a>
<p>DocBook documents are converted to man pages in two steps:</p>
<div class="orderedlist">
<ol type="1">
<li>
<p>The DocBook source is converted by a XSLT stylesheet into an
intermediate XML format, Man-XML.</p>
<p>Man-XML is simpler than DocBook and closer to the man page
format; it is intended to make the stylesheets’ job
easier.</p>
<p>The stylesheet for this purpose is in <code class=
"filename">xslt/man/docbook.xsl</code>. For portability, it should
always be referred to by the following URI:</p>
<pre class="synopsis">
http://docbook2x.sourceforge.net/latest/xslt/man/docbook.xsl
</pre>
<p>Run this stylesheet with <a href=
"db2x_xsltproc.html"><span><strong class=
"command">db2x_xsltproc</strong></span></a>.</p>
<a id="id2476395" class="indexterm" name="id2476395"></a>
<p><b>Customizing. </b> You can also customize the output by
creating your own XSLT stylesheet — changing parameters or
adding new templates — and importing <code class=
"filename">xslt/man/docbook.xsl</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Man-XML is converted to the actual man pages by <a href=
"db2x_manxml.html"><span><strong class=
"command">db2x_manxml</strong></span></a>.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p>The <a href="docbook2man.html" title=
"docbook2X: docbook2man"><span><strong class=
"command">docbook2man</strong></span></a> command does both steps
automatically, but if any problems occur, you can see the errors
more clearly if you do each step separately:</p>
<pre class="screen">
<code class="prompt">$ </code><strong class=
"userinput"><code>db2x_xsltproc -s man <em class=
"replaceable"><code>mydoc</code></em>.xml -o <em class=
"replaceable"><code>mydoc</code></em>.mxml</code></strong>
<code class="prompt">$ </code><strong class=
"userinput"><code>db2x_manxml <em class=
"replaceable"><code>mydoc</code></em>.mxml</code></strong>
</pre>
<p>Options to the conversion stylesheet are described in <a href=
"../xslt/documentation/docbook2man-xslt.html/docbook2man-xslt.html">
the man-pages stylesheets reference</a>.</p>
<a id="id2523989" class="indexterm" name="id2523989"></a>
<p><b>Pure XSLT conversion. </b> An alternative to the
<span><strong class="command">db2x_manxml</strong></span> Perl
script is the XSLT stylesheet in <code class=
"filename">xslt/backend/db2x_manxml.xsl</code>. This stylesheet
performs a similar function of converting Man-XML to actual man
pages. It is useful if you desire a pure XSLT solution to man-page
conversion. Of course, the quality of the conversion using this
stylesheet will never be as good as the Perl <span><strong class=
"command">db2x_manxml</strong></span>, and it runs slower. In
particular, the pure XSLT version currently does not support tables
in man pages, but its Perl counterpart does. <span class="html">For
instructions on how to use the stylesheet, see <a href=
"xsltproc.html#xsltproc.db2x_manxml" title=
"Example 1. Convert to man pages using pure-XSLT db2x_manxml">
Example 1, “Convert to man pages using pure-XSLT
<span>db2x_manxml</span>”</a>.</span></p>
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