Asciidoclet

Asciidoclet

Asciidoclet is a lightweight markup language and document conversion toolset for writing technical documentation. It is designed for creating documentation that is readable as source text while also being able to convert to HTML, PDF, EPUB, and other formats.
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markup-language technical-writing documentation html pdf epub

Asciidoclet: Lightweight markup language & document conversion toolset

Asciidoclet is a lightweight markup language and document conversion toolset for writing technical documentation. It is designed for creating documentation that is readable as source text while also being able to convert to HTML, PDF, EPUB, and other formats.

What is Asciidoclet?

Asciidoclet is an open-source plaintext markup language and set of processing tools for authoring technical documentation in a format that can be easily read, written, and maintained as human-readable plaintext, while also being convertible to HTML, DocBook, PDF, and other formats for publishing. It was created in 2002 by Ryan Waldron as a more user-friendly syntax and semantic alternative to DocBook XML for writing documentation and books.

Some key features and advantages of Asciidoclet include:

  • Plaintext syntax that is simple and easy to read, write, and maintain
  • Minimal markup that gets out of the way while writing
  • Output formats like HTML, DocBook, PDF, ePub, man pages
  • Lightweight and fast processing for document conversion
  • Revision history friendly plaintext format
  • Integrates well with source code management tools
  • Supports document modularization and reuse
  • Large ecosystem of 3rd party extensions and tools

If you need to produce technical documentation alongside source code, Asciidoclet's plaintext format and ability to integrate with source code tools makes it a lightweight but capable documentation system compared to heavier XML-based systems.

Asciidoclet Features

Features

  1. Lightweight markup language
  2. Can convert documents to HTML, PDF, EPUB and other formats
  3. Designed for writing technical documentation
  4. Readable as plain text source

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Simple syntax

Multi-format output

Active open source community

Integrates with version control systems

Cons

Less features than heavier markup languages

Limited WYSIWYG editor support

Steeper learning curve than word processors


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