### 17.1.1 Understanding what you need to know about DocBook

To use Mif2Go effectively to produce DocBook output, you need a basic knowledge of DocBook, from study of other materials. Teaching our customers DocBook is beyond the scope of the Mif2Go User's Guide. You have to know what you want; then perhaps we can tell you how to make it happen with Mif2Go.

If you are not familiar with DocBook, here is a good starting point:

http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/docbook.html

If you intend to produce output from the DocBook XML files Mif2Go produces, you will also need DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide by Bob Stayton:

http://sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html

For a reference to DocBook style sheets, see:

http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/doc/index.html

Be aware that conversions to another source format, such as DocBook XML, can be difficult. There are no shortcuts. You might need days or weeks to get it right, working with small test documents, before you can go into production.

| 17.1 Generating DocBook XML with Mif2Go |  | 17.1.2 Clarifying your purpose for creating DocBook output |