DAPS(1)

πŸ¦‹ DAPS β€” the manual page, bestie edition πŸ¦‹

okay so. this is daps, from the DAPS manual section (that's section 1, the "user commands" girlies πŸ’…). Sit down, grab a strawberry πŸ“, and let me tell you about the single most iconic way to turn DocBook XML into literally everything else.


✨ NAME ✨

daps β€” a whole entire environment to build HTML, PDF, ePUB and other formats from DocBook XML. no cap, it does all of it. πŸ‘‘


✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

daps -d DC-file [GLOBAL OPTIONS] subcommand [COMMAND OPTIONS]

daps --main MAIN-file [GLOBAL OPTIONS] subcommand [COMMAND OPTIONS]

like… pick a DC-file, or pick a main file, throw your global options in, then tell it what to actually do. that's the whole vibe. πŸŽ€


✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So DAPS is a little bundle of stylesheets, scripts and Makefiles that lets you make HTML, PDF, ePUB and other formats out of DocBook XML with one single command. one. literally one. 😭✨ It also ships tools that generate profiled source tarballs so you can hand your XML sources off for translation or review. queen behavior.

And it doesn't stop there β€” DAPS also has tools that help you while you're writing the DocBook XML: linkchecker, validator, spellchecker, editor macros, and stylesheets for converting DocBook XML. it's giving full-service. πŸ’–

Most of DAPS' functionality lives behind the command daps. Run daps help to get at the built-in tool documentation. And if you want the tea on one specific command, run daps subcommand help and it'll spill. 🫢


✨ GLOBAL OPTIONS ✨

okay this is the big one, stay with me. 🧚

  • --adocattr="NAME=VALUE" β€” Overwrite, define or delete an AsciiDoc document attribute. >To overwrite an attribute that's already defined in the AsciiDoc document, use NAME=VALUE, or just NAME for attributes that have no value. To delete a value that's set in the document, use NAME!. And to set a value that isn't already set in the document, use NAME=VALUE@. Default: unset. This option can be specified multiple times. It only works with AsciiDoc sources, and is ignored otherwise. πŸ™ˆ
  • --adocimgdir=IMAGE_DIR β€” Specify a directory for the images used in the AsciiDoc sources. It must contain all the images, subdirectories are ignored. Not required if the images live in the directory structure required for DocBook projects (see the DAPS manual). Default: unset. Only works with AsciiDoc sources, ignored otherwise. πŸ–ΌοΈ
  • --builddir=BUILDDIR β€” The directory where every output DAPS generates will end up. Default: DOC DIR/build/
  • --color=(0|1) β€” By default, errors, results, warnings and certain info messages get printed in color using bash color codes. Set it to '0' to turn the colors off. Default: 1 (and when the output doesn't go to a terminal, colored output is disabled automatically). 🌈
  • --commands β€” Show a list of the available DAPS sub commands. like a lil menu, slay.
  • --debug β€” Print debugging messages. Or, alternatively, go look at the --verbosity options for an output that's better readable. πŸ’€
  • --docconfig=DC-FILE, -d DC-FILE β€” Path to the doc config file to use. Mandatory unless there's only a single DC-FILE in the current directory, or unless you've configured a default value (DOCCONF_DEFAULT) in ~/.config/daps/dapsrc. Default: unset. Note: the options --docconfig and --main exclude each other. they do NOT play nice together, pick one. πŸ™…β€β™€οΈ
  • --fb_styleroot=PATH_TO_STYLESHEET β€” Fallback styleroot directories. Can only be used together with --styleroot. By default the DocBook stylesheets are used as a fallback if custom styles for an output format aren't present. With this option you can specify a list of alternative fallbacks (space separated absolute paths). The directories get tested in the order you specify them, and the first one that applies to the requested format gets used. The original DocBook stylesheets are used as a last resort. Super useful if you've got forks of your custom stylesheets. 🍴 Default: unset.
  • --force β€” Force a rebuild of the document even when an up-to-date version already exists. no patience, just build it again bestie. πŸ”₯
  • --help, -h β€” Help πŸ’–
  • --jobs β€” Specify how many parallel jobs to use. Higher numbers will significantly increase the processing speed, but will also set your machine under heavy load β€” up to a point where it may become (temporarily) unresponsive. 😭 it will absolutely eat your CPU. Default: Use as many jobs as CPU cores are available.
  • --main=FILE, -m FILE β€” Path to the main file defining your document. Note: the options --main and --docconfig exclude each other. again β€” one or the other, not both. βœ‹
  • --schema=URN β€” URN to a DocBook 5 schema that's to be used for validation. It'll be ignored when validating DocBook 4 documents. Note: to validate with a local schema, specify an absolute path with the file:// prefix (e.g. file:///foo/schema.rnc). πŸ”
  • --styleroot=PATH_TO_STYLESHEET β€” By default, DAPS uses the DocBook Stylesheets to create output. If you've got your own set of stylesheets, specify the absolute path to the stylesheet directory right here. The DocBook stylesheets get used as a fallback in case styles aren't defined for all output formats. πŸ’…
  • --verbosity=0, -v0 β€” Verbosity Level 0 (print 1 line of results)
  • --verbosity=1, -v1, -v β€” Verbosity Level 1 (print intermediate results)
  • --verbosity=2, -v2, -vv β€” Verbosity Level 2 (print all files created)
  • --verbosity=3, -v3, -vvv β€” Verbosity Level 3 (print all commands, very verbose). Parallelization of jobs will be turned off, to increase the readability. πŸ—£οΈ so much talking but honestly so readable.
  • --version β€” Print the version number ⭐
  • --xsltprocessor=PROCESSOR β€” Specify an XSLT processor that's used to transform the XML files. Currently supported are "xsltproc" and "saxon" (version 6). Default: xsltproc

✨ SUBCOMMANDS ✨

help

Print this help. 🫢

πŸ’– Generate Documents

  • epub β€” Generates an ePUB book πŸ“–
  • html β€” Generates an HTML book (chunked or single file HTML) 🌐
  • man β€” Generates a man page (yesss, the snake eats its tail, iconic 🐍)
  • mobi β€” Generates an Amazon Kindle eBook πŸ“š
  • pdf β€” Generates a PDF book (color, grayscale, printable) πŸŽ€
  • text β€” Generates an ASCII book
  • webhelp β€” Generates an HTML book with collapsible TOC and search (experimental) ⚠️

πŸ’– File Lists

  • list-file β€” Lists the filename that contains the ID specified with the mandatory parameter --rootid.
  • list-srcfiles β€” List source files (XML sources, images, entity declarations, DC-file) used by the document reference by the DC-file.
  • list-srcfiles-unused β€” List files from the xml/ and images/src/ directories not used by the document reference by the DC-file.
  • list-images-missing β€” List images referenced in the XML sources but missing in the images' source directory.
  • list-images-multisrc β€” List images for which have the same basename (e.g. foo.svg and foo.png). Refer to the DAPS manual for more information.

πŸ’– Cleaning up

  • clean β€” Remove all profiled sources and temporary files 🧹
  • clean-images β€” Remove all generated images
  • clean-package β€” Remove all generated package data for the given DC-file. Generated images and profiled sources will not be deleted.
  • clean-results β€” Remove all generated books, archives, and log files for the given DC-file. Generated images and profiled sources will not be deleted.
  • clean-all, real-clean β€” Remove everything generated by DAPS. 😳 the nuclear option, fr fr.

πŸ’– Packaging

  • package-html β€” Provide an HTML tarball (chunked HTML or single HTML), desktop, document, and/or page files (for KDE and GNOME).
  • package-pdf β€” Provide a PDF, desktop, document, and/or page files (for KDE and GNOME)
  • package-src β€” Provide a TAR archive with profiled XML sources or AsciiDoc sources and graphics files. πŸ“¦

πŸ’– Deploying

  • locdrop β€” Provide everything that is needed to translate the sources. ✈️
  • unpack-locdrop β€” Unpack a localization drop packages source. Not supported for AsciiDoc projects.

πŸ’– Other Commands

  • getimages β€” List or display images from a profiled DocBook XML file.
  • linkcheck β€” Checks URLs within <ulink> and <link> tags. πŸ”—
  • optipng β€” Optimize (size) source PNGs.
  • profile β€” Profile XML sources.
  • spellcheck β€” Spellchecks the file specified with --file or the document specified by --rootid. βœ…
  • stylecheck β€” Performs a style check on the given DC-file or rootid. Not supported for AsciiDoc projects.
  • validate β€” Validate profiled XML sources. Automatically profiles the XML sources if needed. Not supported for AsciiDoc projects.
  • xmlformat β€” Prettify the XML source files using daps-xmlformat. Not supported for AsciiDoc projects.

πŸ’– File and Directory Names

  • target-name β€” Print resulting file name for target. target may be one of pdf, epub, pdf, txt
  • target-dir-name β€” Print resulting directory name for target. target may be html, man or webhelp

πŸ’– Debugging

  • bigfile β€” Creates a single "big" XML file by resolving xi:includes. Useful for detecting validation errors that cannot be found otherwise. Not supported for AsciiDoc projects.
  • dapsenv β€” Print a list of the most important make variables and their value
  • images β€” Generates all images for the given DC-file or rootid
  • showvariable β€” Print value of a given make variable: daps showvariable VARIABLE=VARIABLE_NAME

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

Generate a single HTML page:

daps -d DC-example html --single

Generate ePUB using custom stylesheets:

daps -d DC-example --styleroot
/usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheets/daps2013 epub

Generate PDF for the print shop using the XEP formatter

daps -d DC-example pdf --formmatter=xep --grayscale --cropmarks

Check links and show the result in a browser

daps -d DC-example linkcheck --show

periodt. copy paste those and go πŸƒβ€β™€οΈπŸ’¨


✨ FILES ✨

  • /etc/daps/config β€” The system wide configuration file. See the file's inline documentation for detailed information.
  • ~/.config/daps/dapsrc β€” The per user configuration file. See the inline documentation of /etc/daps/config for detailed information.

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

  • https://opensuse.github.io/daps/ β€” DAPS project homepage 🏠
  • DAPS Quick Start[1] β€” Contains an overview of basic concepts and how to create your documents.
  • DAPS User Guide[2] β€” Is intended for users who want to make efficient use of DocBook XML for editing and publishing their documentation. Key knowledge of XML and DocBook is expected, as well as key knowledge of using the Bash Shell (or command line interfaces in general). πŸ“˜

✨ AUTHORS ✨

  • Frank Sundermeyer <fsundermeyer@opensuse.org> β€” Developer
  • Thomas Schraitle <toms@opensuse.org> β€” Developer
  • Stefan Knorr β€” Developer
  • Berthold Gunreben β€” Previous Developer of susedoc
  • Jana Jaeger β€” Previous Developer of susedoc

we stan every single one of them πŸ«ΆπŸ’–


✨ NOTES ✨

  1. DAPS Quick Start β€” https://opensuse.github.io/daps/doc/art.daps.quick.html
  2. DAPS User Guide β€” https://opensuse.github.io/daps/doc/book.daps.user.html

okay that's the whole page bestie!! this one's daps @DAPS_VERSION@, dated 11/06/2025, and it lives in the DAPS(1) section of the manual. now go build something cute πŸ’…βœ¨πŸ¦‹πŸŒΈ

πŸ“¦ where this page comes from