AsciiDoc User Guide

Prepackaged platform specific AsciiDoc distributions are listed on the AsciiDoc download page [http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/downloads.html]. Skip the following section if you install using one of these packages.

Installing the AsciiDoc tarball distribution

•If you haven't already done so download the latest AsciiDoc distribution tarball from http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/downloads.html.

•Extract the distribution tarball:

$ tar -xzf asciidoc-7.1.2.tar.gz

The tarball contains the executable asciidoc.py script, configuration files, examples and documentation. See also Packager Notes.

Test out asciidoc by changing to the AsciiDoc application directory and converting the User Guide document (./doc/asciidoc.txt) to XHTML (./doc/asciidoc.html):

$ ./asciidoc.py doc/asciidoc.txt

By convention .txt file extensions are used for AsciiDoc document files.

Example AsciiDoc Documents

The best way to quickly get a feel for AsciiDoc is to view the AsciiDoc web site and/or distributed examples:

•Take a look at the linked examples on the AsciiDoc web site home page http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/. Press the Page Source sidebar menu item to view corresponding

AsciiDoc source.

•Read the *.txt source files in the distribution ./doc directory in conjunction with the corresponding HTML and DocBook XML files.

AsciiDoc Document Types

There are three types of AsciiDoc documents: article, book and manpage. All document types share the same AsciiDoc format with some minor variations.

Use the asciidoc(1) -d (—doctype) option to specify the AsciiDoc document type — the default document type is article.

article

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