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PaulDocu User/Reference Guide

Paul Matthew Milliken

Last updated on 07-03-2003 at 22:44:19

1. Legal Preamble

The document is Copyright (C) 2003, Paul Matthew Milliken. Permission is given to reproduce this document in any form, provided that this copyright notice remains intact.

2. Introduction

Welcome to PaulDocu by Paul Milliken.

2.1. What is PaulDocu?

PaulDocu is a document management system by Paul Milliken. The idea is to allow documentation to be developed in a form that is free from presentation (text only). You create documents as plain ASCII text files, which are interpreted into a byte-code form. This form can then be further interpreted to produce output formats such as HTML, LaTeX and PostScript.

The text that you type contains certain mark-up commands to define the flow of the document. These include comments (lines beginning with // ) which you can use to help keep track of the "code", and various hash (#) functions, including file inclusing (#include) and document outline functions (#section, #enterlevel, #leavelevel).

2.2. Why should I use PaulDocu?

PaulDocu is designed by a programmer, for programmers, although others can use it easily as well. It's syntax is similar (in some ways) to that of C. This includes the ability to comment the source files using // notation, include other files with a #include and various other hash-functions. Conditional "compilation" is supported using #define, #ifdef and #ifndef.

3. PaulDocu Reference

This section lists the various commands and syntax using in PaulDocu files.

3.1. File extension conventions

The standard file extension for an editable (ASCII) PaulDocu file is PDU. For standard file extension for a "compiled" PDU file is PBI (for Pauldocu BInary). When the PBI file is processed into other output formats the standard extension for the final format should be used. So, a typical path for producing an online document would start with one or more PDU files, which are compiled into a single PBI file, which is processed to produce a HTML file.

3.2. Text

Text to be output occurs in the input file directly. It is simply typed directly into the file as is. It's layout in the file will not be preserved.

3.2.1. New Paragraphs

Text is split into paragraphs using a #newpar directive. #newpar flushes the current text data into the output file and prepares for more input. Not using a #newpar directive can cause data to be lost when you start a new section, for instance.

3.3. Document Outline

The document outline is the splitting up of the document into sections (and optionally, levels in a hierarchy).

3.3.1. #Section command

The #section command creates a new section. Section numbering is handled automatically.

The syntax is: #section "name"

Where "name" is the name of the section. For instance, the line that defines this section consists of "#section #Section command". Note that only the first # on the line gets recognised as a command. In fact, a # is only a command if it is the first, non-whitespace character on a line.

3.3.2. #enterlevel and #leavelevel command

These two commands allow you to create a hierarchy of topics. #enterlevel increases the level by one (ie, moves into the hierarchy) and #leavelevel decreases the level by one. For instance, if you are in section 3.1, and do #enterlevel followed by a new section, you'd be in 3.1.1. If you did #leavelevel followed by a new section you'd be in 4.

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