# DocBook XSL Stylesheets: Reference Documentation

$Id: reference.xml 8321 2009-03-12 18:20:36Z mzjn $

About this document

This is generated reference documentation for the DocBook XSL stylesheets. It is available in the following formats:

- HTML, PDF, plain text

This is primarily documentation on the parameters and processing instructions you can use to control the behavior of the stylesheets.

This is purely reference documentation – not how-to documentation. For a thorough step-by-step how-to guide to publishing content using the DocBook XSL stylesheets, see Bob Stayton’s DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide, available online at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html

This document is divided into three sets of references: the first two sets provides user documentation; the third, developer documentation.

## DocBook XSL Stylesheets User Reference: Parameters

This is generated reference documentation for all user-configurable parameters in the DocBook XSL stylesheets.

This is purely reference documentation – not how-to documentation. For a thorough step-by-step how-to guide to publishing content using the DocBook XSL stylesheets, see Bob Stayton’s DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide, available online at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html

### Slides Parameter Reference

This is reference documentation for all user-configurable parameters in the DocBook XSL Slides stylesheets (for generating HTML and PDF slide presentations).

The Slides stylesheet for HTML output is a customization layer of the DocBook XSL HTML stylesheet; the Slides stylesheet for FO output is a customization layer of the DocBook XSL FO stylesheet. Therefore, in addition to the slides-specific parameters listed in this section, you can also use a number of HTML stylesheet parameters and FO stylesheet parameters to control Slides output.

## DocBook XSL Stylesheets User Reference: PIs

This is generated reference documentation for all user-specifiable processing instructions in the DocBook XSL stylesheets.

You add these PIs at particular points in a document to cause specific “exceptions” to formatting/output behavior. To make global changes in formatting/output behavior across an entire document, it’s better to do it by setting an appropriate stylesheet parameter (if there is one).

## DocBook XSL Stylesheets Developer Reference

This is technical reference documentation for developers using the DocBook XSL Stylesheets. It is not intended to be user documentation, but is instead provided for developers writing customization layers for the stylesheets.

### Common Template Reference

This is technical reference documentation for the “base”, “refentry”, and “utility” sets of common templates in the DocBook XSL Stylesheets. These templates are “common” in that they are shared across output formats (that is, they’re not output-format-dependent)

This documentation is not intended to be user documentation. It is provided for developers writing customization layers for the stylesheets.