Writing an InfoQ Mini-Book with Asciidoctor
Brought to you by Matt Raible and Asciidoctor
Writing a book is hard
- It’s easy enough coming up with an idea, but writing is hard
- It’s easy enough to write it in Word (or Google Docs), right?
- Copying and pasting code and images into Google Docs is easy
- Updating them is not
- As writers, we’re often limited by our tools
- Asciidoctor to the rescue!
What is Asciidoctor?
Asciidoctor
- An open source implementation of AsciiDoc in Ruby
- A fast text processor & publishing toolchain for converting AsciiDoc to HTML5, DocBook & more
- Write in plain text, import your code and images
- Code review and copy edit using Git
- Publish as HTML, PDF, EBUB, MOBI and printed books
The Best Part?
My Asciidoctor Experience
- End of 2015: Had a goal to write a JHipster Mini-Book for InfoQ
- Chose AsciiDoc because I wanted it to be like an open source project
- Used asciidoctor-to-all-example as a starting point
- Used JIRA Cloud to create tasks, organize sprints and track progress
- Used Bitbucket to host the book’s source control in Git
- Used IntelliJ IDEA to write, and Browsersync to see changes immediately
Asciidoctor @ InfoQ
- InfoQ recommended I use Word or Google Docs
- Agreed to AsciiDoc, but expect it be most expensive mini-book
- Figured it out, with a great team
- Extracted template to infoq-mini-book
- Dan Allen and AsciidocFX were a big help
Writing Asciidoctor
Developing an InfoQ Mini-Book
git clone https://github.com/mraible/infoq-mini-book- Run
gradlewfollowed bygradlew watch - Install Node.js and run
npm install - Run
gulp - Use IntelliJ IDEA, Atom, Sublime Text or AsciidocFX to edit
InfoQ Editing Process
- Share your Git repository with your editor
- Editor creates pull requests by section
- Add comments and collaborate on changes
- Accept pull request and merge
InfoQ Publishing Process
Interested in Writing?
- Talk to us! matt@raibledesigns.com or minibooks@infoq.com
- Review Author Guidelines for InfoQ Mini-books
- You will retain the copyright for any content produced
- You grant InfoQ an exclusive right to publish the free online version
- InfoQ will remove mini-book if the author requests
