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				APT User Guide
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				Hussein Shafie
				   Pixware
			     Immeuble Capricorne
				23 rue Colbert
			 78180 Montigny Le Bretonneux
				    France
		  {{{http://www.pixware.fr}www.pixware.fr}}
	      {{{mailto:hussein@pixware.fr}hussein@pixware.fr}}
			  Phone: (33) 01 30 60 07 00
			   Fax: (33) 01 30 96 05 23
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				   May, 2001
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Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~

  APT (Almost Plain Text) is a simple markup language (like HTML) than can be
  used to write simple article-like documents (like HTML). Unlike HTML, APT
  uses as few tags as possible to express the structure of the document. 
  Instead, APT uses paragraph indentation. 

  The benefits of using APT are:

      * APT documents are not tedious to type using text editors.

      * When writing an APT document using a text editor, what you type 
        is readable (i.e. not obfuscated by markup).

      * APT documents can be embedded in source code (C, C++, Tcl) comments (a
        la javadoc).

      * APT documents can be converted to many formats (currently LaTeX, PS,
        PDF, HTML, SGML or XML/DocBook, RTF) using aptconvert (lightweight,
        100% Java, OpenSource tool).

      * APT is content oriented and strictly structured. That's why APT
        documents are perennial. For example, it is possible to convert them
        to DocBook with almost no loss of structure.

  The drawbacks of using APT are:

      * You are limited to simple (simplistic?) article-like documents.

      * The style of the documents generated by aptconvert is simple and
        neutral. It cannot be parametrized to enforce an entreprise specific
        look.

      * Using a text editor to author structured documents is clearly not the
        wave of the future (which my current project <xmledit> is :-).

