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## 1. Introduction

## 1.1 If you want to start immediately

To only learn LinuxDoc, skip to Learning LinuxDoc. If you want to start writing immediately, then you may try a "fill in the blanks" template which will generate LinuxDoc formatted output. The LDP HOWTO Generator. You may use this to just start writing your Howto and then finish it later by using a text editor on your PC.

## 1.2 Copyright and License

Copyright (c) 2001-7 by David S. Lawyer. You may freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document. You may create a derivative work and distribute it provided that you license it in the spirit of this license and give proper credits. The author would like to receive your comments, suggestions, and plans for any derivative work based on this.

## 1.3 Should you write a HOWTO ?

Do you know things about Linux for which no good free documentation is available and which would be useful to others? Even if you don't know the subject well, you can still write about it if you're eager, willing, and able to learn more about it and have the time to do it. Can you write clearly using a word processor or editor? Do you want to help thousands of others and let them read what you write at no cost to them? Once you've written a document, are you willing to receive email suggestions from readers and selectively use this info for improving your HOWTO? Would you like to have your writings be available on hundreds of websites throughout the world? If you can answer yes to these, then you're encouraged to write something for the Linux Documentation Project (LDP). But be warned that it may take more time than you expected.

## 1.4 Why I wrote this

Why did I write this when there is already an "LDP Authoring Guide"? Well, the LDP guide is a long and detailed work. If you want to get started quickly, you need something much simpler and shorter.

Thanks to Matt Welsh for his example.sgml file which I used as a major source of info for the example sections.

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