FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors
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# Chapter 7 The Documentation Build Process

This chapter's main purpose is to clearly explain how the documentation build process is organized, and how to affect modifications to this process.

After you have finished reading this chapter you should:

- Know what you need to build the FDP documentation, in addition to those mentioned in the SGML tools chapter.

- Be able to read and understand the make instructions that are present in each document's `Makefile`s, as well as an overview of the `doc.project.mk` includes.

- Be able to customize the build process by using make variables and make targets.

# 7.1 The FreeBSD Documentation Build Toolset

Here are your tools. Use them every way you can.

- The primary build tool you will need is make, but specifically Berkeley Make.

- Package building is handled by FreeBSD's pkg_create. If you are not using FreeBSD, you will either have to live without packages, or compile the source yourself.

- gzip is needed to create compressed versions of the document. bzip2 compression and zip archives are also supported. tar is supported, but package building demands it.

- install is the default method to install the documentation. There are alternatives, however.

> Note: It is unlikely you will have any trouble finding these last two, they are mentioned for completeness only.

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Document Specific Information |  | Understanding Makefiles in the Documentation tree