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Proposal: Documentation

Should questions asking for support on using common documentation tools on-topic?

Examples of questions that might fall into this category:

  • The passthrough attribute in ditaval file doesn't seem to do anything
  • Can't get logo to appear on DITA PDF output's cover page! Help!
  • Why can't I use a in a ?
  • Description not output in Docbook figures
  • Is there a way to automatically generate a TOC for documents written in Markdown?
  • SVG images are exploding when used in a PDF generated by Apache FOP
  • How can I insert a relative reference to an image in Word?
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    Perhaps clarify the title to "Are documentation-related technical support questions on topic?"—or something like that. I had initially read "Is technical support on topic?" to mean "Is technical support communication on topic?"
    – Mathieu K.
    Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 19:27
  • @MathieuK. Good point; I've updated the title
    – Scribblemacher
    Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 19:34

4 Answers 4

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Yes.

If StackOverflow can answer questions like "How to do x in Bootstrap/Jquery/Django/etc?" then this documentation.stackexchange should be able to answer "How to do X in Sphinx/AsciiDoc/DITA/etc?"

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The title of your question is a bit confusing, I think. To answer the question in the body, "yes, these are appropriate questions for the site." In essence, the Stack Exchange system is a large technical support community for a specific subject.

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Yes.

The original name of the site (Documentation) actually makes it the first place I'd think of asking just such a question. After the name change it's still seems like a good place to ask such a question.

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This is one of the age-old tech writer questions, and I have a fuzzy answer. There's a line in the sand between where doc tool problems are reasonably approachable by a typical documentarian and where you need publishing-technologies people to step in. Once you start digging into an *ML publishing language and tool-chain, you leave the realm where the communicator can quickly/efficiently implement a their fix - so your docbook, DITA, and even PDF questions are probably off topic.

Other technologies that are meant in an use-'em-and-and-get-on with things manner, like HTML, markdown, and Framemaker are probably more ripe for discussion here. But if there's no DITA/XSLT/XPATH forum, I'm sure this can be a good home for them.

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