A Powerful, but Minimal Document Markup Language?

demi asks: "Okay, I'm looking for markup language to keep documentation in. The primary features I'm looking for is power--for example, I want tables to be at least as easy to describe as they are in HTML, and have similar power; output-independence--I want it to produce good-looking HTML and good-looking printed output, and I don't want to fiddle with typesetting at all; and I want it to be minimal--in particular, I don't want to have to markup paragraphs, these should be recognized in the same way POD or LaTeX does. POD is not powerful enough (no tables, headers, etc.). LaTeX is too oriented toward presentation, DocBook XML and SGML require too much markup, and Texinfo is really the same deal. I know I could roll my own but I'm looking for something standard-ish. My documentation will be focused on policies and procedures. Any suggestions?"

Comments

DocBook

[Rapid Home Offer]

I'd still suggest going with DocBook, even though it has a lot of markup. You can mostly fix that problem with a good text editor. Any decent editor will have quick-keys that makes your life much easier, and you'll benefit from all of the existing tools.

You're looking for ReStructured text, my friend

[V. Mole]

This is what you need. Outputs to HTML, Latex, XML. Easy to write, easy to read.

txt2tags // ONE source, MULTI targets

[Gustavo]

I've heard very good things about txt2tags but I haven't used it myself. It's used to generate the pages of Dicas-L which hosts a famous Brazilian mailing list which sends daily computer related tips.

Markdown

[albalbo]

Have a look at Markdown. It's like other text languages, but has 'fallback to HTML' easily available and is designed to be standards-nice:

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

There is also a flavour which guarantees XML-wellformedness, called xMarkdown (you can find a link to it on the Markdown list).