Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The bird on the cover of DocBook: The Definitive Guide is a wood duck. Often considered one of the most beautiful ducks in North America, the male wood duck has a metallic purple and green head with white streaks extending from its bill around the eyes and down to its blue and green, gold-flecked wings. It has a white neck, chestnut-colored chest, a white or red bill, and yellow-orange legs and feet. Females have more brown, gray, and subdued hues.

Wood ducks nest off the ground in tree cavities, commonly with narrow openings originally used by a woodpecker, owl, or other small bird. Their nests can be as high as thirty feet off the ground, and they prefer to nest over or beside water, but will nest up to a couple of miles from water if necessary. Many people have successfully attracted wood ducks to unwooded wetlands by building nesting boxes, which can even be purchased from several birding groups.

A large conservation effort in the early 1900s helped bring this colorful duck back from the brink of extinction, and wood ducks can now be found in 38 states in the United States and eight provinces in Canada. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th- century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Kathleen Wilson produced the cover layout using QuarkXPress 3.32 and Adobe's ITC Garamond font. Alicia Cech designed the inside layout, based on a series design by Nancy Priest. Hanna Dyer designed the CD label; Kathleen Wilson produced the label using QuarkXPress 4.0. The text was formatted from SGML into FrameMaker 5.5 with Jade, using a DSSSL conversion stylesheet written by Chris Maden. The interior fonts are ITC Garamond Light, Garamond Book, and ConstantWillison.

Whenever possible, our books use RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover™'s limit, perfect binding is used.

The illustrations that appear in this book were produced by Robert Romano and Rhon Porter using Macromedia Freehand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. David Futato was the production editor; Madeleine Newell guided the book through the early stages of production. Mark Nigara was the copyeditor for DocBook: The Definitive Guide. Abigail Myers provided production assistance and typesetting. Ellie Cutler was the proofreader, and quality assurance was provided by Jeff Holcomb and Claire Cloutier LeBlanc. Ellen Troutman indexed the book. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.