Writing Documentation for Boost

Introduction

Boost does not have any requirements on how you write your documentation. If you are submitting a library that already has written documentation in HTML format, there is no reason to change it to follow any of the guidelines presented here. However, if you have documentation that's not in HTML format and can't be easily converted to HTML, or if you're starting on a library from scratch or have a library with no documentation then these guidelines can make writing the documentation much easier.

The section on Documentation Structure describes how to go about structuring the documentation's content. This section may be helpful even for libraries that already have documentation. If there's a desire to present the library for possible inclusion by the C++ Standards Committee then there may be a need to restructure the documentation's content in order to insure the content meets explicit requirements for library components (Section 17.3).

The section on HTML Design gives general rules to follow when writing HTML documentation in order to give a professional and consistent look. This section also contains some template files that can be used to rapidly create documentation pages.

Revised 29 November, 2003