# Reading xml docs



## chessmaster (Sep 30, 2013)

I'm a little stumped on how to read the "article.xml", docs. I tried opening them up in my browser. But, apparently that is not the correct way as I'm not viewing them correctly. Any suggestions? Reading and viewing the docs in general?


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## sizemj (Sep 30, 2013)

`less` would work. XML though will look like XML. It*'*s a markup language. Man page: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=less&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+9.2-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html


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## chessmaster (Sep 30, 2013)

I used `make FORMAT=pdf install clean`, to build the docs with PDF. Still I'm unable to view the XML files in the user documents.


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## kpa (Sep 30, 2013)

The .xml files are source files for conversions to different presentation formats, html and pdf for example. View the resulting .pdf or .html files, not the .xml source files.


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## wblock@ (Sep 30, 2013)

Yes, the article.xml and book.xml files are source articles that can generate output in several formats.  Most people do not need to build them, but just read the generated HTML or PDF versions on the web page: http://www.freebsd.org/docs/books.html.

There is more information about building and editing the documentation in the FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors.


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## cpm@ (Oct 1, 2013)

Also check out this extensive online tutorial: Using XSL Formatting Objects.


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## chessmaster (Oct 1, 2013)

Thanks for the suggestions! I was able to make due with the following command above. Without the quotes as documented in the handbook.


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