--- /dev/null
+Title: Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu
+Tags: english, debian edu
+Date: 2012-03-16 09:55
+
+<p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
+it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
+translated versions in sync. To do this we have come up with what we
+believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>The documentation is written in a moinmoin wiki (see for example
+<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
+Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
+docbook XML.</li>
+
+<li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
+.pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
+with the translated text.</li>
+
+<li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
+which part of the original wiki document is new or changed. They can
+use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
+the translation. There is even a system in place to handle translated
+images.</li>
+
+<li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
+XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
+
+<li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
+create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues. The biggest
+issue is that the docbook support in moinmoin is not actively
+maintained. This make it hard to upgrade moinmoin. The docbook
+support is also buggy, and our build system contain lots of
+workarounds to make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these
+bugs.</p>
+
+<p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
+package</a>.</p>