Text-based Diagramming in Writing Technical Documentation

Explore open-source solutions for writing technical documentation with diagrams.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Overview

In a previous article, I described a text-based approach to draw different kinds of diagrams and serve them programmatically. Let’s explore various open-source solutions that can be leveraged to write technical documentation, along with using a text-based approach for diagramming.

There are several advantages of using a text-based approach for diagramming.

• Version control is easy. The developer can track changes made to the diagrams easily. Diagrams are now treated as part of your source code or document repository.
• Using open-source libraries and tools for writing technical documentation, and the Mermaid Javascript library for diagramming and charting, I can easily generate and serve the documentation.
• Standardization. No more diagrams with different styles, and the presentation is always consistent.

Emacs

Let’s start with Emacs. Though it is a nearly 40 years old editor, Emacs is still one of the best and widely used editors with large support from the communities.