new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/0.8.x/doc/cmdline.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
+.. -*- mode: rst; encoding: utf-8 -*-
+
+======================
+Command-Line Interface
+======================
+
+Babel includes a command-line interface for working with message catalogs,
+similar to the various GNU ``gettext`` tools commonly available on Linux/Unix
+systems.
+
+
+.. contents:: Contents
+   :depth: 2
+.. sectnum::
+
+
+When properly installed, Babel provides a script called ``babel``::
+
+    $ babel --help
+    usage: babel subcommand [options] [args]
+
+    options:
+      --version             show program's version number and exit
+      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
+
+    subcommands:
+      extract   extract messages from source files and generate a POT file
+      init      create new message catalogs from a template
+
+The ``babel`` script provides a number of sub-commands that do the actual work.
+Those sub-commands are described below.
+
+
+extract
+=======
+
+The ``extract`` sub-command can be used to extract localizable messages from
+a collection of source files::
+
+    $ babel extract --help
+    usage: babel extract [options] dir1 <dir2> ...
+    
+    extract messages from source files and generate a POT file
+    
+    options:
+      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
+      --charset=CHARSET     charset to use in the output
+      -k KEYWORDS, --keyword=KEYWORDS
+                            keywords to look for in addition to the defaults. You
+                            can specify multiple -k flags on the command line.
+      --no-default-keywords
+                            do not include the default keywords
+      -F MAPPING_FILE, --mapping=MAPPING_FILE
+                            path to the extraction mapping file
+      --no-location         do not include location comments with filename and
+                            line number
+      --omit-header         do not include msgid "" entry in header
+      -o OUTPUT, --output=OUTPUT
+                            path to the output POT file
+      -w WIDTH, --width=WIDTH
+                            set output line width (default 76)
+      --no-wrap             do not break long message lines, longer than the
+                            output line width, into several lines
+      --sort-output         generate sorted output (default False)
+      --sort-by-file        sort output by file location (default False)
+      --msgid-bugs-address=EMAIL@ADDRESS
+                            set report address for msgid
+      --copyright-holder=COPYRIGHT_HOLDER
+                            set copyright holder in output
+      -c TAG, --add-comments=TAG
+                            place comment block with TAG (or those preceding
+                            keyword lines) in output file. One TAG per argument
+                            call
+
+
+init
+====
+
+The `init` sub-command creates a new translations catalog based on a PO
+template file::
+
+    $ babel init --help
+    usage: babel init [options] 
+    
+    create new message catalogs from a template
+    
+    options:
+    -h, --help      show this help message and exit
+    -D DOMAIN, --domain=DOMAIN
+                    domain of PO file (defaults to lower-cased project
+                    name)
+    -i INPUT_FILE, --input-file=INPUT_FILE
+                    name of the input file
+    -d OUTPUT_DIR, --output-dir=OUTPUT_DIR
+                    path to output directory
+    -o OUTPUT_FILE, --output-file=OUTPUT_FILE
+                    name of the output file (default
+                    '<output_dir>/<locale>/<domain>.po')
+    -l LOCALE, --locale=LOCALE
+                    locale for the new localized catalog
+    --first-author=FIRST_AUTHOR_NAME
+                    name of first author
+    --first-author-email=FIRST_AUTHOR_EMAIL
+                    email of first author
+    --project-name=NAME   the project name
+    --project-version=VERSION
+                    the project version