diff --git a/src/guide/xml/ch04.xml b/src/guide/xml/ch04.xml
index 7069717fd..e8b989bae 100644
--- a/src/guide/xml/ch04.xml
+++ b/src/guide/xml/ch04.xml
@@ -595,15 +595,15 @@ Oxygen change markup processing instructions.
 </listitem>
 </orderedlist>
 
-<para>A customization can introduce transformations to the original
-document: before the standard transformations by specifying them in
-<parameter>transform-original</parameter>; after the standard transformations
-but before the transformation to HTML by specifying them in
-<parameter>transform-before</parameter>; or after the HTML transformation
-by specifying them in <parameter>transform-after</parameter>. (If you need
-to insert a transformation in the middle of the standard transformations,
-you’ll have to update the <varname>v:standard-transforms</varname>
-variable.)</para>
+<para>A customization can introduce transformations to the original document: before the standard
+      transformations by specifying them in <parameter>transform-original</parameter>; after the
+      standard transformations but before the transformation to HTML by specifying them in
+        <parameter>transform-before</parameter>; or after the HTML transformation by specifying them
+      in <parameter>transform-after</parameter>. (If you need to insert a transformation in the
+      middle of the standard transformations, you’ll have to update the
+        <varname>v:standard-transforms</varname> variable.) If you want to see the normalized and
+      augmented DocBook content just before the conversion to HTML starts, you can use the
+        <parameter>intermediate-docbook-uri</parameter> parameter.</para>
 
 <note>
 <para>Transformations in <varname>transform-after</varname> will be processing
diff --git a/src/guide/xml/ref-params.xml b/src/guide/xml/ref-params.xml
index 804d4fea4..281e7cefe 100644
--- a/src/guide/xml/ref-params.xml
+++ b/src/guide/xml/ref-params.xml
@@ -2173,6 +2173,38 @@ of the entries for each section. This results in a more complete index while
 still preserving the ability to see in which sections the terms occur.</para>
 </refsection>
 </refentry>
+  
+<refentry>
+  <refmeta>
+    <fieldsynopsis>
+      <type>xs:string</type>
+      <varname>intermediate-docbook-uri</varname>
+      <initializer>''</initializer>
+    </fieldsynopsis>
+  </refmeta>
+  <refnamediv>
+    <refpurpose>URI for intermediate DocBook content</refpurpose>
+  </refnamediv>
+  <refsection>
+    <title>Description</title>
+    <para>If the parameter is not empty, a file with the content of the input document to which
+      the following transformations have been applied is written to the specified location: </para>
+    <orderedlist>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>transformations from <parameter>transform-original</parameter>, if any;</para>
+      </listitem>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>standard transformations (see <varname>v:standard-transforms</varname>);</para>
+      </listitem>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>transformations from <parameter>transform-before</parameter>, if any.</para>
+      </listitem>
+    </orderedlist>
+      <para>It is the normalized and augmented DocBook content immediatly before transformations
+        into HTML begins. If the URI is relative, it will be resolved against the base-input
+        documents <code>base-uri(/)</code>.</para>
+  </refsection>
+</refentry>  
 
 <refentry>
   <refmeta>
diff --git a/src/main/xslt/docbook.xsl b/src/main/xslt/docbook.xsl
index 44df98dd7..fa6b2e62a 100644
--- a/src/main/xslt/docbook.xsl
+++ b/src/main/xslt/docbook.xsl
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                 xmlns:db="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
                 xmlns:dbe="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook/errors"
+                xmlns:err='http://www.w3.org/2005/xqt-errors'
                 xmlns:ext="http://docbook.org/extensions/xslt"
                 xmlns:f="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook/functions"
                 xmlns:fp="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook/functions/private"
@@ -203,13 +204,33 @@
                                   map { xs:QName('vp:starting-base-uri'): $starting-base-uri })"/>
   </xsl:variable>
 
-  <!--
-  <xsl:result-document href="/tmp/out.xml" method="xml" indent="yes">
-    <xsl:apply-templates select="$document" mode="m:docbook">
-      <xsl:with-param name="vp:loop-count" select="1" tunnel="yes"/>
-    </xsl:apply-templates>
-  </xsl:result-document>
-  -->
+  <xsl:if test="$intermediate-docbook-uri gt ''">
+    <xsl:try>
+      <xsl:variable name="intermediate-docbook-href" as="xs:anyURI">
+        <xsl:choose>
+          <xsl:when test="
+            (starts-with($intermediate-docbook-uri, 'file:') 
+            or starts-with($intermediate-docbook-uri, '/')
+            or matches($intermediate-docbook-uri,'[A-Z]:','i'))
+            and $intermediate-docbook-uri castable as xs:anyURI">
+            <xsl:sequence select="xs:anyURI($intermediate-docbook-uri)"/>
+          </xsl:when>
+          <xsl:otherwise>
+            <xsl:sequence select="resolve-uri($intermediate-docbook-uri, base-uri(/))"/>
+          </xsl:otherwise>
+        </xsl:choose>
+      </xsl:variable>
+      <xsl:result-document href="{$intermediate-docbook-href}" method="xml" indent="no" exclude-result-prefixes="#all">
+        <xsl:copy-of select="$document" copy-namespaces="no"/>
+      </xsl:result-document>
+      <xsl:message select="'Wrote intermediate DocBook content to file ' || $intermediate-docbook-href"/>
+      <xsl:catch>
+        <xsl:message
+          select="'Cannot write intermediate DocBook to ' || $intermediate-docbook-uri || ': ' || $err:description"
+        />
+      </xsl:catch>
+    </xsl:try>
+  </xsl:if>
 
   <xsl:variable name="result" as="document-node()">
     <xsl:call-template name="t:chunk-cleanup">