This document provides an introduction and overview of Apache Ant, a Java-based build tool. Some key points: - Ant is a build tool similar to Make but uses XML configuration files rather than Make's syntax. It is cross-platform. - Ant build files define targets containing tasks. Common tasks include compiling Java code, creating JAR files, copying/deleting files. - The document explains how to set up Ant, write a basic Ant build file with targets and tasks, and run Ant from the command line. - An example Ant build file is provided to demonstrate a simple "Hello World" Java project build using Ant tasks like compile, jar, and clean.