Using the Open Toolkit plug-in for FrameMaker
8
Customizing DITA Open Toolkit files
In addition to customizing Ant scripts, you can customize other components of the DITA Open
Toolkit publishing process. The DITA-OT contains the files you can modify. Ant processing can
include files in any location, and processes and applications not included in the DITA Open Toolkit
distribution.
Main files of the DITA Open Toolkit
You can modify some of the following files to customize the output generated using the Open Tool-
kit plug-in for FrameMaker.
• XSLT style sheets that control HTM and other forms of published output. You can change the
XSLT style sheet to customize HTML design, or you can use XSLT to generate XML in a different
structure from your core DITA structure to interface with specific systems.
• CSS style sheets that are used in HTML output
• Ant scripts
• Any other tools used in new targets
This customization must be separated from the core toolkit processing. For example, you can cus-
tomize the XSLT that generates XHTML to accommodate a specialized structure by doing the fol-
lowing:
1 In the xsl sub folder in your DITA Open Toolkit folder, rename dita2xhtml.xsl to
dita2xhtml_original.xsl.
2 Create a file named dita2xhtml.xsl that imports both the renamed .xsl file, and a second .xsl file
where you add your custom processing:
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:import href="dita2xhtml_original.xsl"/>
<xsl:import href="/path/to/custom2xhtml.xsl"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>
3 Create the XSLT for custom processing, and save it in a folder outside the DITA Open Toolkit
folder. By doing this, you can manage Open Toolkit updates, without losing any customization.
You must install a new version of the Open Toolkit and then do steps 1 and 2 above.
