DITA Topic Transformation Scenarios

Oxygen XML Author Eclipse plugin includes built-in transformation scenarios for transforming individual DITA Topics to HTML5, XHTML, or PDF output. They can be found in the DITA section in the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog box.

The available transformations scenarios for individual DITA topics include:

DITA HTML5 - This DITA-OT transformation scenario generates HTML5 output from a single DITA topic.
DITA XHTML - This DITA-OT transformation scenario generates XHTML output from a single DITA topic. This was the first transformation scenario created for the DITA Open Toolkit and it originally served as the basis for all HTML-based transformations.
DITA PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS - This transformation scenario converts individual DITA topics to PDF using a CSS-based processing engine and an HTML5 intermediate format. Oxygen XML Author Eclipse plugin comes bundled with a built-in CSS-based PDF processing engine called Oxygen PDF Chemistry. Oxygen XML Author Eclipse plugin also supports some third-party processors.
For those who are familiar with CSS, this makes it very easy to style and customize the PDF output of your DITA projects without having to work with xsl:fo customizations. Another advantage of this transformation scenario is that you can use the same customization CSS or publishing template that you use for converting entire DITA maps.

The transformation scenario automatically detects the currently selected context DITA map (root map) so that keys and references are properly resolved (the detected context map is set as the value of the args.root.map parameter (this can be changed in the Parameters tab). It also automatically detects the currently applied profiling condition set to be used as the default filtering option in the transformation scenario (this can be changed in the Filters tab).
The transformation scenario also supports a parameter named args.enable.root.map.key.processing that can be used to specify whether or not the values for @keyref and @conkeyref attributes within the transformed topics are resolved. The possible values are:
- no - This means that the values for all @keyref and @conkeyref attributes are ignored in the transformation. This results in lower processing times.
- yes - This means that the values for any @keyref and @conkeyref attributes found in the transformed topic are processed and resolved using the value of the args.root.map parameter.
- auto - This means that the process will search for any @keyref and @conkeyref attributes within the transformed topic and if any are found, the values will be processed and resolved using the value of the args.root.map parameter. If none are found, the @keyref and @conkeyref attributes are ignored.
DITA PDF - based on XSL-FO - This DITA-OT transformation scenario converts individual DITA topics to PDF using an xsl:fo processor.