Resolving Topic References Through an XML Catalog

There are situations where you want to resolve URIs with an XML catalog:

• You customized your DITA map to reference topics using URIs instead of local paths.
• You have URI content references in your DITA topic files and you want to map them to local files when the map is transformed.

In such situations, you have to add the catalog to Oxygen XML Author. The DITA Maps Manager view will solve the displayed topic refs through the added XML catalog, as will DITA map transformations (for PDF output, XHTML output, etc.)

To add an XML catalog to the DITA framework, follow these steps:

1. Create an XML catalog using the guidelines described in Working with XML Catalogs.
2. Open the Preferences dialog box (Options ⇒ Preferences) and go to Document Type Association.
3. Select the DITA document type and use the Edit, Duplicate, or Extend button to open a Document type configuration dialog box.
4. Go to the Catalogs tab.
5. Click on the Add button to open a dialog box that allows you to add your created XML catalog to the list.
6. After adding your catalog, click OK. You may need to reopen any currently edited files that use the new catalog or run a manual Validate action for the changes to take effect.

   Note

   You could also add your created catalog to the list of global catalogs in the XML Catalog preferences page.