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Publishing DITA Output

As a structured writing format, DITA produces structured content (content that is annotated with specific structural and semantic information rather than with formatting information). To create a publication, your DITA map and its associated topics must be processed by a transformation script. That script is responsible for how the structural and semantic information in the DITA files is converted into formatting information for display.

This means that you can display the same DITA content in multiple ways, types of media, or publications. It also means that you cannot control every aspect of the presentation of your content in your DITA files. The only way to change the formatting is to change the transformation routines that create it.

Therefore, to create output from your DITA content you have to run a transformation on your content. Transformations for various types of output are provided by the DITA Open Toolkit. Oxygen XML Author provides a mechanism called transformation scenarios to help you configure and run transformations.

Note

Oxygen XML Author does not create any output formats itself. Oxygen XML Author runs externally defined transformations that produce output, and displays the result in the appropriate application, but the output itself is produced by the external transformation, not by Oxygen XML Author.

Running a Transformation Scenario

To select and run a transformation scenario on your map, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) button. The Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog box appears. This dialog box lists all the transformation scenarios that have been configured in your project. Oxygen XML Author provides a default set of transformation scenarios, but the people in charge of your DITA system may have provided others that are specifically configured for your needs.
  2. Select the transformation scenario you want to run and click Apply Associated. The transformation scenario runs in the background. You can continue to work in Oxygen XML Author while the transformation is running. If there are errors or warnings, Oxygen XML Author displays them when the transformation is complete. If the transformation is successful, Oxygen XML Author opens the output in the appropriate application.
  3. To rerun the same scenario again, click the Apply Transformation Scenario(s) button.

In this section:

  1. Transforming DITA Content
Parent topic: DITA Authoring and Publishing

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