<parmname>generate.copy.outer</parmname> parameter Elaboration on how the generate.copy.outer parameter functions.
Background

This is an issue in the following situations:

  • The DITA map is in a directory that is a peer to directories that contain referenced objects.
  • The DITA map is in a directory that is below the directories that contain the referenced objects.

Let's assume that the directory structure for the DITA content looks like the following:

maps
topics
images
The DITA map is in the maps directory, the topics are in the topics directory, and the images are in the images directory.

Setting the <parmname>generate.copy.outer</parmname> parameter to <option>1</option>

Let's assume that you run the HTML5 transformation and specify an output directory of C:\A-test. By default, The DITA-OT uses the generate.copy.outer parameter with a value of . Output is not built for the topics. You receive only the following output: 

C:\A-test
--- index.html
--- commonltr.css
--- commonrtl.css
The index.html file contains the navigation structure, but all the links are broken, since no HTML5 files were built for the topics.

How do you fix this? By specifying a value of for the generate.copy.outer parameter.

Setting the <parmname>generate.copy.outer</parmname> parameter to <option>3</option>

Now your output directory structure looks like this: 

C:\A-test
--- images\
--- maps\
--- topics\
The index.html file is in the maps directory, and the CSS and other files are located in the output directory, C:\A-test. Copying the output directory is simplified.