Example: Creating a simple PDF plug-in Simple PDF plug-in example This scenario walks through the process of creating a very simple plug-in (com.example.print-pdf) that creates a new transformation type: .

The transformation has the following characteristics:

  • Uses A4 paper
  • Renders figures with a title at the top and a description at the bottom
  • Use em dashes as the symbols for unordered lists
In the plugins directory, create a directory named com.example.print-pdf. In the new com.example.print-pdf directory, create a plug-in configuration file (plugin.xml) that declares the new transformation and its dependencies. <filepath>plugin.xml</filepath> file <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <plugin id="com.example.print-pdf"> <require plugin="org.dita.pdf2"/> <feature extension="dita.conductor.transtype.check" value="print-pdf"/> <feature extension="dita.transtype.print" value="print-pdf"/> <feature extension="dita.conductor.target.relative" file="integrator.xml"/> </plugin> Add an Ant script (integrator.xml) to define the transformation type. <filepath>integrator.xml</filepath> file <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <project name="com.example.print-pdf"> <target name="dita2print-pdf.init"> <property name="customization.dir" location="${dita.plugin.com.example.print-pdf.dir}/cfg"/> </target> <target name="dita2print-pdf" depends="dita2print-pdf.init, dita2pdf2"/> </project> In the new plug-in directory, add a cfg/catalog.xml file that specifies the custom XSLT style sheets. <filepath>cfg/catalog.xml</filepath> file <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <catalog prefer="system" xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog"> <uri name="cfg:fo/attrs/custom.xsl" uri="fo/attrs/custom.xsl"/> <uri name="cfg:fo/xsl/custom.xsl" uri="fo/xsl/custom.xsl"/> </catalog> Create the cfg/fo/attrs/custom.xsl file, and add attribute and variable overrides to it. For example, add the content highlighted with bold to change the page size to A4. <filepath>cfg/fo/attrs/custom.xsl</filepath> file <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0"> <!-- Change page size to A4 --> <xsl:variable name="page-width">210mm</xsl:variable> <xsl:variable name="page-height">297mm</xsl:variable> </xsl:stylesheet> Create the cfg/fo/xsl/custom.xsl file, and add XSLT overrides to it. For example, the following code changes the rendering of figure elements. <filepath>cfg/fo/xsl/custom.xsl</filepath> file <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" version="2.0"> <!-- Move figure title to top and description to bottom --> <xsl:template match="*[contains(@class,' topic/fig ')]"> <fo:block xsl:use-attribute-sets="fig"> <xsl:call-template name="commonattributes"/> <xsl:if test="not(@id)"> <xsl:attribute name="id"> <xsl:call-template name="get-id"/> </xsl:attribute> </xsl:if> <xsl:apply-templates select="*[contains(@class,' topic/title ')]"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="*[not(contains(@class,' topic/title ') or contains(@class,' topic/desc '))]"/> <xsl:apply-templates select="*[contains(@class,' topic/desc ')]"/> </fo:block> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Create an English-language variable-definition file (cfg/common/vars/en.xml) and make any necessary modifications to it. For example, the following code removes the period after the number for an ordered-list item; it also specifies that the bullet for an unordered list item should be an em dash. <filepath>cfg/common/vars/en.xml</filepath> file <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <vars xmlns="http://www.idiominc.com/opentopic/vars"> <!-- Remove dot from list number --> <variable id="Ordered List Number"><param ref-name="number"/></variable> <!-- Change unordered list bullet to an em dash --> <variable id="Unordered List bullet">&#x2014;</variable> </vars>

The new plug-in directory has the following layout and files:

com.example.print-pdf/ cfg/ common/ vars/ en.xml fo/ attrs/ custom.xsl xsl/ custom.xsl catalog.xml integrator.xml plugin.xml

Run --install to install the plug-in and make the transformation available.