Conref file for tasks

DITA-OT releases follow guidelines. Version numbers use the major.minor.patch syntax, where major versions may include incompatible API changes, minor versions add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner and patch versions are maintenance releases that include backwards-compatible bug fixes.

Custom plug-ins developed for a previous major version may require changes to work correctly with recent toolkit versions. Most plug-ins should be compatible with subsequent minor and patch versions of the major release for which they were originally developed.

Standard Path / Directory Names
dita-ot-dir
dita-ot-dir/bin/dita
dita-ot-dir/docsrc
dita-ot-dir/docsrc/samples
/absolute/path/to/dita-ot-dir/docsrc/samples
Plug-In Info
  • <plug-in-id> is the unique ID of the plug-in, as defined in the plug-in’s configuration file (plugin.xml).
  • plug-in-zip is the filename or URL of the plug-in’s distribution ZIP file (optional).
  • the optional <plug-in> argument is one of the following:
    • the unique ID of the plug-in as defined in the plug-in registry at (or a local registry)
    • the remote URL of the plug-in’s distribution ZIP file
    • the name of a local ZIP file
  • If no ID, URL, or file argument is provided, the installation process reloads the current set of plug-ins from the plugins directory. This approach can be used to add or remove multiple plug-ins at once, or any individual plug-ins you have already copied to (or removed from) the plugins directory. Any plug-ins added or removed in the process will be listed by their plug-in ID.
  • The uninstall subcommand also removes the corresponding plug-in directory from the plugins folder. uninstalling
  • In earlier versions of DITA-OT (2.4–3.4), use the double-hyphen option syntax dita --uninstall. In DITA-OT 2.0–2.3, use the single-hyphen form: dita
Download the dita-ot-.zip package from the project website at . Open a command prompt or terminal session, and then change to the directory where DITA Open Toolkit is installed.
  • is the DITA-OT installation directory.
  • input-file is the DITA map or DITA file that you want to process.

  • format is the output format (transformation type). This argument corresponds to the common parameter transtype. Use the same values as for the transtype build parameter, for example or .

  • You can create plug-ins to add new output formats; by default, the following values are available: transtype list

    • , , and
    See for sample command line syntax and more information on each transformation.

  • [options] include the following optional build parameters:

If processing is successful, nothing is printed in the terminal window. The built output is written to the specified output directory (by default, in the out subdirectory of the current directory).

Add the absolute path for /bin to the PATH environment variable to run the dita command from any location on the file system without typing the path. dita command PATH environment variable Extending pre-processing For maximum compatibility with future versions of DITA-OT, most plug-ins should use the extension points that run before or after pre-processing. The internal order of preprocessing steps is subject to change between versions of DITA-OT. New versions may remove, reorder, combine, or add steps to the process, so the extension points within the preprocessing stage should only be used if absolutely necessary. Copy /properties/template.properties; this template describes each of the properties you can set. If you are building in different environments where the location of the input files is not consistent, set with the dita command and reference its value with ${args.input.dir} in your .properties file. dita command .properties file args.input.dir