DITA for Print — Second Edition

Cover of DITA for Print, linked to larger image
DITA for Print: A DITA Open Toolkit Workbook, Second edition
by Leigh W. White. $35.95 (print) $24.95 (Ebook).

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As DITA has become more and more popular, demand has increased for tools that can provide high quality PDFs from DITA content. The DITA Open Toolkit provides a basic PDF capability, but nearly any real-world application will require customization.

Leigh White’s book, DITA for Print, has become the go-to reference for building a print customization plugin for the DITA Open Toolkit. This second edition covers the DITA Open Toolkit, version 2, including customizing the DITA 1.3 troubleshooting topic type, localization strings, bookmarks, and the new back-cover functionality.

DITA for Print is for anyone who wants to learn how to create PDFs using the DITA Open Toolkit without learning everything there is to know about XSL-FO, XSLT, or XPath, or even about the DITA Open Toolkit itself. DITA for Print is written for non-programmers, by a non-programmer, and although it is written for people who have a good understanding of the DITA standard, you don’t need a technical background to get custom PDFs up and running quickly.

Inside the Book

    Custom PDF plugin creation:

  • Organization of the DITA Open Toolkit
  • Installing the DITA Open Toolkit
  • Creating your own plugin
    DITA Open Toolkit builds:

  • Setting up the ANT build environment
  • Setting up a PDF renderer
  • Setting up fonts
  • Managing attribute sets, localization variables, and localization strings
    Formatting your content:

  • Page masters
  • Page headers and footers
  • Cover pages (front and back)
  • Titles, body text, lists, and notes
  • Task topics, tables, and images
  • Links, xrefs, and footnotes
  • Table of Contents, lists of tables and figures, bookmarks, and indexes

About the Author

Leigh White is a DITA Specialist with Ixiasoft. Starting out as a technical writer and moving into information architecture, she has been working with DITA since 2008, developing workflows, standards, and publishing tools. She has a strong interest in helping small technical publication groups on a budget leverage tools and improve processes to raise efficiency, increase productivity, and save their sanity. She advocates that effective technical communicators need to be more than writers; they need to be part programmer, part designer, and part project manager, and she hopes this book is a helpful step in that direction.

Leigh has spoken on XML, DITA, content management systems, content conversion, and taxonomies at a number of conferences, including Intelligent Content, Lavacon, the STC Summit, and DITA Netherlands. She has also presented hands-on “DITA In a Day” workshops to STC chapters in several cities. When she is not parked in front of a computer, Leigh enjoys reading, running, hiking, photography, woodworking, and motorcycles.

Book Extras

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