Custom semantic elements

[IsleofGough]

I know this is a beginner question, but is there a way in DITA/OxygenXML to create a custom semantic or typographical element? DITA has several semantic elements for quotations, notes, etc. and typographical elements for bold, italic, etc. But if you want to define a DITA element that gets translated into a specific paragraph style (or p.substyle) or character style (or span.substyle), is this possible in DITA? If so, where could I get information on this? Should I just use outputclass for the paragraph styles?

If I want customization of pdf output, is it better to approach this via HTML/CSS or with a custom pdf plugin as outlined in the book "Dita for Print" by Leigh White?

[Radu]

Hi,

But if you want to define a DITA element that gets translated into a specific paragraph style (or p.substyle) or character style (or span.substyle), is this possible in DITA? If so, where could I get information on this? Should I just use outputclass for the paragraph styles?

With the DITA standard you can create a vocabulary extension and add new elements.
https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... ation.html
This requires some work to create a new set of DITA DTDs based on the base DTDs.
Indeed the easy way is to us a custom @outputclass attribute on a certain paragraph and match it in the CSS output.

If I want customization of pdf output, is it better to approach this via HTML/CSS or with a custom pdf plugin as outlined in the book "Dita for Print" by Leigh White?

I consider our CSS-based customization easier to do and maintain with a lower entry level (just knowledge of CSS, without the need to know XSLT or XSL-FO). We also help with customization advice for the CSS-based publishing.
Our CSS-based publishing can be done for free from an Oxygen installation but if you want to publish from a command line you will need to get a special commercial license to do so:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/publishing_engine.html

Regards,
Radu