Problem with PDF build with update from 10.0 to 10.2

[jnielsen]

I recently updated Oxygen from 10.0 (or whatever the original version was for 10) to 10.2 and the PDF build differs markedly from the previous version. It took me a few tests to realize that this is due because it builds to PDF2 by default instead of the "legacy" PDF. This is a problem, as we have customized some essential information to appear on our cover page using the <topicmeta> </topicmeta> tags, which was processed by dita2fo-shell.xsl under the "front-covers" template. We have never been able to get PDF2 to recognize anything inside the <topicmeta> tags (it wants only bookmap tags) and so the cover remains blank except for the title with a PDF2 output. Unless a solution can be reached for PDF2 to display <topicmeta> information then I still need the legacy PDF.

Now this is annoying for two reasons: #1 I have wanted to move to PDF2 for a while now, but the current detail of the topicmeta tags has prevented that. It has been suggested that I try a bookmap instead of a ditamap, and while that may work I'm not sure if its structure is ideal for our type of documentation. What would the best way be to represent a multi-part document (a User Guide for example) with topics & sub-topics nested under each other distributed over 5 different sections? Perhaps create 5 chapters with nested <topicref> children? If I can get a sucessful bookmap implementation of our documents then perhaps I can move on to PDF2. And also, #2 I still need a fall back for now, and possiblly for the future, so I need to be able to build to regular PDF in any case. I saw that the build.xml file has a "map2legacypdf" target, but if I set the build scenario to that it does not work. What is the best way to build on the old "legacy" PDF files?

P.S. For those of you who may be employed at Oxygen, would it be too much trouble to look at some sample ditamap & bookmaps we have with their respective PDF output and give any suggestions about how to make the PDF2 output look like the legacy PDF output? This will perhaps need to be done through personal coorespondence, so is there an e-mail address I could contact you at? That would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Joshua Nielsen

[Radu]

Hi Josh,

You probably upgraded to Oxygen 10.2 which comes with DITA Open Toolkit 1.4.3.
Indeed, the default PDF transformation has become the IDIOM PDF2 transformation.

But, if you try to create a new scenario you can choose the "Legacy PDF - DITA OT" type and you will run your scenario using the old PDF transform.

If you make enhancements to the DITA OT stylesheets I suggest you to have your custom DITA Open Toolkit installation in a location outside the Oxygen installation folder as this may get overwritten when a new Oxygen version is installed.

Here you can find contact details if you have additional questions:
http://www.oxygenxml.com/techSupport.html

Regards,
Radu

[jnielsen]

*smacks forehead*

Ok, I feel stupid now having not seen that new scenario! I was still using our old scenario and was unaware that the backend behind it had changed. This makes sense now. I do still want to work on the PDF2 implementation though, so if I run into any problems I might indeed contact the tech support. Thanks for your help.

Josh