DITA generated PDF

[PaulHermans]

Using Eclipse Author version

a)file in Eclipse Workspace, folder DITA
file://C:/Users/Paul/EclipseWorkspace/DITA/test.dita

Generating PDF using DITA PDF (Idiom FO Plugin) with generated output at

file://C:/Users/Paul/EclipseWorkspace/DITA/out/test.dita.pdf

while Eclipse tries to open

file://C:/Users/Paul/EclipseWorkspace/DITA/out/DITA/test.pdf

b)same file in another folder (outside Eclipse workspace)
file://C:/Users/Paul/OxygenWorkspace/test.dita

Generating PDF using DITA PDF (Idiom FO Plugin) with generated output at

file:///C:/Users/Paul/OxygenWorkspace/out/Users/Paul/OxygenWorkspace/test.dita.pdf

while Eclipse tries to open
file://C:/Users/Paul/OxygenWorkspace/out/OxygenWorkspace/test.pdf

No match in both conditions.

Same seems to be the case in the standalone version.

[PaulHermans]

Additional info.

There is one difference between the files:
in one case absolute paths have been used
conref="file:///C:/Program%20Files/Oxygen%20XML%20Editor%2011/samples/dita/flowers/topics/lilac.xml#topic-1"

in the other case relative paths
conref="../../../../Program%20Files/Oxygen%20XML%20Editor%2011/samples/dita/flowers/topics/lilac.xml#topic-1"

This seems to have two consequences:
a) the place where the PDF is written away: long paths when relative conrefs have been used
b) the inclusion of the conrefed topics: conrefs are only resolved when using relative conrefs.

[Radu]

Hi Paul,

Indeed the DITA Open Toolkit saves to an unexpected file location.
If you set in the "Parameters" tab the dita.extname to .dita do all cases work as expected?

Regards,
Radu

[PaulHermans]

It solves a few things, but the picture is still not good.

1) Using Eclipse workspace
File: EclipseWorkspace/DITA/test.dita
1.1) Using full absolute paths in conrefs
Results:
- PDF found at out/test.pdf
- conrefs NOT resolved in PDF
1.2) Using relative paths in conrefs
Results:
- PDF NOT found at out/DITA/test.pdf; it is in
out/Users/Paul/EclipseWorkspace/DITA/test.pdf
- conrefs resolved in PDF

2) Not using the Eclipse workspace
File: C:/Users/Paul/OxygenWorkspace/test.dita
2.1) Using full absolute paths in conrefs
Results:
- PDF found at out/test.pdf
- conrefs NOT resolved in PDF
2.2) using relative paths in conrefs
Results:
- PDF found at out/OxygenWorkSpace/test.pdf
- conrefs resolved in PDF

[Radu]

Hi Paul,

From what I remember there was indeed a but that the DITA Open Toolkit did not resolve correctly full paths in content references, so it should probably get fixed in a future DITA Open Toolkit version.
Of course, it is more robust to use relative paths.

When generating the PDF file the DITA OT tries to gather all resources in the output directory. If the topic file references files outside its directory scope (like conref="../../topics2/otherTopic.xml") the DITA OT will create in the output folder a folder structure to mimic the structure of the directory common to all these referenced resources. This results in the FO and PDF files being generated not directly inside the output directory but inside the created folder structure.
We made some modifications in Oxygen 11.2 and after the transformation finishes we'll look for the PDF file in all of the created folder structure if it is not on the first level. So Oxygen 11.2 should be able to locate the PDF file after the transformation is over.

Regards,
Radu