Bookmap Assistance

[jrc8989]

Hello All,
I have a question about using bookmap. We have a .ditamap that we've created. We've had a request to create a manual of the map, so the obvious choice would be to use a bookmap. Is there any way to create a bookmap that uses a current ditamap? Thanks!

[Radu]

Hi,

From a bookmap you can refer to a regular DITA Map.
But usually in a Bookmap you need to use special topicref elements (chapters, appendices, parts) to mark various topic references so you will probably need to convert your Map to Bookmap. But besides PDF you can also publish the Bookmap to Web-based outputs. For the Oxygen user's manual we also use a Bookmap that we publish to all output types.
Or if your PDF manual does not need to be strictly divided in chapters, appendix, front and back matter you could try to publish your existing DITA Map directly to PDF.

Regards,
Radu