How control heading styles in PDF output?

[Carl]

I would like to modify the fonts and formatting of the heading styles in the PDF transformation in OxygenXML. Specifically, in the "DITA Map PDF - based on XSL-FO".

What has happened is: our project structure has pushed some topics quite deep--5 or 6 levels deep from the root. This poses no difficulty as WebHelp, but in the PDF manual, the deepest topics end up getting rendered as plain text, making them almost "invisible" in the PDF manual. I suspect it's because the PDF template doesn't have a definition for the topics that deep.

I've tried looking through all the files in the PDF customization directory, but I cannot find out where to set the various heading level formats. Unfortunately, our PDF template customizations was created by a contractor many years ago.

Can you provide me with some guidance?

[Radu]

Hi Carl,

From what I remember there are XSLTs in the base DITA PDF plugin like this one:

OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR/frameworks/dita/DITA-OT3.x/plugins/org.dita.pdf2/cfg/fo/attrs/topic-attr.xsl

which contain attribute sets like this:

Code: Select all

    <xsl:attribute-set name="topic.topic.topic.topic.topic.topic.title" use-attribute-sets="base-font common.title">
        <xsl:attribute name="start-indent"><xsl:value-of select="$side-col-width"/></xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:attribute name="font-style">italic</xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:attribute name="keep-with-next.within-column">always</xsl:attribute>
    </xsl:attribute-set>

The attribute set names somehow are applied depending on the topic nesting, so in the case above the attribute set applies for the title of a topic embedded 6 levels deep.
There is also a book named "DITA For Print" which should cover must PDF XSL-FO based customization possibilities.
For questions which are not related to Oxygen's specific publishing plugins (like WebHelp Responsive and PDF using CSS for styling) you can also register and ask around on the DITA Users List:
https://dita-users.groups.io/g/main
I'm also registered there so I can try to help if I know the answer, otherwise there are lots of DITA customization professionals who might have better ideas than I do.

Regards,
Radu