DTD validation errors for DITA-to-Word transformation scenario

[blabarta]

Hi!

We are transitioning from PTC Arbortext Editor to Oxygen XML Editor 26.0. Our company has custom DITA templates, so all our map files and topics have company-specific, public DOCTYPE declarations.

To resolve validation errors when opening old PTC topics in Oxygen Editor, we added the following catalog reference through Options > Preferences > XML > XML Catalog:

file:/C:/Program%20Files/PTC/Arbortext%20Editor/custom/doctypes/catalog.xml

We have a use case for generating Word from DITA source, so we are trying to run the built-in DITA-to-Word transformation scenario on our custom DITA map files, but we are getting validation errors related to our custom DTDs. I must be overlooking a setting somewhere to skip validation, but I can't find it. I did try using setting a JVM Arguments value on the Advanced tab for the extended transformation scenario, but that didn't work. I can't readily find the argument, but I found it through another post in the forum.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Radu]

Hi,

Once you added the custom XML catalog reference to Oxygen's Preferences->"XML Catalog" you made Oxygen's validation and editing work correctly with your DTD specialization.

The DITA Open Toolkit publishing engine (located in the OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR/frameworks/dita/DITA-OT) which publishes DITA XML to various outputs like HTML, PDF, Word is started as an external process so it does not take Oxygen's "XML Catalog" preferences into account.

Usually with the DITA Open Toolkit publishing engine the elegant way to add new specialization DTDs is by installing plugins:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... ation.html
The structure of a DITA OT plugin which adds an extra XML catalog looks like this:
https://github.com/oxygenxml-incubator/ ... ialization
As explained in the documentation above there is also the alternative to make changes to the XML catalog bundled inside the DITA Open Toolkit folder and add there a reference to your XML catalog:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... ive_method

Regards,
Radu