Any tips for updating the DocBook 2 DITA converter?

[scox]

Hi,

My group is switching from DocBook to DITA. We see that Oxygen provides a DocBook 2 DITA converter.
Looks like IBM developed the converter though.

The dbReader.xsl converter has the following entry in its TO DO list:
upgrade to DITA 1.1 and DocBook 5

We are considering updating the xsl file ourselves to handle our nonstandard DocBook items.
We would also like to take advantage of DITA 1.3 functionality.

Has any one modified the xsl to take advantage of more recent DITA developments?
...and thus have a list of changes or tips that can be shared?


Thank you!

[Radu]

Hi Scott,

Indeed in Oxygen if you open a DocBook file, the "Configure Transformation Scenario(s)" dialog should show a "DocBook to DITA" transformation scenario which uses the XSLT stylesheet located in OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR/frameworks/docbook/xsl/dbdita/db2dita/docbook2dita.xsl
In time we (the Oxygen developers) have updated this XSLT with various small fixes but if you have suggestions which would benefit our end users in general (not related to your custom element names) we could add extra fixes as well.
Once you convert the DocBook to DITA, you will get a large DITA composite which can later be split in multiple DITA topics + map by using an XSLT stylesheet. I can recommand this custom XSLT stylesheet we used for our user's guide migration from DocBook to DITA:

https://github.com/oxygenxml/old-usergu ... -topic.xsl

or if you want to create a BookMap, we have another similar stylesheet:

https://github.com/oxygenxml/old-usergu ... -topic.xsl


Regards,
Radu