Oxygen XML Forum

Posted: **Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:05 pm**

Hello!
I tried to state the question in the title

but still I will explain: how to make a dictionary term inserted with using the DITA reusable components menu, - to look like this in the text: Some Term Explanation (STE)
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I know how to use this system, I just don't quite understand (at the moment) how to style it.

Posted: **Wed Jan 18, 2023 2:09 pm**

Hi,

It usually helps me if I have a small example of how the DITA XML structure looks like.
Do you have a DITA <glossentry> topic looking like this:

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<!DOCTYPE glossentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Glossary Entry//EN" "glossaryentry.dtd">
<glossentry id="abs-definition">
  <glossterm>Anti-lock Braking System</glossterm>
  <glossBody>
    <glossSurfaceForm>Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)</glossSurfaceForm>
    <glossAlt>
      <glossAcronym>ABS</glossAcronym>
    </glossAlt>
  </glossBody>
</glossentry>

referenced in the DITA Map with a key defined on the topicref:

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<topicref href="topics/abc.dita" keys="abs"/>

and then in the DITA topics do you use abbreviated-form element to refer to it?

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<abbreviated-form keyref="abs"/>

And you are interested in the published output, right? HTML or PDF?
Looking at the generated HTML output from the DITA topic, it looks something like this:

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<a href="untitled1.html" title="Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)"><dfn class="term abbreviated-form">Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)</dfn></a>

So the acronym appears in the same text as the gloss title, making it impossible to style separately using CSS.
Maybe this could be done with some XSLT customization, with a DITA OT plugin which overrides the xsl template:

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<xsl:template match="*" mode="getMatchingSurfaceForm">

from the base "DITA-OT3.x/plugins/org.dita.html5/xsl/topic.xsl" but this needs to be investigated, I do not have a quick fix for you.

Regards,
Radu

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