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Issue with custom DITA specialization not validating in oXygen

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2025 11:46 am
by alicesphere
Hi everyone,

I’m new to oXygen and to the forum, and I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I’m working on a small project that uses a custom DITA specialization, and while the content validates correctly using command-line tools, it doesn’t validate inside oXygen.

I’ve added the custom DTDs to the Document Type Association and mapped the file patterns correctly. However, when I open a topic or run Validate, oXygen still reports that certain specialized elements are “not allowed in this context.” It feels like it’s still using the default DITA DTDs instead of mine.

Is there a specific location where custom DITA DTDs must be placed for oXygen to pick them up automatically? Do I need to modify the catalog file manually, or should the DITA Open Toolkit integration handle that? And has anyone run into a similar issue with specialized domains not being recognized?

I’m sure I’m missing something small, but after reading the docs I’m still a bit lost. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and glad to join the community!

Re: Issue with custom DITA specialization not validating in oXygen

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2025 12:20 pm
by Radu
Hi,
In the Oxygen user's guide there are documented two ways to integrate a DITA DTD specialization, either as a DITA OT specialization plugin in the DITA OT used by Oxygen for publishing or by adding an extra XML catalog in Oxygen's global XML catalogs list:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... ation.html

A DTD specialization requires a specific DOCTYPE declaration to be used for all created and edited DITA XML topics. Did you also change the DOCTYPE for all topics opened in Oxygen?

Regards,
Radu