Migrating from XSLT stylesheets to CSS themes

[CharlesDM]

Our organization currently uses XSLT stylesheets for transformations, and I've been tasked with spearheading the process of creating CSS stylesheets for use with the new DITA OT 4.3 themes. I kind of understand CSS...a bit...and I get the way these themes work and cascade off one another, but I don't really understand what's happening at the backend of OxygenXML or how these XSLT stylesheets are structured. How important is it that I understand XSLT before trying to convert our current stylesheets to CSS, and does anybody have some hot tips they want to share on how to make the XSLT-to-CSS migration a less painful experience?

[julien_lacour]

Hello,

By migration do you mean going from DITA Map PDF - based on XSL-FO to DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS in order to generate PDFs using CSS instead of XSLT stylesheets?
DITA OT 4.3 themes you mentioned aren't based on CSS but on YAML, for more information you can check DITA-OT specs.

Regards,
Julien

[CharlesDM]

Hi Julien,

Yes, I'm hoping to use CSS instead of XSLT stylesheets. I'm just not clear on whether this is natively supported within OxygenXML or whether it demands ChemistryXML.

[julien_lacour]

Hello,

If you are using Oxygen, you can directly run the DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS scenario (using Chemistry under the hood) to get your PDF using custom CSS stylesheets. There's no need to install additional software as Oxygen PDF Chemistry comes bundled with Oxygen.
For more information you can check our user guide.

Regards,
Julien

[CharlesDM]

Thanks Julian. I've looked at the webinar for "Transforming DITA documents to PDF using CSS, Part 1 – Page Definitions, Cover Page and PDF Metadata", but I don't seem to be able to transform the "space.ditamap" with the "main.css" in the example custom folder (per the extracted project_transforming_dita_documents.zip file). My PDF output transform is still very plain and in the default US letter. This is despite having added the custom "template.opt" as the transform scenario. I've also checked that "main.css" is set as the CSS and it is. I'm using OxygenXML Editor 27.1.

Are the examples compatible with this version of Oxygen?

[julien_lacour]

Hello,

Yes, the publishing template is still compatible with Oxygen 27.1.

Please note all the rules in the different CSS stylesheets are commented and you need to uncomment them before running the transformation scenario. Like this you can see all the differences both before and after CSS styling.

Regards,
Julien