How to create a DITA OT plugin

When you use DITA OT to publish your DITA content, you might need to customize DITA OT XSL transformation. To make your DITA OT changes portable, you can create a DITA OT plugin.

To create a plugin, you need to first create one or more new or overridden templates xslt files, second create a plugin.xml file to point to your xslt files, and then install this plug-in to your DITA OT.

To create templates

1. Create a folder in dita-ot/demo to store your plug-in, such as my-plugin.
2. Create a folder to store your xslt files in dita-ot/demo/my-plugin, such as xsl.
3. Create a new xslt file to contain the template. It's better that one xslt file only include one function.

To create plugin.xml

1. Copy a plugin.xml file from any existing plugins into dita-ot/demo/my-plugin.
2. If there are more than one <feature> elements, delete the rest and only keep one <feature>.
3. Change the value in the remaining element to point to your new xslt files, separated by commas: &lt; feature extension="dita.xsl.xml" value="xsl/yourxslt1.xsl,xsl.yourxslt2.xsl" type="file" / >

To install your plugin

1. In your dita-ot folder, run startcmd.bat.
2. In the cmd.exe window, type: ant -f integrator.xml.

The plugin that you have created can be easily packed and installed once you upgrade your DITA OT, or pass to others.