DITA Custom XSLT

dita-custom-xslt is a set of XSLT stylesheets that convert a generic DITA topic to a specialized DITA concept, reference, or task. dita-convert is a Python 3 package that provides a convenient access to these stylesheets and a command-line utility to perform the conversions.

In combination with asciidoctor-dita-vale and asciidoctor-dita-topic, this project can be used to rapidly convert AsciiDoc content to DITA:

1. Identify incompatible markup in the AsciiDoc source file:

   $ vale source_file.adoc

2. Convert the AsciiDoc file to a generic DITA topic:

   $ asciidoctor -r dita-topic -b dita-topic source_file.adoc

3. Convert the generic DITA topic to a specialized DITA concept, reference, or task:

   $ dita-convert -gt task source_file.dita

Installation

Install the dita-convert Python package:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade dita-convert

Usage

Using the command-line interface

To convert a DITA topic to a specialized DITA content type, run the following command:

python3 -m dita.convert -t TYPE TOPIC_FILE

For convenience, the package provides a wrapper script that you can run directly as follows:

dita-convert -t TYPE TOPIC_FILE

Available TYPE values are concept, reference, or task.

By default, the script treats the source file as a generic DITA topic. To convert files generated by asciidoctor-dita-topic that follow the guidelines for modules as defined in the Modular Documentation Reference Guide, add the -g option:

dita-convert -t TYPE -g TOPIC_FILE

For generated topics, this is the preferred method because asciidoctor-dita-topic includes predictable headings that allow parts of the document to be correctly identified as prereq, result, tasktroubleshooting, postreq, and related-links. If the original AsciiDoc files included valid content type definitions, you can also omit the -t option.

For a complete list of available command-line options, run dita-convert with the -h option:

dita-convert -h

Using the Python interface

To convert a DITA topic to a specialized DITA content type, the dita-convert package exports the corresponding to_concept(), to_reference(), to_task(), to_concept_generated(), to_reference_generated(), and to_task_generated() functions that return an ElementTree object:

import sys

from lxml import etree
from dita.convert import to_task

# Parse the contents of a sample DITA topic file:
topic = etree.parse("topic.dita")

# Report possible errors:
try:
    # Convert the DITA topic to a DITA task:
    task  = to_task(topic)
except etree.XSLTApplyError as msg:
    # Print the error message to standard error output:
    print(msg, file=sys.stderr)

    # Terminate the script:
    sys.exit(1)

# Report possible warnings:
for error in to_task.error_log:
    # Print the warning message to standard error output:
    print(error.message, file=sys.stderr)

# Print the resulting XML to standard output:
print(str(task))

If you prefer to work with the underlying XSLT stylesheets directly, you can access their Path objects as follows:

from dita.convert import xslt

# Print the full path to the XSLT stylesheet for DITA reference:
print(xslt.reference)

Available variables are concept, reference, task, concept_generated, reference_generated, and task_generated.

Copyright

Copyright © 2024, 2025 Jaromir Hradilek

This program is free software, released under the terms of the MIT license. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.