Resources for learning DITA with Oxygen
From time to time we get requests from beginners or from users migrating from other tools who want to start using Oxygen with DITA and they need to know a set of useful resources.
Resources for editing DITA with Oxygen:
We have a getting started section in our user's manual: https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/ug-editor/topics/eppo-first-dita-topic.html and a larger section on DITA authoring: https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/ug-editor/topics/author-dita.html.
- Getting Started with Oxygen and DITA
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2020/webinar_getting_started_with_dita_using_oxygen_xml_editor.html
- Basic DITA Profiling and Reuse
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2020/webinar_working_with_dita_in_oxygen.html
- Advanced DITA Profiling and Reuse
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2021/webinar_working_with_dita_in_oxygen_advanced_profiling_and_reuse_strategies.html
- Working with DITA in Oxygen - Customizing the Editing Experience
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2021/webinar_working_with_dita_in_oxygen_customizing_the_editing_experience.html
- Working with DITA in Oxygen - Quick start with the DITA Startup Project
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2021/webinar_working_with_dita_in_oxygen_startup_project.html
- Working with DITA in Oxygen - Migrating to DITA and Refactoring
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2021/webinar_working_with_dita_in_oxygen_migrating_to_dita_and_refactoring.html
- DITA XML Editing, Collaboration and Publishing Overview
- https://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2024/oxygen_user_meetup_Prague.html#video_7
Resources for learning DITA:
If you want to start learning about DITA in general there is a web site called Learning DITA.
DITA Introduction articles by Stefan Jung.
The free Oxygen Live Tutorials add-on contains various small tutorials for learning DITA.
The DITA 1.3 standard specification can be found here: https://www.oxygenxml.com/dita/1.3/specs/#introduction/dita-release-overview.html.
There are also a number of good books like DITA For Practitioners and the DITA Style Guide.
Resources for understanding and working with DITA XML by ACM.
Resources for customizing the DITA output formats
Usually customizing the XHTML based outputs means creating your custom CSS selectors. If you generate WebHelp output using Oxygen, we have a section explaining basic WebHelp customizations.
For PDF-based outputs we recommend, support and maintain our CSS-based PDF publishing which is free to use from Oxygen XML Editor. There are also a number of different choices to obtain PDF from DITA: Possibilities to obtain PDF from DITA.
- Transforming DITA documents to PDF using CSS
- Techniques for Customizing the WebHelp Responsive Output
- Using Oxygen Styles Basket to Create CSS Customization from Scratch
Courses for learning DITA with Oxygen XML Editor
- Ryffine: https://www.ryffine.com/.
- Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/technical-writing-how-to-write-using-dita-xml/.
- Basic principles and theory of DITA, 10 hour recorded training course by Tony Self: https://firehead-training.net/course/dita-concepts.
- Mekon: http://mekon.com/news/dita-authoring-oxygen-author/
- French course by Tireme: http://dita.tireme.fr/#definition/m2_session_adapter_dita.html
- "Writing DITA content" - course with a two day duration by FlowTime: https://www.flowtime.be/en/writing-dita-xml-content-schrijven.
DITA Trivia
- Oxygen XML Blog: Welcome!.
- Magda Caloian's Think DITA blog: http://think-dita.com/.
- Scriptorium Blog: http://www.scriptorium.com/blog/.
- Eliot Kimber's Blog: http://drmacros-xml-rants.blogspot.ro/.
- A larger selection of technical writing and DITA articles:http://idratherbewriting.com
- List of learning DITA blog posts from Mekon: http://mekon.com/bitesize-dita/
- DITA XML Benefits: https://technicallywewrite.com/2023/09/11/aboutdita
- Working with DITA projects in Oxygen: https://technicallywewrite.com/2023/09/14/aboutoxygen
Community
The DITA Users List is probably the first place where you can register and ask for help with DITA-related issues. A bunch of other community support forums for the publishing engine are also listed here: https://www.dita-ot.org/support.
There is also a DITA Awareness Group on Linked In.