On Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:24:13 -0800 (PST), Writer <generic668 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> [By way of some background: We're in an odd spot where we're between >> budgets AND about to shift to 'native' DITA using oXygen; so they're >> trying hard not to invest further in Frame-specific products. But this >> requirement for Help (in am month!) is gonna mean one last tool goes in >> that box.] > >Can't you output to CHM using oXygen? Sure, in the same sense that you can create a large Web site using only Notepad. ;-) OxygenXML, like most other DITA editors (with the notable exception of Arbortext) uses the DITA-OT for output to HTML and PDF. Some of the editors make custom changes to the OT to work with their particular docs, like XMetaL. Most provide some sort of menu interface. The DITA-OT is a free set of ant and XSLT scripts, with a Java part (dost.jar), that is maintained by some TC members and others as the "reference implementation" for DITA outputs. It is updated every month or so. Note that "reference implementation" really means 'demo", and does not imply software that is commercially usable. Nonetheless, people do use it for production, at quite a high price for free software. Expect to spend literally hundreds of hours on customization of the XSLT, unless you are an *expert* XSLT programmer. And then do most of it again when the next rev breaks half your patches, or stick with the old version (which is what people usually do, for years). There are other alternatives, one of which is our DITA2Go, which is also free, but *is* a commercial-quality program. We derived it from Mif2Go, with which it shares all of the output modules, but uses DITA source instead of Frame. It's far easier to customize than the OT, and about ten times as fast: http://dita2go.com There is also another XSLT implementation for DITA that many prefer (DITAC, also free), and Webworks ePublisher Pro (not free) can process DITA input. And there's Arbortext (*very* far from free). There may be more, but most just hand you the OT one way or another. There are some links on the home page of DITA2Go (at the link above). I'd say if someone has a looming deadline, that is **not** the time to start learning how to customize the OT... LOL! -- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc. <jeremy at omsys.com> http://mif2go.com/
