Globalization support

DITA Open Toolkit supports globalization with generated text strings, index sorting, and bi-directional text.

  • Generated text

    Generated text is text that is rendered automatically in the output that is generated by DITA-OT; this text is not located in the DITA source files. The following are examples of generated text:

    • The word “Chapter” in a PDF file.
    • The phrases “Related concepts”, “Related tasks”, and “Related reference” in HTML output.

  • Index sorting

    DITA-OT can use only a single language to sort indexes.

  • Bi-directional text

    DITA-OT contains style sheets (CSS files) that support both left-to-right (LTR) and right-to-left (RTL) languages in HTML-based transformations. PDF supports both LTR and RTL rendering based on the document language. The @dir attribute can be used to override the default rendering direction.

When DITA-OT generates output, it takes the first value that it encounters for the @xml:lang attribute, and uses that value to create generated text, sort index entries, and determine which default CSS file is used. If no value for the @xml:lang attribute is found, the toolkit defaults to U.S. English. You can use the Configuration properties to change the default language.