Skip to content

Installing DITA Open Toolkit

The DITA-OT distribution package can be installed on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It contains everything that you need to run the toolkit except for Java.

  • Ensure that you have a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK).

    DITA-OT 4.0 is designed to run on Java version 17 or later and built and tested with the Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK). Compatible Java distributions are available from multiple sources:

    • You can download the Oracle JRE or JDK from oracle.com/java under commercial license.
    • Eclipse Temurin is the free OpenJDK distribution available from adoptium.net.
    • Free OpenJDK distributions are also provided by Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu, and Red Hat.
    • If you want to generate HTML Help, ensure that you have HTML Help Workshop installed.

    You can download the Help Workshop from msdn.microsoft.com.

  • Download the dita-ot-4.0.2.zip package from the project website at dita-ot.org/download.

  • Extract the contents of the package to the directory where you want to install DITA-OT.

  • Add the absolute path for the bin folder of the DITA-OT installation directory to the PATH environment variable.

    Tip: This defines the necessary environment variable that allows the dita command to be run from any location on the file system without typing the path to the command.