Resources for learning DITA with Oxygen

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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.

We have a list of videos, some of them DITA-related here: https://www.oxygenxml.com/videos.html and a series of past webinar recordings about editing DITA with Oxygen.

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

All these webinars above are also listed here: https://www.oxygenxml.com/working_with_dita_in_oxygen.html.

Resources for learning DITA:

If you want to start learning about DITA in general there is a web site called Learning DITA.

Doctales DITA Introduction articles.

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 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: https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/ug-editor/topics/customize_webhelp.html.

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.

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/.
Hyperwrite: http://www.hyperwrite.com/Training/crsoxygenintro.aspx.
Mekon: http://mekon.com/news/dita-authoring-oxygen-author/
French course by Tireme: http://dita.tireme.fr/#definition/m2_session_adapter_dita.html

DITA Trivia

There are a number of blogs on which you can read various DITA-related articles:

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 Group is probably the first place where you can register and ask for help with DITA-related issues. There is also a Google Groups DITA Users List. Most DITA Users register sooner or later on one of these groups.

There is also a DITA Awareness Group on Linked In.