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.

Before you begin

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

    DITA-OT 4.2 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:
  • If you want to generate HTML Help, ensure that you have HTML Help Workshop installed.

    You can download the Help Workshop from web.archive.org.

Procedure

  1. Download the dita-ot-4.2.1.zip package from the project website at dita-ot.org/download.
  2. Extract the contents of the package to the directory where you want to install DITA-OT.
  3. 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.