Setting up your source and output file directories

In general, it is a good idea to store the DITA files you create separately from DITA Open Toolkit, because:

It is easier to create, back up, and migrate DITA source files if they are all together in a separate master directory.
It is easier to migrate to a new version of the Toolkit if you don't have to separate out and migrate your source files at the same time.
You are less likely to accidentally change or erase Toolkit files if they are not mixed in with the source files you work with every day.

Note: The most likely reasons you might have to modify files in the ditaot directory are (1) to create a specialization and (2) in processing reuse, to customize the output through XSLT changes.

A few simple entries in your Ant build scripts allow this separation.

Follow these steps to set up a directory environment and copy to it the garage and grocery shopping sample files that come with DITA Open Toolkit.

Create two new directories in your C: root directory (on Windows) or /home/userid (on Linux). In this and other examples in this document, we assume the two directories are: C:/MY_DITA_SOURCE and C:/MY_DITA_OUTPUT. We recommend building frequently, and it is easier to find and check the output files if they are in close proximity to the source files in your directory structure.
Within C:/MY_DITA_SOURCE create a samples subdirectory.
Copy the garage sample files from ditaot/samples to the samples directory you just created.
Copy the grocery shopping sample files from ditaot/samples to the samples directory you just created.

Your directory structure should look like this:

For information about setting up Ant scripts to find your DITA source files in this new directory structure, see Processing (building) and publishing DITA documents.

For information about creating demo files of your own, see Creating topics and Creating maps.