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 the source files the garage and grocery shopping sample files that come with DITA Open Toolkit.

Create four 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 directories are: C:/DITASAMPLE_GARAGE_SOURCE, C:/DITASAMPLE_GARAGE_OUTPUT, C:/DITASAMPLE_GROCERY_SOURCE, and C:/DITASAMPLE_GROCERY_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. The samples files are in http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net/SourceForgeFiles/doc/user_guide.html.
Copy the garage sample files to the DITASAMPLE_GARAGE_SOURCE directory.
Copy the grocery shopping sample files to the DITASAMPLE_GROCERY_SOURCE directory.

Your directory structures should look like the following figures:

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.