[mbroggi]

Hi,

I'm new to DITA and serna. I've downloaded a trial version and created a small
dita test document from which I wanted to generate a pdf. All of this worked
wonderfully, however I want to add my own header and footer to the generated
pdf and cannot find out how to achieve this. I've looked in many forums, faqs
and tutorials, but without avail. Maybe someone on this list can give me hint,
how I can achieve this. Thanks!

[dond]

The original request is old, but others now reading this thread might still be interested in the issue.

PDF output for DITA is done using the DITA Open Toolkit. In the current externally available version of the DITA OT (from http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net), the default integrated PDF process uses the so-called Idiom or pdf2 transform to generate FO intermediate files that are then processed by FOP (default) or other user-integrated tools such as RenderX XEP or Antenna House.

The current pdf2 transforms use a configuration interface where you can define your own values for the running header and footer on different parts of the output (you can differentiate what shows in the preface vs the appendix, for example). The general instructions are in the readme.txt file in the demo/fo/Customization directory.

For a quick test, copy fo/cfg/common/vars/en-US.xml into fo/Customization/common/vars. Then in that folder, modify the product string (set currently as OpenTopic, for example) and save it. For example, you might use "MyCompany" instead of "OpenTopic":
<!-- Product name to be placed inside headers etc. -->
<variable id="Product Name">MyCompany</variable>

To test it, run this command:
C:\DITA-OT1.4.3>ant -f samples\ant_sample\sample_pdf.xml

Your new value should show in the upper left portion of the header for the resulting PDF (note that this output ends up in the samples folder, not the outer level out folder).

--Don Day
IBM Architect, Lightweight Publishing Solutions