X-Pubs Conference, London, June 23, 2008 — Suite Solutions today announced that it will accept the leadership role in supporting PDF publishing functionality provided by the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT). The FO plug-in, initially developed and supported by Idiom, currently facilitates PDF generation of DITA XML documents using the XSL-FO formatting standard.
“We believe that robust and stable PDF generation from the DITA-OT is a key enabler to the continued success and growing adoption of DITA, and ultimately makes the standard more accessible to a broader range of technical documentation publishers,” said Joe Gelb, Founder and President of Suite Solutions. “Therefore it is critical that native XSL-FO capability receive ongoing and professional support to service the needs of the growing community of DITA users.”
Suite Solutions is uniquely suited to lead PDF generation support for DITA, and will work closely with Robert Anderson of IBM, Chief Architect of the DITA Open Toolkit, and other members of the DITA development community.
"While meeting the challenging and demanding publishing and localization requirements of our DITA customers, we found ourselves solving problems in the FO plug-in and adding functionality that was not provided before," says Gelb. "Our first goal is to make those changes available to the community. We will then focus on standardizing and integrating the FO plug-in into the core DITA-OT package."
"Through our extensive XSL-FO style sheet development experience and our offering of intensive DITA-OT and FO plug-in training workshops, we have developed an intimate familiarity with the open source tools and the needs and expectations of companies who have a growing reliance on those tools for production-quality PDF generation," notes Adena Frazer, Senior Consultant and Trainer.
"As an early adaptor of the DITA-OT, I am excited about the opportunity to help bring the tool set to the next level,” says Aliza Merzel, Project Lead and XML Specialist.
About Suite Solutions
Suite Solutions offers a broad range of professional services to technical documentation groups of any size implementing DITA, S1000D, SCORM, IETM and other standards. Services include training, consulting, CMS and tool selection and implementation, XSL-FO style sheet and template development, documentation conversion and migration, and custom integration and support. Suite Solutions brings together experienced professionals with extensive knowledge of industry standards and best practices, making available a collective broad experience in XML-based documentation, information architecture, component-oriented content development, and application of tools for successful optimization of authoring, management, localization and multi-purpose publishing. Suite Solutions distinguishes itself with its responsive support, uncompromising professionalism, and ability to think out of the box to find creative solutions to the individual problems of each organization.
For more information, visit us at http://www.suite-sol.com