Prerequisite software

The prerequisite software that the DITA-OT requires depends on the types of transformations that you want to use.

Software required for core DITA-OT processing

The DITA-OT requires the following software applications:
JRE or JDK, version 7 or later
Provides the basic environment for the DITA-OT. You can download the Oracle JRE or JDK from oracle.com/technetwork/java.
Note: This is the only prerequisite software that you need to install. The remaining required software is included in the distribution packages.
Ant, version 1.7.1 or later
Provides the standard setup and sequencing of processing steps. You can download Ant from http://ant.apache.org/.
XSLT processor
Provides the main transformation services. It must be compliant with XSLT 2.0. The DITA-OT is tested with Saxon. You can download Saxon, version 9.1.0.8 from http://saxon.sourceforge.net/.

Software required for specific transformations

Depending on the type of output that you want to generate, you might need the following applications:
ICU for Java
ICU for Java is a cross-platform, Unicode-based, globalization library. It includes support for comparing locale-sensitive strings; formatting dates, times, numbers, currencies, and messages; detecting text boundaries; and converting character sets. You can download ICU for Java from http://site.icu-project.org/download/.
Microsoft Help Workshop
Required for generating HTML help. You can download the Help Workshop from msdn.microsoft.com.
XSL-FO processor
Required for generating PDF output. Apache™ FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is included in the distribution packages. You can download FOP from http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/download.html. You also can use commercial FO processors such as Antenna House Formatter or RenderX XEP.