# DITA Best Practices : Turning off non-essential information when transforming

Created by Todd Stupnik, last modified on Jan 29, 2015

When transforming a DITA Map (for example using the TW PDF - WKFS or WebHelp - WKFS transformations), a log file is created containing a running list of processes used during the transformation. This log is often very useful when debugging an unsuccessful transformation and is typically followed by a Transformation Problems report. Both are presented in tabbed view at the bottom of the screen.

This log file can, however, contain non-essential information that clutters the log file when attempting to identify errors or break points. This information is considered "overflow" content. oXygen allows you to turn off this non-essential information for any of our transformation scenarios by setting the outer.control parameter to quiet on the Parameters tab for that desired transformation scenario.

NOTE: The default setting on the standard WebHelp - WKFS transformation for the outer.control parameter is outer.control = quiet.

### To turn off non-essential log file information:

1. Click the wrench icon (Configure Transformation Scenario(s)) button in the DITA Maps Manager view or by selecting the DITA Maps>Configure Transformation Scenario(s)... menu option.
2. Highlight the desired transformation scenario; click Edit.

1. From the Parameters tab, navigate to outer.control;

1. Click Edit or double-click anywhere on the outer.control row to edit that parameter.
2. In the Value dropdown, select quiet. Note: the default value is warn.

### outer.control reference information

The outer.control parameter specifieds how to respond to the overflowing dita/topic files.

Value | Description
--- | ---
fail | Fail quickly if files are going to be generated/copied outside of that directory
warn | Complete if files will be generated/copied outside, but log a warning
quiet | Quietly finish with only those files (no warning or error) The gen-list-without-flagging Ant task generates a harmless warning for content outside the map directory; you can suppress these warnings by setting the outer.control property to "quiet". Warning: Microsoft HTML Help Compiler cannot produce HTMLHelp for documentation projects that use outer content. Your content files must reside in or below the directory containing the .ditamap file, and the map file cannot specify ".." at the start of href attributes for topicref elements.

### Further reading

See Transformations for more information on transformation scenarios and Setup and Configuration for additional information on setting up the DITA OT, importing transformation scenarios, setting up profiling sets, and editing other parameter values for a specific transformation scenario.

## Attachments:

Configure-Transform-Scenario-webhelp.png (image/png)
Edit-DITA-Scenario.png (image/png)
oxygenTransformLog.png (image/png)