# DITA Best Practices : Transformation Troubleshooting Best Practices

Created by Todd Stupnik, last modified by Denise Winkelman on Oct 19, 2017

This article describes common issues and solutions you might encounter when running through a DITAMAP transformation. If a DITA transformation results in errors or warnings, the information appears in the message panel at the bottom of the editor. The information includes the severity, description of the problem, the name of the resource, and the path of the resource.

## Types of errors

Severity - The first column displays the following icons that indicate the severity of the problem:

- Informational - The transformation encountered a condition of which you should be aware.
- Warning - The transformation encountered a problem that should be corrected.
- Error - The transformation encountered a more severe problem, and the output is affected or cannot be generated.

To help prevent and solve DITA transformation problems, follow these steps:

## Webhelp transformation

If your webhelp transformation fails, check for the following:

- Empty cross-references
- Unordered lists with all list items filtered out
- All content filtered out
- Elements out of place (for example: bold element outside a paragraph)
- Paragraph elements out of place
- Table formatting (for example: deleted cells/rows. Make sure the tags are both deleted.)

Run a Validate for Completeness command

## PDF transformation

If your PDF transformation fails, check for the following:

- An existing PDF for the same map or topic is already open.
- All content filtered out