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Automatic Validation in Markdown Documents

Markdown documents are validated automatically as you type. The conversion engine constantly tries to parse your changes to display the results in the Preview pane. If a change results in an error that prevents the parser from converting the syntax, an error message will be displayed in the DITA tab or in the Results view at the bottom of the editor.

Examples of the type of errors that will be reported include headers being in the wrong order or the syntax of a document begins with something other than a 1st level header.

Validating Markdown Documents with Schematron

It is possible to validate Markdown documents with Schematron rules. There are two ways to create an association between Markdown documents and Schematron files:
  • You can configure an association using the Markdown preferences page. You can specify a Schematron file to validate converted HTML content, as well as one to validate converted DITA content.
  • You can create a Schematron association for Markdown documents by adding a catalog mapping for one of the following URIs:
    • http://www.oxygenxml.com/schematron/validation/markdown-as-html - The obtained Schematron will be applied over HTML conversions.
    • http://www.oxygenxml.com/schematron/validation/markdown-as-dita - The obtained Schematron will be applied over DITA conversions.
    The catalog mapping is a fallback in case the Schematron validation is disabled in the Markdown preferences page or the path to the Schematron file is empty.
    Warning: If you are using a custom version of DITA-OT, the mapping information might not be generated properly, causing issues with the Schematron validation. For example, error locations may not be accurate or synchronization may fail.
Tip: Inside the samples folder, there is a schematron-validation folder with some files you can use to see how Schematron validation can be done with Markdown files. The path of the folder is: [OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/samples/markdown/schematron-validation/.