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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T08:12:12+00:00

I am using DITA OT for transforming the XML into xhtml. My xsl looks

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I am using DITA OT for transforming the XML into xhtml. My xsl looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE some_name [ 
<!ENTITY nbsp "&#160;"> 
]>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
 xmlns:saxon="http://icl.com/saxon" extension-element-prefixes="saxon">


 <xsl:import href="../map2xhtmtoc.xsl"/>
 <!--<xsl:import href="result-doc.xsl"/>-->
 <!--<xsl:import href="custom-ecollege-dita2xhtml.xsl"/>-->
 <xsl:output name="html" method="html" indent="yes" encoding="UTF-8"/>

 <!-- Define a newline character -->
 <xsl:variable name="newline">
  <xsl:text>
  </xsl:text>
 </xsl:variable>

 <xsl:template match="/">
    <html>
    <head>
      <body>
          <xsl:apply-templates select="myProduct"/>
      </body>
    </head>
    </html>
 </xsl:template>
 <!--other templates goes here-->
 <div class="floatRight"/>
 <div class="headerSeparator">
  <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&amp;nbsp;</xsl:text>
 </div>
 </xsl:template>

 </xsl:stylesheet>

Now If I tried to execute this xsl against my xml for xhtml transformation using DITA OT jar cmd.

java -jar .\lib\dost.jar /i:samples/mycompany/myContent/myContent.ditamap /transtype:xhtml /xsl:xsl/mycompany/custom-map2xhtml.xsl

After executing the above command, I am getting the following error.

[xslt] D:\DITA-OT1.5.2\xsl\mycompany\custom-map2xhtm.xsl:21: Fatal Error! When 'standalone' or 'doctype-system' is specified, the document must be well-formed; but this document contains a top-level text node
[xslt] Failed to process null

Am breaking my head to find out why this error is occuring.

Thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team
    this document contains a top-level text node

    Can you show us the end of the XSLT stylesheet? Is there some text after the final </xsl:stylesheet>? That would cause this error.

    Update

    As Dimitre pointed out, the <xsl:template> start/end tags are unbalanced, so unless you’re only showing part of your XSLT, that has to be fixed.

    However, I agree with @Tim C that you probably don’t really want a DOCTYPE declaration at all in your XSLT. You’re not trying to use the &nbsp; entity in the stylesheet, you’re just trying to emit one. So if you removed the DOCTYPE statement from your stylesheet, you would lose nothing.

    Moreover, contra @Tim, there is no need for a DOCTYPE to declare the nbsp entity in the output HTML, because it’s already predefined in HTML.

    Finally, I would differ with @Tim on the method for outputting a non-breaking space in the HTML. Disable-output-escaping is almost always the wrong approach, and is due to a lack of understanding of how parsing and serialization work. The easiest way to output a non-breaking space character in XSLT is to use a numeric entity directly:

    <div class="headerSeparator">&#160;</div>

    This will output a non-breaking space.

    “But,” you say, “I want it to output &nbsp;!”

    That may happen; when output-method=”html”, serialization may use the character entities built in to HTML to express characters like this. Or the serialization could use &#160; or simply embed a non-breaking space character directly. All are legal HTML, and all are equivalent. The question for you, then, is why do you want it serialized as &nbsp; as opposed to some other equivalent?

    If I’ve misunderstood what you’re trying to do, please explain further, where you want &nbsp; to appear, and why that particular form matters.

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