The nuts and bolts of applying DITA to your documentation
Introduction
DITA is just like a Lego system. It defines the content of documents in the form of topics and maps. A DITA topic represents information that can stand alone and be reused, just like a piece of Lego. A DITA map is like a TOC that combines references to different DITA topics in a specific hierarchy to form a required document deliverable (like a finished Lego house).
The question that comes to mind is why it takes so much hassle when you are about to start working in DITA or trying to implement DITA in your enterprise.
DITA XML is a form of structured content that is optimized to create, reuse, translate, and publish documentation quickly by using topics and maps. DITA XML is also a community-maintained open standard.
There’s a lot of unpacking in that definition, so we’re going to dissect it into a series of smaller questions.
Source: Learning Solutions
What is meant by the reuse of near-identical information?
As the picture above shows, DITA-based content is divided into topics. These topics are mapped, just like in a table of contents. Therefore, these topics are independent and to be used multiple times in different documents. It is done by the use of conditional coding.
Conditional coding
Topics are reused by applying conditional coding. For this purpose, standard attributes are added that are provided by DITA. These attributes are part of the DITA schema, so they can’t be changed. Values are also set along with attributes. These values can be edited as per the requirements.
In Oxygen, condition coding includes the set of values selected for an attribute. The ones that are not selected are excluded.
Can DITA optimize the production of different outputs?
Structured documentation in DITA is a one-stop solution for producing the same document with different conditions. To illustrate, a set of conditions can be defined for the users of a specific operating system and a different set of conditions for others. These differences in outputs can be addressed by applying conditional coding with flagging.
Conditional coding with flagging
Conditional coding with flagging is used to highlight elements that are intended for different outputs. The ditaval <prop> element with the action= “flag” attribute is used for flagging with the help of conditional attributes. This allows the element to be highlighted with color, text styles, images, etc. for different outputs. In addition, the rev attribute and rev flagging can be used to flag a specific revision of the product.
DITA is a brilliant implementation of structured authoring, incorporating single-sourcing, content sharing and reuse, and conditional processing as core technological elements. Conditional processing is at the heart of content specificity, and metadata is its control mechanism.
Grasping the relationship between metadata and filtering is one of the “aha!” experiences we have along the road from a linear narrative to structured authoring. It is a little epiphany that suddenly propels us forward in our efforts to get the most benefit from technology.
Further, it makes our authoring jobs a bit easier, a lot more productive, and yes, even fun. But as you might guess, that’s not quite everything. For your DITA implementation or consulting requirements, reach out to our expert XSLT and XML development team.
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DITA has gained widespread adoption in the technical documentation world among companies such as Cisco, IBM (of course), Nokia, and Oracle. But DITA adoption isn’t exclusive to high tech. Boeing and the U.S. Veterans Health Administration both participate on DITA committees. DITA adoption has lagged in the training development world, however, which is not surprising given DITA’s initial focus on technical publications and not instructional content.
Here are some reasons to understand the importance of having a DITA as a structured document authoring tool.
1. Reusability of documents: You can reuse the topic or a document as many times as you want without rewriting or copy-paste. You can just include the topic reference, and you are done. Also, if there is any change made in the parent document, it will automatically reflect in all other places as well.
2. Extensibility: You are welcome to create and suggest new topic types that can be used generally, as DITA is just an XML specification to the committee, and it might get added.
3. Styling concerns: Since the styling developed can be used throughout the publishing process regardless of the document itself, you can work in parallel without worrying about writing and editing.
4.Version control: With DITA, it is like breezing through to track the changes made, who made them, undo changes, retrieve old versions, compare old versions to current or older versions, and many more.
DITA, also known as Darwin Information Typing Architecture, is the best way to be smart about writing and publishing your business content. It’s a structured authoring method based on the DITA Open Toolkit tool that describes the architecture for creating and managing topic-based content.
All in all, DITA is a document format that aims to separate content, context, and presentation with ease so that you can focus on the core work. It is so because it reduces time, cost, and effort while creating content and putting it across accurately.
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