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Computerworld - DITA uses XML as the basis for designing, writing, managing and publishing many kinds of information, both in print and on the Web. DITA includes a set of design principles for creating “information-typed” modules covering specific topics. The adoption of DITA principles facilitates adapting this type of content for a wide variety of delivery vehicles and uses, including integrated help systems, technical documentation, Web-based product-support portals and instructions.

The Elements of DITA

A strength of DITA is its ability to be extended to cover new areas of knowledge through specific, targeted document type definitions. DITA also enables the reuse of common design rules and output operations while reducing or eliminating redundancy. This is important, since it allows DITA-based topic-oriented content to be adapted to different formats and uses as new features and delivery channels are developed. For example, a material safety data sheet, an instruction document and an encyclopedia article might all be produced from a single common reference topic.

DITA has a number of features to help with the organization and integration of information.

Topic orientation: DITA is organized around the notion of the topic, defined as a unit of information that describes a single task, concept or reference item, or a chunk of information organized around a single subject. Within the DITA architecture, there are three types of topics: concept, task and reference. These are very useful for complex technical documentation where much of the material falls logically into one of these topic types.

The topic is the highest standard structure in DITA. Any structure greater in scope than a topic is usually part of the processing context for a topic, such as a print organizing structure or the navigation system for a set of topics. DITA topics have no hierarchical nesting; any internal organization relies on sections that define or directly support the topic.

The basic building block of DITA is an XML document type definition (DTD) called the topic DTD. A DITA topic has a title, a short description and a descriptive body. Here’s what a DITA concept topic definition looks like:



<concept id=”simpleconcept”>

  <title>The DITA concept topic</title>

  <shortdesc>This type of topic provides background or orientation.</shortdesc>

  <conbody>



DITA maps: To collect and organize references to DITA topics and indicate relationships among topics, DITA uses a simple mapping mechanism. DITA maps can identify the topics in a document and create tables of contents and related links. Maps can organize topics into hierarchies, tables and groups. Multiple maps can create different products from the same set of topics and can help separate the concerns of managing output and structuring information from the concerns of topic authoring. Here’s an example of a DITA map: