Proceedings

Track: Late Breaking News, Publishing, Core Technologies

Audience Level: High Level/Technical view

Time: Tuesday, November 15 16:45

Keywords: DITA, Tutorial, Content Management, Topic-oriented Authoring

Abstract:

DITA is quickly becoming the dominant XML schema for topic-oriented authoring. DITA is a highly practical way of moving to XML authoring in general and granular content reuse in particular. DITA distinguishes itself from predecessor standards by explicitly rejecting the book paradigm in favour of a topic-oriented model. A topic is a single continuous narrative that should be written to be independently usable and understandable. Topics tend to be medium-sized objects with independent titles and metadata: more analogous to web pages or chapters than paragraphs or lists. Topic orientation has advantages for the reader and also for content creators. Readers prefer topic-oriented information because it can be read in bits. Furthermore, readers can choose their own paths through the content. Content creators like topic-oriented authoring because it can drastically reduce the amount of information they need to write across a complex modern product line consisting of compound products (like operating systems, product suites or automobiles) and subset products (like "light versions"). Instead of rewriting or copying and posting content, authors can mix and match topics to meet the needs of a particular product or audience.

This bibliography will discuss various references that will help you learn more about DITA.