Building a Bridge: DITA, DocBook, and ODF

Some folks here are taking a very strong look at DITA. I'm certainly one of them. But we also have a huge legacy of documents in Solbook format (Sun's subset of DocBook). There are tools for editing such documents, and tools for processing them. and there are many people who are comfortable with those tools. So DITA isn't going to replace the world, just yet. But DITA makes extensive reuse possible. It's a format with a serious future, because "reuse" is a very big deal. It lets you single-source your information content so have one place to make an edit. That sort of thing becomes important when you have multiple revisions of a product, and/or multiple variations. It becomes important when different tools and different products use the same information in different ways. It can drastically improve quality, ensure uniformity of presentation. Finally, structured formats like DITA and DocBook create the kind of consistently-tagged information that allows for useful automation.

Armstrong, Eric. Sun Microsystems (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Choosing an XML Schema

DocBook and DITA both have their places. They're both excellent for single sourcing. DocBook is better for what I call monolithic single sourcing, while DITA is better suited for discrete single sourcing.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Information Design>DocBook>DITA

Choosing an XML Schema: DocBook or DITA?

If you follow the latest trends or have been to a conference recently, you may find the idea of choosing an XML schema puzzling. Isn't the question really, 'How should I customize DITA to do what I want'? While there are many good reasons to choose DITA, it's not the only schema in town.

Hamilton, Richard. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Information Design>DocBook>DITA

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. The architecture and a related DTD and a W3C-Schema was developed by IBM.

Wikipedia. Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML)

DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains based on existing types and domains. This allows groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while still sharing common output transforms and design rules developed for more general types and domains.

Cover Pages (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

A Day at the DITA CIDM Conference

I went to the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 conference (put on by CIDM), which took place in Santa Clara last week. While I went to support our co-founder's speech on DocBook versus DITA, I also used this opportunity to catch up with software vendors and single-source users. Here's my top #10 take-away list.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA Backlash?

I have seen a couple of blog postings lately that underscore the statement that DITA is not for everyone or for every situation.

Rockley Group, The (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA for DocBook

If you line DocBook and DITA up, I think DITA can point to four technical differences that are arguably features in its favor.

Walsh, Norman. DITA for DocBook. Articles>Information Design>DocBook>DITA

DITA Maturity Model  

You will better understand how DITA can support your organization and how it can scale to meet your enterprise content needs by first understanding the basics of DITA standardization.

Priestley, Michael and Amber Swope. Just Systems (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA--A Standard for TD?  

The abbreviation DITA stands for 'Darwin Information Typing Architecture', an information architecture based on XML. DITA is not a mere reinvention of the wheel: rather, it sets the standards for known structuring requirements. The most striking feature of this architecture is the clear orientation towards a technology for structuring, which has already proved its worth in online documentation.

Closs, Sissi. tekom (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA: From the Perspective of Someone Actually Using It

In this podcast, Marlene Martineau of New Dawn Technologies explains why they adopted DITA, how they adopted it, the benefits they're experiencing, and the reasons why she'll never go back.

Martineau, Marlene. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA: Opportunities To Help Shape The Standard, Promote DITA Adoption, Develop Real-World Solutions

Want to get involved in the formation of one of the most important XML standards impacting content professionals? You can. And, you should. The folks at OASIS—the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards—have made it easy for just about anyone to participate.

Content Wrangler, The. Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DocBook and DITA Editors: Is Their Future Online?

Thanks to my Google News Alert service, I recently discovered some on-demand XML Editors supporing DITA. While Salesforce democratized software on-demand in the CRM market, I am still perplexed on the future of on-demand pure play software. So let's see first what makes on-demand software, also known as Saas (Software as a Service), so attractive nowadays. I see five compelling reasons.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>Software>DITA

Frequently Asked Questions about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture

DITA experts Don Day, Michael Priestley, and Gretchen Hargis address the topic architecture of DITA, tips and techniques, and general DITA questions.

Day, Don, Michael Priestley and Gretchen Hargis. IBM (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Introduction to DITA References

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.

Prescod, Paul. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating 'information-typed' modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web. This document is a roadmap for DITA: what it is and how it applies to technical documentation.

IBM (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Moving from Information Mapping to DITA    

Is your company making the move from Information Mapping to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture)? The author compares and contrasts the two methods and shares insight on how to ease the pain of switching from one to the other.

Hughes, Michael A. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Subsetting and Customizing DITA

This article explores ideas related to subsetting and customizing the DITA specification without the addition of new elements. Instead, we explore taking default rules and adapting them to meet the needs of specific writing and publishing environments. Introductory information about the DITA specification and the difference between subsetting and specialization is provided.

Aschwanden, Bernard. Publishing Smarter (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Transforming Documentation from the XML Doctypes Used for the Apache Website to DITA: A Case Study  

A primary factor behind the enormous interest in XML is the support it provides for transforming documents to meet the needs of information-processing applications as well as human readers working with HTML, print, and other presentation media. This case study reviews the issues we confronted, the tools we implemented, and the procedures we adopted to transform a documentation set from one XML document type to another, and from XML to HTML and Adobe PDF. The documentation set for Xalan, the Apache XSL transformer based largely on code donated by Lotus/IBM, is written in XML, using document types shared by the projects on the Apache XML website. To present Xalan reference releases to IBM project groups, the Cambridge Advanced Technology Group has set up build procedures to transform the Xalan XML documentation to DITA, an extensible XML information typing architecture currently under development in IBM. After verifying that the DITA output conforms to its declared document type, the build publishes the DITA documentation set as HTML and as PDF.

Leslie, Donald M. Cover Pages (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

The What, Why, How, and Where of DITA  

Is DITA right for your organization? This article provides a starting point for your own research on DITA.

Steiner, Rob. Intercom (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

I'm not Technical. Why Should I Bother to Learn DocBook or DITA?

First of all, understand that you don’t have to learn it. Every year more and more toolds come out that help place a layer between you and the native XML. In a few years time you will hardly even realise there is XML underneath.

Technical Writer (2006). Articles>Information Design>DocBook>DITA

Getting Started with DITA

A brief overview for a couple of fellow Austin writers who have asked me recently how and where to get started with DITA.

Gentle, Anne. Just Write Click (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Linking DITA Topics Through Relationship Tables

DITA provides a powerful means of linking using relationship tables. The benefit of using a relationship table is the ability to create and maintain links in one place with the map rather than in the topics. Links can be created both between topics of the same information type and between topics of different information types that are not directly related through parent/child relationships. Therefore, the best practice for linking in DITA is to use a relationship table within a map.

Bruski, Kylene. Center for Information-Development Management (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Specializing Topic Types in DITA

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides a way for documentation authors and architects to create collections of typed topics that can be easily assembled into various delivery contexts. Topic specialization is the process by which authors and architects can define topic types, while maintaining compatibility with existing style sheets, transforms, and processes. The new topic types are defined as an extension, or delta, relative to an existing topic type, thereby reducing the work necessary to define and maintain the new type.

Priestley, Michael. IBM (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Migrating HTML to DITA, Part 1: Simple Steps to Move from HTML to DITA

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) has emerged as a standard topic-oriented document architecture. DITA holds many advantages over information authored directly in HTML, including better reuse, easily changed presentation styles, and easy single sourcing. This article, the first of two parts, explains how to get a quick start with DITA using HTML topics that are already available. It shows you how to use the provided XSLT transform to do the migration, and examines what is needed to ensure quality results.

Anderson, Robert, Don Day and Erik Hennum. IBM (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA