The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables. The extensibility of DITA permits organizations to define specific information structures and still use standard tools to work with them. DITA is often compared against DocBook, a similar XML schema.
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Many people see DITA architecture as a shortcut to avoiding content modeling. O'Keefe warns readers against this mistake.
O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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You’ve read all the papers on ROI for XML and you get it. You’ve already concluded that moving to DITA will save you tons of time and money. But management says prove it. This paper helps you determine the cost portion of the ROI calculation. What are my costs now? What will my new costs be with DITA? And what is the difference—my savings? This white paper is the first in the DITA Metrics series. The series will discuss cost metrics, reuse metrics, and a reuse strategy. This paper describes one model for calculating the cost of a DITA project. After doing some content analysis on your own documentation, you can customize this cost model to suit your documentation project. In the end, you should be able to speak the financial language of managers and prove to them in dollar signs the value of moving to DITA.
Lewis, Mark A. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
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Publishing DITA Without the DITA Open Toolkit: A Trend or a Temporary Detour?
I'm starting to wonder whether the adoption rate of DITA and the DITA Open Toolkit is going to diverge. Widespread adoption of DITA leads to a a sort of herd effect with safety in numbers. Not so for the Open Toolkit.
Scriptorium (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Where I Stand on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
DITA provides the ability to chunk information, to deliver selected topics in a variety of compilations and output to various formats. It allows the passing back and forth of this content among authors regardless of tools. My hesitation with DITA has only been that it’s too early to adopt. But I believe the turning point has come.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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As an independent consultant working mainly with small businesses I find that my clients are reluctant to commit to DITA for a number of reasons. As DITA authoring tools become more user-friendly and more readily available some of these barriers will begin to fade. But in general terms, the more DITA tools that become available, and the easier they become to use, the better for everyone.
Farbey, David. Blockhead Blog, The (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Does Single Sourcing Content Work?
One of the more popular posts on this blog is titled DITA is not the answer and, whilst things are certainly moving forward, it’s a little sad that it is still valid. A recent comment on that post suggested that it’s not just DITA that is lacking, it’s the working realities of single source that is flawed.
McLean, Gordon. One Man Writes (2009). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>DITA
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It’s hard to go to a content management or publishing technology conference these days without there being a presentation on DITA — the Darwinian Information Typing Architecture. For the uninitiated, DITA is an XML architecture for authoring and publishing topic-based content, typically technical documentation. The brainchild of IBM, where it is used internally for many documentation projects, DITA is now an open-source standard under the aegis of OASIS.
Hondros, Constantine. O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
DITA supports the proper construction of specialized DTDs from any higher-level DTD or schema. The base DTD is ditabase DTD, which contains an archetype topic structure and three additional peer topics that are typed specializations from the basic topic: concept, task, and reftopic. The principles of specialization and inheritance resemble the principle of variation in species proposed by Charles Darwin. So the name reminds us of the key extensibility mechanism inherent in the architecture.
Day, Don, Michael Priestley and Gretchen Hargis. IBM (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Using DITA XML for Instructional Documentation 
Why DITA XML? Open standard and built-in with OpenTopic. Very specific schema. Helps clarify documentation.
Thomas, Andrew. Adobe (2005). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
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An XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
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, allowing groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while at the same time reusing common output transforms and design rules. We discuss several methods that can be used to extend DITA's basic topic types.
Day, Don, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley, David Schell and Nancy Harrison. WritersUA (2004). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
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Creating Documentation With A Wiki: The DITA Storm Project
DITA is natural. Do XML/DITA conversion research now. Wiki is especially good for iterative writing. Structured wiki authoring in coming.
Abel, Scott. SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Documentation>Wikis>DITA
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What are your thoughts on whether wikis could be used for end-user technical documentation? I'd imagine that a more structured wiki based on DITA content (which may have already been created for end-users) might work well for technical documentation. Have you seen any good examples? I'd love to see a well-done example.
Gentle, Anne. BMC Software (2008). Articles>Content Management>Wikis>DITA
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The Most Important Questions About DITA
DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based information architecture. DITA doesn’t reinvent the wheel – rather, it sets standards for known structuring requirements. One very attractive aspect of this architecture is its clear alignment to a structuring method that has proved itself for years in online documentation. The basis of this method is the division of the content into modules called TOPICS. Today, this structuring method is considered the ideal approach for the organisation of comprehensive contents. As with everything new, there are many questions about DITA.
Closs, Sissi. Content Manager (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Strategies for Driving Down the Cost of Product Documentation: Wikis and DITA
The process of creating and maintaining product documentation is, like most other business processes, under pressure to reduce costs, reduce cycle times, and support companies as they compete on a more global scale; in general, the need to do more with less. How are companies to address these conflicting needs? The purpose of this white paper is to identify specific processes that can be enhanced to yield meaningful efficiencies and several strategies for attaining such improvements.
Info Pros (2007). Articles>Documentation>Wikis>DITA
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DITA: The Mechanics of a Single-Sourcing Project
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This paper describes how DITA-based documentation was implemented at CEDROM-SNi, one of Canada's leading on-line news content aggregators. The project delivers documentation as diverse as user training materials and Web Services reference guides targeted to programmers. We focus on the benefits, how tos, and lessons learned. Technical documentation has its own unique challenges. Its deliverables range from simple reference guides and educational material to complex, multilingual procedure manuals. Critical success factors of a documentation project are numerous and diverse – usability, deadlines, cost, language, delivery media (paper, online) – all of which have their own purpose and challenges. This paper discusses these issues and provides a framework for future DITA projects.
Baril, France. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>DITA
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DocBook versus DITA: Will the Real Standard Please Stand Up?
More than a decade ago DocBook became the standard for the few brave souls forging ahead in XML publications. DocBook offered a cheaper and more efficient way to publish to multiple formats. Single-sourcing became a reality for hardware and software companies. However, in recent years, many in technical documentation publications have proclaimed DITA as the standard for XML documentation. DITA offered architecture in which to create and publish structured content. Are these two seemingly rival standards really that different? This article from Teresa Mulvihill answers this question with comparative examples, and allows you, the audience, to decide for yourselves.
Mulvihill, Teresa. Data Conversion Laboratory (2008). Articles>Documentation>DocBook>DITA
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DITA Conversions and Dynamic Personalized Content: Interview with Ann Rockley
In an interview with Diane Wieland, Ann Rockley and Steve Manning of The Rockley Group discuss some new ideas related to XML and DITA conversion. They share their thoughts on dynamic personalized content delivery and component content management, which is the topic of an upcoming CMS Watch report that Rockley is co-authoring.
Wieland, Diane. Data Conversion Laboratory (2007). Articles>Content Management>Personalization>DITA
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Lovely DITA, Meta Maid, Ready-made Metadata
Since adaptation and reuse are core ideas of DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture), perhaps we'll be forgiven if we adapt and reuse old Beatles standards to explain the newest XML standards (hey, maybe it's the only way to make XML sound catchy). DITA is an IBM gift to the technical documentation community that was approved as a standard this spring by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the hosts for many XML interchange standards such as ebXML. Ever since, tech writers have been buzzing about an easier way to get into structured topic-based writing with DITA XML and asking XML Editor vendors to add support for DITA.
Doyle, Bob. EContent (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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All About Output from DITA Maps
Using Adobe FrameMaker 9, one can save a DITA Map in various formats depending on one’s requirements. It could be intermediary output, like – FrameMaker Book/Document; or it can be final output, like – Print/PDF.
Adobe (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA
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Using DITA for Publishing Documentation in Eclipse Help Format
This article discusses main challenges that documentation team faces when it decides to use DITA as a source format for Eclipse Help documentation. It also explains how DITAworks documentation tool plans to address these challenges.
DITAworks (2009). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA
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Authoring Eclipse Help Using DITA
This page contains information about how to use DITA for authoring Eclipse Help.
Eclipsepedia (2007). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>DITA
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The Xquery Language and the DITA Open Toolkit
Xquery is a powerful query language designed specifically for XML content. It can be used for querying, processing, manipulation, and transformation of xml content. This presentation demonstrates how Xquery can be used to add to the feature set of the Dita Open Toolkit by introducing automatic glossary processing.
XML.org (2009). Presentations>Information Design>XSL>DITA
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Modifying DITA Open Toolkit Build Files for CSH
This procedure is used to modify the DITA Open Toolkit build files to allow an external map file reference and alias strings to be added to the HTML Help Project file before building, as part of the transformation to Microsoft HTML Help (CHM) format.
Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2008). Articles>Information Design>Software>DITA
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Technical Communication: DITA specialization using FrameMaker
Specialization is the process by which new designs are created based on existing designs, allowing new kind of content to be processed using existing processing rules.Specialization allows you to define new kinds of information (new structural types or new domains of information), while reusing as much of existing design and code as possible, and minimizing or eliminating the costs of interchange, migration, and maintenance.
Adobe (2009). Articles>Information Design>DITA>Adobe FrameMaker
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How to Use Ditaval Filtering ?
Adobe FrameMaker 9 allows to use Ditaval based filtering of content while producing following output from a DITA Map. For using the Ditaval filtering with FrameMaker, first create a ditaval file specifying the filtering criteria and then select this ditaval file while producing the output.
Adobe (2009). Articles>Information Design>DITA>Adobe FrameMaker
