DITA Knowledge Base

The DITA Knowledge Base pages provide a reliable basis of technical and educational information on the standard.

XML.org (2006). Resources>Information Design>XML>DITA

Myths About Technical Writing

When you start working with DITA, there are some things that you may feel you need for traditional reasons that you won't find in DITA. Before you try to modify or specialize DITA, it may be worthwhile to rethink some technical writing practices that are outdated and not recommended today.

Doyle, Bob. XML.org (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>DITA

The Wisdom of Crowds Meets the Wisdom of Authors: How XML Enables the Semantic Web

Combining semantic markup with a granular authoring approach like DITA holds a lot of promise for content creators and consumers alike. Content becomes easy to define and even easier to discover. The combination also holds a lot of promise for the future of the Semantic Web itself. In fact, creating the Semantic Web might be as easy as authoring content in DITA.

Wlodarczyk, Paul. XML.org (2008). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>XML

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

Improving Relationships in Relationship Tables

While topic relationships can be stored in the topics themselves, as products evolve and user interfaces change, a topic that was required for release 1.0 of a product may no longer be needed in release 2.3. If related topics are maintained at the topic level, removing a topic that is no longer part of the system may involve modifying the related topics of a dozen different DITA files.

Binder, Zachary. XML.org (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Evaluating DITA-Enabled Content Management Systems  

This presentation describes how authoring DITA topics and managing those topics in a content management system (CMS) will contain translation costs while improving overall information quality. This is not a recommendation for any particular product. It is a guide to how one group built their candidate list and computes return on investment.

Adams, Ann H. XML.org (2007). Presentations>Content Management>DITA>Assessment

Introduction to the DITA Maturity Model

One of DITA’s most attractive features is its support for incremental adoption: you can adopt DITA quickly and easily using a subset of its capabilities, and then add investment over time as your content strategy evolves and expands. However, this incremental continuum has also resulted in confusion, as communities at different stages of adoption claim radically different numbers for cost of migration and return on investment. The DITA Maturity Model addresses this confusion by dividing DITA adoption into six levels, each with its own required investment and associated return on investment. You can assess your own capabilities and goals relative to the model and choose the appropriate initial adoption level for your needs and schedule.

Doyle, Bob. XML.org (2009). Articles>Information Design>Planning>DITA