DITA Authoring in
FrameMaker 8
Terry Smith
DITA/TECHCOMM
November 2008

About the presenter
Technical Consultant, Scriptorium Publishing,
based in Research Triangle Park, NC
FrameMaker 8 ACE
Authored updates to Publishing Fundamentals:
FrameMaker 8

Agenda
Overview of DITA support in FrameMaker
Authoring DITA topics
Organizing topics with a DITA map
Generating HTML output
Producing quality PDF files

DITA features
FrameMaker 8 supports DITA 1.0.
The DITA menu is dedicated to authoring DITA
files. This presentation primarily describes how
to use the features in this menu.
You can create PDF from your DITA files using
features available from the DITA menu.
A free plug-in lets you generate online output
from the DITA menu, too.

Authoring DITA topics
Instead of selecting File > New, select options
from the DITA menu.
There are four basic topic types:
Topic (the generic topic that can contain other
topics)
Task
Concept
Reference

Errors in DITA topics
Sometimes, FrameMaker displays red text when
it encounters something it can’t deal with in a
DITA file. Usually, the problem is that you have
opened a file that has been formatted to look
pretty (“pretty print”) in an XML editor such as
Oxygen.

Adding cross-references
You can use Assign ID to Element before
adding a cross-reference.
There are two types of cross-references you
can use, xref and fm-xref.
The xref element is the standard DITA element
and is similar to an HTML href. The fm-xref can
use the FrameMaker cross-reference formats.

Reusing content with conrefs
Conref elements let you reuse an element from
another topic (or even from the same topic).
Similar to a text inset.
Both elements (the source and the target) must
be the same kind of element.

Indexing DITA topics
By default, FrameMaker adds both the
indexterm element and an index marker.
You can change this default in the DITA
Options dialog box.

Organizing topics with a DITA
map
Create your topics first.
Add topicref elements to point to your DITA
files. You can change the order and hierarchy in
the DITA map.
The DITA map can include metadata.

Adding related topics
If you want to include related topics in your
HTML, create a reltable in the DITA map file.
The related topics don’t appear in PDF output.

Setting DITA options
Usually, the default options are fine.
You don’t need to change the application files
unless you create your own DITA application
files.
The Conditionalize Prolog on File Open option
can cause extra blank pages when you create a
FrameMaker file.

Producing PDF files from the
DITA map
Create a one-off FrameMaker book or
document from the DITA map.
Add table of contents, title page, and so on.
Generate the PDF file.
When you need to make changes to the
content, edit your DITA topics, not the one-off
FrameMaker files.

Generating online output
If you haven’t already, install the DITA Open
Toolkit and the FrameMaker plug-in that adds
the Generate Output menu option.
Generate either HTML or CHM.
Not pretty enough? Edit the CSS files.

Contact information
Scriptorium Publishing
Research Triangle Park, NC, USA
www.scriptorium.com
tsmith@scriptorium.com
919-481-2701, x113