Introduction to XML and Structured Authoring • Overview of DITA • Topics: The Basic Information Types • Maps: Assembling Topics into Deliverables • Common elements and attributes • Metadata • Examples and exercises

1. DITA Quick Start Workshop for
Authors: Part I
Joe Gelb
August 21, 2013

2. Who is this guy?
Joe Gelb
• Founder and President of Suite Solutions
Suite Solutions
Our Vision: Enable you to engage your customers by providing quick access to
relevant information: DITA provides the foundation
• Help companies get it right the first time
• XML-based Authoring/Publishing Solutions
• Enterprise Intelligent Dynamic Content: SuiteShare Social KB
• Consultancy, Systems Integration, Application Development
• Cross-Industry Expertise
• High Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Discrete Manufacturing
• Healthcare, Government
• Blue Chip Customer Base
• Hundreds of Person Years of Experience on Staff

3. Introduction to DITA:
Main Topics
Part I
• Introduction to XML
• Overview of DITA
Part II
• Topics: The Basic Information Types
• Maps: Assembling Topics into Deliverables
• Linking Methods

4. Why XML?
Challenges of documentation groups
• Multi-purpose documents for multiple
products, audiences, configurations, etc.
• Multi-channel publishing into many formats from the same
source
• Reduce localization and desktop publishing costs
• Reuse content for multiple documents, across the organization
and product lifecycle
• Provide more accessible, searchable, focused and updated
content to internal and external customers

5. Why XML?
• Helps us to better manage content
• Separates the formatting from the content
• Separates the structure from the content
• Separates the application from the content
• You and your content are independent of any vendor or
application
• No more expensive conversions
• World of standard tools available for use

6. Why XML?
• Allows authors to focus on writing, not formatting
• Permits multiple output formats to be applied to the same
content, automatically
• Allows you to add new outputs without affecting the authoring
process
• Allows content to be managed based on its hierarchical
structure
• Once an XML system is up and running, per-page costs can
drop dramatically

7. What is XML?
XML is based on SGML
Standard Generalized Markup Language
• Standard–Explicit, consistent, non-proprietary
• Generalized–Extensible, not limited to a particular implementation or
application
• Markup–“Tags” embedded within documents
• Language–defines content (elements, attributes) and their allowable
usage
• First version was GML in 1984
• SGML became an ISO Standard in 1986
• HTML was first used in 1994
(HyperText Markup Language)
• XML was recommended as an W3C standard in 1999

8. XML vs. SGML
• SGML and related standards are complex
• Contains features rarely used
• Difficult and expensive to implement
• XML is a subset of SGML
• XML is simpler yet offers most of the power of SGML
• Easier (and less expensive) to process
• About 90% of all SGML applications can easily transition to
XML

9. Introduction to XML
What is “markup”?
• Describes the content in the document:
• semantics vs. format
• Uses elements and attributes to do this
• Elements describe structure
<task> <step> <figure> <result>
• Attributes give more information about the content
<task id=“T123” audience=“technician”>
• Each element has an open and close tag
<caution>Stay awake!</caution>

10. Introduction to XML
Which markup can you use?
• Can use elements and attributes which have been defined in the DTD
(Document Type Definition) or Schema
• A parser is a computer program that validates that the markup follows
the DTD/schema
• The parser is used during authoring, importing, exporting, publishing
• Makes sure the documents follow the rules of the standard

11. Introduction to XML
Which markup can you use?
• An XML standard is a set of elements and attributes that everyone
agrees to use
• If your documents follow the standard, then you can use all the tools
that work with that standard
• Widely used standards:
• DITA
• S1000D, SCORM
• ATA2100, iSpec 2200
• Docbook

12. SGML, HTML, and XML in Context
Bill Wheat, Delta Airlines

13. Moving from Format to Structure
Bill Wheat, Delta Airlines

14. XML: Visualizing Structure
Bill Wheat, Delta Airlines

15. XML: Visualizing Structure
Bill Wheat, Delta Airlines

16. XML: Visualizing Structure
Bill Wheat, Delta Airlines

17. Structure
Rules
Presentation
Rules
(Style Sheet)
Document
Instance
Presentation
Content, Structure, Presentation
• Document Type Definition (DTD)
• Schema
• XML
• Media, graphics
• XSL
• XSL-FO
• CSS
• PDF
• HTML
• DOCX
• SVG
• …

18. Introduction to DITA:
Main Topics
 Introduction to XML
• Overview of DITA
• Topics: The Basic Information Types
• Maps: Assembling Topics into Deliverables
• Linking Methods

19. Overview of DITA
• Darwin Information Typing Architecture
• Topic-based information development
• Not just a DTD: an architecture for designing, authoring, managing
and reusing content
• OASIS standard
• Open Toolkit (DITA-OT) for producing outputs: multi-channel
publishing

20. Overview of DITA
• Facilitates categorization, minimalization, with semantic tagging
 Minimalization = including information in a technical document
only when and where it is useful
• Facility for customization within the standard: specialization (based on
inheritance, thus Darwin)
• Open Source: DTDs, schemas, DITA Open Toolkit are free
• Active user and development community

21. Topic-Based Content
• Topics
• Each topic answers a single question
• Only enough information to understand one
concept, perform one procedure or provide one set of
reference information
• Maps
• Assemble topics into deliverables using DITA Maps
• Define relationships between topics in relationship tables

22. DITA Facilitates Reuse
• Assemble topics into deliverables
• Reference topic elements within other topics: conrefs
(content references)
• Conditionalize content within topics using conditional attributes
• Filter content based on conditions to get multi-purpose outputs
(conditional processing)
• Manage links separately from the content using relationship tables

23. Typical DITA Toolset
Content Management
System
Manuals
Mobile
Help
Automated Publishing
- DITA Open Toolkit
- DITA Accelerator
CMS
XML Authoring
Web Help
Localization
Management
Bridge to LSPs
SME Review
On-demand
Dynamic Docs
- SuiteShare
- LiveContent
Arbortext Editor

24. Introduction to DITA:
Main Topics
 Introduction to XML
 Overview of DITA
• Topics: The Basic Information Types
• Maps: Assembling Topics into Deliverables
• Linking Methods

25. DITA Quick Start
End of Part I
Join us for Part II
August 27, 2013
For additional information, contact:
Joe Gelb
solutions@suite-sol.com
U.S. Office EMEA Office
(609) 360-0650 +972-2-993-8054
www.suite-sol.com
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