In this session, attendees will learn: What Lightweight DITA is The problems it is designed to solve in marketing, training, and software development use cases How it will work with existing DITA implementations How to decide if it is right for you

1. Cross-format, cross-silo:
Lightweight DITA for intelligent content

2. Who am I?
 OASIS Distinguished Contributor
 IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
 Architect of DITA 1.0, Editor of OASIS
DITA Specifications 1.0 and 1.1
 Co-chair of LWDITA subcommittee,
with Carlos Evia
 Career progression:
• Technical writer
• Information architect
• Tools/standards guy
• Enterprise content tech strategy
• Website product owner
• Marketing taxonomy lead
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3. Who are you?
 Do you DITA?
• Don’t even know what it is
• Know it, don’t want it
• Considering it
• Using it
 Is your content intelligent?
• Don’t know what that means
• Not by any definition
• Yes it is!
• People are intelligent not content. This
question is dumb.
 Are you cross-silo?
• Marketing
• Training
• Tech comm
• Dev/Engineering
• Support
 What are your formats?
• DITA
• Other XML
• Word
• Markdown
• HTML
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4. What is intelligent content?
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Structure
and
semantics
Separation of
structure
from format
•Discoverable
•Reusable
•Reconfigurable
•Adaptable

5. What did the intelligent content silo say to the other intelligent content silo?
5
?

6. How does DITA change things?
6
Structure
and
semantics
Separation of
structure
from format
•Discoverable
•Reusable
•Reconfigurable
•Adaptable
Separation
of content
from
context
It’s a
standard
Portable
Scalable

7. • Too many tags
• Too hard to customize
• Steep learning curve
Perceived complexity
• Software developers mostly used XML for data
• So when they switched to JSON, they decided XML was dead
• Bias against XML in favor of Markdown, HTML, or custom formats
It’s XML
Why isn’t DITA everywhere?

8. Simplify the
model
No longer
reliant on XML
semantics
Cross-format
content
standard
If we simplify, we can grow beyond XML

9. DITA
How does LWDITA change things?
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Word XML LWDITA
+Many types +Many formats
+Many outputs +Many collections

10. your project
your company
your content
ecosystem
Does cross-format matter to your team?
Define “team”

11. Developers Writing specs In Markdown
Published to
website,
product spec
sheet
Marketers Writing
overviews
In a web
CMS/HTML5
Published to
website,
product
brochure
Technical
writers
Writing
procedures
In an XML
editor
Published to
website,
product docs
Let’s say this is your team

12. Do your own
thing
Each group has its own
authoring tools and
website
Share content by copy
and paste
Let google pick the
winner!
Do somebody
else’s thing
Pick a winner yourself –
one authoring tool, one
website
Drink the salty tears of
the authors in the other
two groups
Or we could
work together
Authors have their choice
of tool and format
Delivery channels are
coordinated and
differentiated
Everyone’s a winner!
What are our options?

13. Integration across silos to
support collaboration
across teams
Integration of end-to-end
processes to enable
continuous delivery
Programmer
docs
User
docs
Marketing
content
Software
architect
Design
content
strategist
Content
marketing
strategist
Software
developer
Content
developer
Marketing
author
Deliver and
maintain
Plan and
design
Author and
reuse
Collaboration
Continuousdelivery
Integration and
Optimization

14. Day Year in the life of
a client
Discover
Learn
Try
Buy
Adopt
Advocate
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“What should
our strategy
be?”
“Is this an
industry trend?”
“How do IBM
products
support our
strategy?”
“Can I make this
work?”
“Has it worked
for others?”
“What deal makes
sense for our
requirements?”
“I need to get up
and running”
“I need to
update my
skills”
“How can I do
my job?”
“Help I’m stuck!”
“This is
awesome!”
“What’s next?”
Exec
Dev
Business
user
I need to improve
business performance
I need to
make
something that
will work for
my users
I need to
get results
Systems
Services
blogs
reports
events
samples
products
training
case
studies
support
webinar
related
register
chatpurchase
present
renew
chat
open
ticket

15. DITA 1.3 (all inclusive) LWDITA
26 document types 2 document types (topic, map)
• But more possible through specialization
621 element types 40 element types
• 33 from DITA 1.3
• 7 specialized for multimedia support (expected to
be in DITA 1.3 addendum)
• Again, more possible through specialization
1 format (XML) 3 formats (XML, HTML5, Markdown)
• We want to add more over time (JSON, Word...)
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Frog
By Diliff, CC BY 2.5,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=823649
By Brian Gratwicke, CC BY 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10697899

16. Which is right for you?
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Full DITA
• Advanced
features
• More flexibility
• Mature tooling
Lightweight DITA
• Start simple
• Eventually more
tooling options
• Don’t need XML
Both
• Collaboration
across enterprise
• Common tooling
components
• Cross-format
standard

17. Where are we today?
Tools
 Authoring
• Oxygen XML Editor, XML Author,
XML Web Author
• SimplyXML Content Mapper
• DITA-FMx plugin for FrameMaker
• Adobe AEM Web editor
 Publishing
• DITA-OT
• XML Mind DITA Converter
• Adobe AEM publishing
 https://wiki.oasis-
open.org/dita/LightweightDITASubcommittee/lwditatools
Guidance
 LWDITA Committee Note
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/LwDITA/v1.0/LwDITA-v1.0.html
 Creating Intelligent Content with
Lightweight DITA by Carlos Evia
https://www.routledge.com/Creating-Intelligent-
Content-with-Lightweight-
DTA/Evia/p/book/9780815393825
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18. Think ahead
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Single
sourcing
Modular reuse
Cognitive
Chatbots
Voice
Omnichannel
Future
friendly

19. How can you help?
 Reach beyond your silo
• Talk to marketing, engineering, training, support, sales...
 Represent your requirements
• Talk to your vendors about cross-silo requirements and standards
• Talk to your IT department about sharing tools/processes
 Review your options
• https://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/LightweightDITASubcommittee/lwditatools
 Track our status
• https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita-lightweight-dita
• https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4943862
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20. Got questions?
20

21. Backup
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22. Learning plan
Training
Product docs
Marketing
Sales
Course
Tutorial
Feature
overview
Steps
Tutorial
RFP
Feature
Benefits
Case study
Feature
overview
Business
benefits
Knowledge center product collection
Tutorial Feature Steps
Feature
Steps
Benefits

23. XDITA
• Based on a generic DITA XML
topic type (LwDITA 1.0)
• Limited constraints, but also
limited choices
• Allows single-sourcing, reuse,
and all that good stuff.
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24. XDITA example
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD LIGHTWEIGHT DITA Topic//EN" "lw-
topic.dtd">
<topic id="install-and-setup">
<title>Installing and Setting up Remote Lighting</title>
<shortdesc>Installation of your lighting kit includes installing the
light bulbs into light fixtures</shortdesc>
<body>
<p>The following video demonstrates a recommended installation:</p>
<video><media-controls /><video-poster value="remote-poster.jpg" />
<media-source value="remote.mp4" /></video>
</body>
</topic>
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25. 25
HDITA
• Based on HTML5
• Can be used for format and
presentation
• Allows single-sourcing, reuse,
and all that good stuff (using
HTML5 custom data attributes).

26. HDITA example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Low-Power Networking</title>
<article id="low-power-networking">
<h1>Low-Power Networking</h1>
<p>Network lighting operates at a low level of networking power
but can successfully connect at long distances because they can
send information from light bulb to light bulb.</p>
<p data-conref="disclaimers.dita#osha-disclaim/electrical"></p>
</article>
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27. MDITA
• Based on Github-Flavored
Markdown
• Does not need tags (core profile)
• Uses HDITA snippets for advanced
reuse features (extended profile).
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28. MDITA example
# Remote Control Components
The remote control has components that allow you to program and
operate the light bulbs on your lighting network.
## Disclaimer
<p data-conref="disclaimers.dita#osha-disclaim/electrical"></p>
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