To DITA or not to DITA?

Mathew VargheseContent Architect, Citrix

Agenda

• Creating DITA topics• Generating output using DITA Open Toolkit• Profiling using ditaval• Altering style sheets

Misinformation!

•Long, boring, and highly theoretical

•Demos will not work!• Lots of Q&A to keep you awake :D

CREATING DITA TOPICS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture

Adopting DITA Entails

• Understanding topic-based writing

• Understanding minimalism• Greater emphasis on information architecture

In short, good writing practices.

Adopting DITA Does Not Entail

• Learning XML• Coding and/or working on a CLI

In short, no drastic change.

DITA makes you a better writer

AND

Provides alternate career opportunities

DITA Building Blocks

TopicsConceptTaskReference

MapsDitamapBookmap

DITA Building Blocks

C

C

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Creating DITA Topics

AnalyzeAnalyzeAnalyze again!

Extend the DITA Information Model

Content Strategy - Later

Get the right specs

Understand Semantic Tagging

FrameMaker vs. DITA

Get the Right Specs

• Language Specification• http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/langspec

/ditaref-type.html

• Architecture Specification• http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/archspec

/archspec.html

Extend the DITA Information Model

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C

Extend the DITA Information Model

CC

C

Analyze, analyze, and analyze again!

Audience Analysis

Task Analysis

DITA Topics

Every DITA topic should map to a unique objective.

Content Strategy - Later

The Paradigm

Shift

Semantic Tagging

Build your

tagging scheme

FrameMaker and DITA

FrameMaker DITA

Book Map

Chapter Topic

Conditional text Ditaval

SaveAs PDF, XML,….. DITA OT

Please, don’t hit me!

FrameMaker is a tool and DITA is an information architecture. FrameMaker supports DITA.

GENERATING OUTPUT

Install DITA OThttp://sourceforge.net/projects/dita-ot/

Quick, Dirty, out-of-the-box!

ant -f samples\ant_sample\sample_pdf.xml

Using ANT

Using the JAVA Command Line

java -jar lib/dost.jar /i:samples/sequence.ditamap /outdir:out /transtype:xhtml

Using the DITA OT GUI

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ditaotgui/

Using Your Editing Tool

PROFILING USING DITAVAL

Tips

•Profile sparingly•Always plan for negative conditions

•Publish profiling rules

Pillar Test

audience

context

TRANSFORMS

Simple Tricks

• Modifying the CSS for HTML-based outputs

• XSL mods for PDFOpen demo/fo/cfg/fo/attrs/front-matter-attr.xslGo to __frontmatter__title attribute set

QUESTIONS