# DITA Best Practices : DITA map (ditamap)

Created by Kelly Mankenberg, last modified on Oct 16, 2014

DITA maps are documents (xml files) that collect and organize references to DITA topics (topic, content and tasks files) to indicate the relationships among the topics. They can also serve as outlines or tables of contents for DITA deliverables such as PDF documents or Webhelp, and as build manifests for DITA projects.

## DITA map Structure

Maps organize topics into hierarchies, tables, and groups, and have special elements for referencing other maps.

topicref elements are the basic elements of a map. A topicref can point to a DITA topic, map, or to any other resource that can be processed or linked to. They can also have a title, short description, and the same kinds of prolog-level metadata available in topics.

topicref elements can be nested to create a hierarchy, which can be used to define print output, online navigation, and parent/child links. The topichead element can be used for nodes in the hierarchy that provide containers without equivalent topics: they are equivalent to topicref elements with a navtitle but no href or equivalent referencing attribute.

### Example of simple DITA map with topic references

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE map PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Map//EN" "http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/OS/dtd/map.dtd">
    <map product="docprep" otherprops="October 2014" props="Release Notes" rev="2014.10" audience="Ext"
     title="Document Preparation Platform">
     <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-overview.dita">
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-contents.dita"/>
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-effdate.dita"/>
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-compliance.dita"/>
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-briefs.dita"/>
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-contact.dita"/>
     </topicref>
     <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-whatsnew.dita">
         <topicref href="../concepts/dpp_RN-258333.xml"/>
     </topicref>
    </map>

## Related Articles

- Page:
  Add references to a DITA map
- Page:
  DITA map (ditamap)
- Page:
  Create a DITA map