DITA is an XML standard, an architectural approach, and a writing methodology,
developed by technical communicators for technical communicators. It provides a standardised
architectural framework for a common structure for content that promotes the consistent
creation, sharing, and re-use of content.
Some of the benefits of using DITA include the following:
- Flexibility - DITA is a topic-based architecture and it offers flexibility in
content organization.
- Modularity - DITA allows for content reuse that saves time and reduces the number
of modifications.
- Structured Authoring - DITA offers a standardized, methodological approach that
helps to reduce authoring time and improve consistency.
- Single-Source Publishing - DITA provides the ability to change content in one
place and have the change propagate everywhere.
- Multiple Output Formats - DITA supports multiple types of output.
- Inheritance - The DITA inheritance model makes it easy to specialize topics or
elements within topics and you only have to define how the element is different from its
immediate ancestor.
- Process Automation - DITA offers various ways to automate processes, such as with
index or glossary production, output delivery, validation, and more.
- Specialization - DITA allows you to define your own information
types and semantic elements/attributes to suit the needs of your particular content
model.
- Multi-Lingual - DITA is a translation-friendly structure that
supports numerous languages and text encodings.
- Conditional Profiling - DITA supports conditional text processing and profiling
to filter content in the publishing stage.
This chapter is designed to be a guide to help content authors who use DITA. It also presents
the Oxygen XML Editor features that are specific to working with DITA documents and
concepts.