Linking with Relationship Tables in DITA

A relationship table is used to express relationships between topics outside of the topics themselves. The DITA publishing scripts can then create links between related topics when the content is published.

The reason for using a relationship table is to help make topics easier to reuse. If a topic links directly to another topic, this creates a dependency between the topics. If one topic is reused in a publication where the other is not used, the link is broken. By defining relationships between topics in a relationship table, you avoid creating this dependency.

To create an appropriate set of links between topics in multiple publications, you can create a separate relationship table for each publication. If you are creating a variety of different publications by applying profiling conditions to a single map, you can also profile your relationship table.

Follow these steps to create a relationship table:

  1. If the map is currently open in the DITA Maps Manager, double-click the map icon to open the map in Author mode. If it opens in Text mode, click Author at the bottom left to switch to Author mode.
  2. Move the insertion point inside the map root element (usually map, but it might be bookmap, or another specialization of the map element). The easiest way to do this is to click below the title of the map in the editor and then press the up arrow once. Confirm that you are inside the map root element by checking the breadcrumbs at the top left of the editor window. You should only see the name of the map root element.
  3. Select the Insert Relationship Table action on the toolbar or from the Relationship Table submenu of the contextual menu. The Insert Relationship Table dialog box is displayed.
  4. Make the appropriate selections in the Insert Relationship Table dialog box. See the DITA documentation for a full explanation of the relationship table format and its options. Note that you can change all the selections that you make here later by using the actions on the toolbar (or in the Relationship Table submenu of the contextual menu) or by editing the underlying XML in Text mode.
  5. To add topic references to your relationship table, drag and drop topics from the DITA Maps Manager or the Project view into the appropriate cell in the relationship table.

    Relationship tables are also displayed in the DITA Maps Manager view, along with the other elements in its DITA map.

    You can open the DITA map to edit the relationship table by doing one of the following:
    • Double-click the appropriate relationship table in the DITA Maps Manager.
    • Select the relationship table in the DITA Maps Manager and press Enter.
    • Select Open from the contextual menu of the relationship table in the DITA Maps Manager.
Parent topic: Linking in DITA