Introduction to DITA
The Darwin information-based typing architecture (DITA) is a standard XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, managing, and publishing content.
DITA standards can be understood by both machines and humans. It is the fastest growing standard in information structuring today as it drastically improves how content is created, stored, managed, and consumed. Utilizing the DITA standard ensures uniform content creation. Hence, members across the world can work on the same project yet maintain a common standard. DITA helps to increase productivity, improve document quality, reduce content quantity, save valuable time, and ultimately save money.
The 3 factors that explain the widespread use of DITA are:
Topic-based Writing
DITA topic can be defined as a basic unit of information about a single subject.
It can be understood in isolation and acts as an independent unit. i.e., writing content in information blocks rather than long documents. So, a reader can get the desired information quickly and immediately without reading the whole document.
Information types can be classified under task topics, concept topics, and reference topics. These independent topics are then synchronised together using DITA Maps. The DITA map gives structure to these groups of individual topics. Hence, DITA maps allow users to find content quickly and easily. Making changes in a topic of a document can update those changes in other documents simultaneously.
Content Reuse
Topic-based structuring and DITA maps allow the reuse of the content effectively. This results in a content reduction in the documents, saving a lot of time, energy, and money.
Single source publishing
DITA is not a single document type application. DITA allows publishing the same content in multiple output formats (such as WebHelp, PDF, CHM, EPUB, JavaHelp, Eclipse Help, XHTML, etc.). DITA eliminates the need to manually publish the content in each format separately. Thus, saving time and money for organizations.
To read more Principles of Single Sourcing and Reuse Methods in modern DITA Writing
