Understand how DITA changes the way content is created, stored, managed, and consumed in FrameMaker.
DITA changes the way content is created, stored, managed, and consumed. It also changes the tools that are used and the way authors have to think about content.
You can reuse content not just for
print and the web but also for multiple custom outputs. Reuse at
a heading or line level can be chaotic and challenging to implement
and manage, especially at an enterprise-wide level. DITA facilitates
reusability at a more manageable content level: the topic. A <topic> is
the smallest chunk of information that can stand alone as meaningful
information. Topics are then assembled into documents using DITA
maps, which are hierarchical lists of pointers or links to topics. These
pointers are called <topicref> elements.
Topics
can also be reused in other topics. Each topic is assigned a unique
ID. From a topic, you can include a content reference (<conref>)
to another topic using its unique ID. At a finer level of granularity,
you can also assign property tags to individual topic elements for
conditional assembly.
Modular topics allow for dynamic assembly of content at any level of granularity. You can create multiple documents from reusable topics. Assembly can be conditional, dependent on properties or metadata tags that you attach to a topic. For example, the audience property can be “beginner” or “advanced”, and the platform property “Windows” or “Solaris”.
By segregating content from presentation, DITA allows you to reuse modular topics. You can reuse a topic by specifying it in multiple topic maps. For example, you can have the same topic appearing in multiple topic maps and set a new context by using a relationship table. This also aids publishing because the content is independent of format definitions.
Minimalism in documentation means providing users only the information they need for accomplishing a specific task. This approach requires the breakdown of sequential information into smaller, concise, and consistent chunks that can be reused.
Modular, topic-based content with unique topic IDs allows concurrent authoring and translation of DITA map content. This approach reduces translation costs as well as time to market. In addition to topic orientation and content reuse, these DITA features also reduce translation costs.
All DITA topics are stored in Unicode.
DITA provides the ability to specify the language setting on nearly every element in a DITA topic.
The @translate attribute allows you to indicate
items ready for translation.