Set up reference content

Introduction

To create a conref in your DITA topics, you first need to create a DITA topic (direct referencing) or a DITA map (indirect referencing) that contains the content (elements) that you plan to reuse. For example, say you plan to reuse a table, an ordered list, and an image across multiple topics. You will need to add these elements to the source topic. If you are using indirect referencing, the topic is then added to the DITA map. For details, see Using keyspaces to manage DITA key references.

To make an element reusable, you need to assign a unique identifier to the element. For details, see DITA ID attribute. FrameMaker uses this unique identifier to differentiate the conref elements. For example, if you update the source element, FrameMaker uses the unique identifier to identify the elements in the container topics that need to be updated.

DITA ID attribute

The DITA ID attribute provides a method to uniquely identify content (topics or elements) to reference.

In a DITA topic, you can assign a unique ID to an element to use the element when you are creating a conrefs (Working with DITA conrefs) or cross-references (Cross-References) to the element from another topic. By default, FrameMaker assigns a unique ID to the topic, when you Create a DITA topic.

See the specifications on ID attribute.

Assign a unique ID to an element

1. In the Structure View, select an element in the source topic.

2. Choose Structure > Assign ID to Element.

   Alternatively, right-click on the element and select Assign ID to Element from the context menu.

To check if an element has an ID assigned to it, in the Structure View, click arrow sign to the right of the element.

Figure 1. Unique ID assigned to entry (table cell) element

If you assign a unique ID to an element to which an ID is previously assigned, you will be prompted to replace the existing ID.

Assign IDs to all instances of an element

1. Select an instance of the element for which you want to assign IDs.

2. Choose Structure > Assign ID to Elements to open the Assign ID dialog.

   1. By default, the element selected before selecting Assign ID to Elements is selected in the drop-down.

   2. Select Include specializations to assign IDs to specializations of the selected element. If you are in a DITA map, select Process Topicrefs in Ditamap to assign IDs to all instances of the selected element in the topics in the DITA map.

   3. If you have multiple files open, select All open files to assign IDs to all the instances of the selected element in all the open files.

   4. Click Assign.