DITA topics

The topic as the basic unit of information
In DITA, a topic is the basic unit of authoring and reuse. All DITA topics have the same basic structure: a title and, optionally, a body of content. Topics can be generic or more specialized; specialized topics represent more specific information types or semantic roles, for example, <concept>, <task>, <reference>, or <learningContent>.

The benefits of a topic-based architecture
Topics enable the development of usable and reusable content.

Disciplined, topic-oriented writing
Topic-oriented writing is a disciplined approach to writing that emphasizes modularity and reuse of concise units of information: topics. Well-designed DITA topics can be reused in many contexts, as long as writers are careful to avoid unnecessary transitional text.

Information typing
Information typing is the practice of identifying types of topics, such as concept, reference, and task, to clearly distinguish between different types of information. Topics that answer different reader questions (How ...? What is ...?) can be categorized with different information types. The base information types provided by DITA specializations (for example, technical content, machine industry, and learning and training) provide starter sets of information types that can be adopted immediately by many technical and business-related organizations.

Generic topics
The element type <topic> is the base topic type from which all other topic types are specialized. All topics have the same basic structure.

Topic structure
All topics have the same basic structure, regardless of topic type: title, description or abstract, prolog, body, related links, and nested topics.

Topic content
The content of all topics, regardless of topic type, is built on the same common structures.