DITA

DITA consists of a set of design principles for creating modules at a topic level and for using that content in various delivery modes. DITA is well suited to technical documentation groups because it was initially conceived specifically for technical documentation, where content is naturally based around topics rather than narrative. If your content is primarily narrative in nature, DITA may not be the best solution.

DITA also provides for "specialization," allowing you to develop elements of your own that are based on core DITA elements and that still use the working DITA framework for publishing, allowing customization with no changes to the style sheets for publishing.

In DITA, the core information unit is a topic, which describes a single task, concept, or reference item. Topics are long enough to deliver a meaningful subset of structured information, yet short enough not to require customizing each time they are used in a particular context. When reused in different documents, the same topic can therefore appear unchanged under different structural subdivisions. This single sourcing reuse potential has helped drive DITA adoption.

DITA modular topic-based design offers organizations the ability to combine, recombine, and reuse to create online help, printed books, and web-based information.

DITA includes all the stylesheets necessary to publish to various popular output formats (HTML, HTML Help, PDF, Java Help, etc.) from topic-based content.

Organizations using DITA gain the advantages XML offers for information development, among others, it separates the structure of the content, from the form and layout, is an open standard, is extensible—you can add your own tags, and there are great tools available.

The benefits of separating content from its context, in order to make it reusable, are significant – more consistent deliverables, shorter publication cycles, less content to develop/maintain. DITA provides a consistent, overall information architecture that can evolve and grow along with your product or service information needs and delivery modes.