DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an open standard XML file format that lets you author content in small topic files and assemble those topics into larger documents. By re-using topics within multiple documents and across multiple departments, you can produce content much more efficiently than using traditional word processing or desktop publishing software.

When to Use DITA

DITA is not for every situation. But if any of the following apply to you, then you're likely a good candidate for DITA:

• You create a lot of documents that have similar content.
• You often start creating a new document by opening an older document and modifying it, or by copying and pasting content from other documents.
• You create documents in one format, but need to deliver them in several other formats.

Topics and Maps

A DITA topic is a modular unit of information that consists of a title and one or more paragraphs of text. Each topic describes a single, self-contained idea. Think of a topic as being similar to a Web page. A document is then a collection of topics arranged in a particular order, defined by a DITA map. If topics are like Web pages, then maps are like your Web browser's bookmarks menu. The map file doesn't contain any content, it just points to the topic files.

Authoring and Publishing

Topics and maps are saved as DITA XML, which by itself isn't too useful. What you really want is a PDF or a number of HTML pages or something else. So after authoring your topics and maps using an editor like Codex, you then use publishing software to convert the DITA XML to other formats. With Codex, you can publish DITA content to Office Open XML documents. There are also many third-party solutions for publishing DITA content to various formats:

• Web formats:
  • PDF
  • HTML
  • XHTML
  • Wiki
  • EPUB
• Word processing formats:
  • Rich Text Format (RTF, compatible with Microsoft® Word)
  • WordprocessingML (WML, compatible with Microsoft® Word 2003 and newer versions)
  • Office Open XML (OOXML, .docx Microsoft® Word 2007 native format)
  • OpenDocument (.odt OpenOffice.org native format).
• Help systems:
  • Eclipse Help
  • WinHelp
  • Java Help
  • HTML Help
• Technical formats:
  • DocBook
  • TROFF

Content Management

In addition to authoring and publishing, you also need a way to manage your DITA files. For a small number of authors, some folders on a shared hard drive may be sufficient. But if many authors will be working on the same files, then a source control or content management system is recommended.