Steven Ross

Dita XML - What Is It And Why's It Important?

Content Management System

A format designed for structuring and authoring technical content, the DITA XML (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based format that provides many advantages for producing HTML content.

DITA XML is capable of producing HTML through focused content for easy global changes, portability through standards, superior linking and web management, conditional processing, content and design reuse, and also better writing.

DITA XML is formatted to design and grow with your company's product information needs and delivery modes as the need arises with standard tools used for delivering XML.

Brief Background on DITA XML

DITA XML was originally designed by a cross company work group of teams across IBM. Initial investigation of this design began in 1999, followed by the workgroup developing the architecture through making postings to a database and holding weekly teleconferences.

Essentially, DITA XML is an end-to-end architecture that is used to author, produce and delivers technical information by using the XML format. The data is used to provide content for delivery modes such as online help features and product support portals on the internet.

The roadmap for the DITA XML architecture is an XML document type definition (DTD).

Why Should DITA XML Be Used for Document Creation?

Some developers are not fully convinced about the advantages of using DITA XML instead of HTML for document creation. In act, DITA XML is generally used to create documents, but HTML is used to generate the same document.

The advantages of using DITA XML for information (document) development are:

DITA XML focuses on the structure of the content, rather than the form, with the layout being maintained separately in an XML design.

DITA XML allows consistency of the content and in the way the content is presented by using a wide variety of output devices and formats.

DITA XML supports conditional processing. It also has automatic linking and link checking and a reuse model.

Unique Features of DITA XML

There are also a few unique features for developers who use DITA XML for information development.

Open standards. Content can be shared and exchanged through an application and system independent format that uses a tagging system defined by DTD or other schema. Separation of form from content. Source content can be presented in different formats such as web pages, printed pages or other media delivery options. The underlying content is not changed.

Extensible and meaningful tags. XML tags allow specific meaning and labeling in order to filter and format the content. Consistent tools. XML content is created, managed and deployed through the use of a wide variety of tools.

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