Publishing to DITA

What is DITA?

DITA was created by IBM to help organizations overcome the barriers to XML migration, and to utilize XML on an ongoing basis. It is an open standard XML-based architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways.

DITA is now managed by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the standards body responsible for XML standards.

Where can I learn more?

There's plenty of resources available. Here's just a few of them:

• Introduction to DITA
• Frequently Asked Questions about DITA
• DITA XML
• DITA User Forum

Why would I want to use DITA?

DITA provides Author-it users with an alternative approach for information exchange using a topic-oriented methodology that is more open than other standards.

A topic-oriented approach has always been part of Author-it design, so moving towards DITA is easy. The important value DITA provides is in information exchange. Many organizations and industries have XML standards for exchanging information but XML is a very technical and complex vocabulary to learn. You need to learn all about XML, about transformations, how to extend DITA, and so on. You then need to get your existing information into this standard which is also not an insignificant task.

DITA is still a relatively young standard and it's quite understandable that people don't want to go through a huge effort to convert to something that may not yet be accepted as an industry standard. Author-it provides a mitigated risk, allowing you to go with a proven solution, and should you require DITA it's just a click away...

How do I use DITA?

By authoring topics using the DITA topic templates, DITA output can be created from source content within Author-it. The following topics describe what is required to create DITA output using Author-it.