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DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA
The Start-to-Finish, Best-Practice Guide to Implementing and Using DITA
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is today’s most powerful toolbox for constructing information. By implementing DITA, organizations can gain more value from their technical documentation than ever before. Now, three DITA pioneers offer the first complete roadmap for successful DITA adoption, implementation, and usage.
Drawing on years of experience helping large organizations adopt DITA, the authors answer crucial questions the “official” DITA documents ignore, Where do you start? What should you know up front? What are the pitfalls in implementing DITA? How can you avoid those pitfalls?
The authors begin with topic-based writing, presenting proven best practices for developing effective topics and short descriptions. Next, they address content architecture, including how best to set up and implement DITA maps, linking strategies, metadata, conditional processing, and content reuse. Finally, they offer “in the trenches” solutions for ensuring quality implementations, including guidance on content conversion.
Coverage
Knowing how and when to use each DITA element–and when not to Writing “minimalist,” task-oriented information that quickly meets users’ needs Creating effective task, concept, and reference topics for any product, technology, or service Writing effective short descriptions that work well in all contexts Structuring DITA maps to bind topics together and provide superior navigation Using links to create information webs that improve retrievability and navigation Gaining benefits from metadata without getting lost in complexity Using conditional processing to eliminate redundancy and rework Systematically promoting reuse to improve quality and reduce costs Planning, resourcing, and executing effective content conversion Improving quality by editing DITA content and XML markup¿ If you’re a writer, editor, information architect, manager, or consultant who evaluates, deploys, or uses DITA, this book will guide you all the way to success.
Also see the other books in this IBM Press
Developing Quality Technical A Handbook for Writers and Editors The IBM Style Conventions for Writers and Editors
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is today’s most powerful toolbox for constructing information. By implementing DITA, organizations can gain more value from their technical documentation than ever before. Now, three DITA pioneers offer the first complete roadmap for successful DITA adoption, implementation, and usage.
Drawing on years of experience helping large organizations adopt DITA, the authors answer crucial questions the “official” DITA documents ignore, Where do you start? What should you know up front? What are the pitfalls in implementing DITA? How can you avoid those pitfalls?
The authors begin with topic-based writing, presenting proven best practices for developing effective topics and short descriptions. Next, they address content architecture, including how best to set up and implement DITA maps, linking strategies, metadata, conditional processing, and content reuse. Finally, they offer “in the trenches” solutions for ensuring quality implementations, including guidance on content conversion.
Coverage
Knowing how and when to use each DITA element–and when not to Writing “minimalist,” task-oriented information that quickly meets users’ needs Creating effective task, concept, and reference topics for any product, technology, or service Writing effective short descriptions that work well in all contexts Structuring DITA maps to bind topics together and provide superior navigation Using links to create information webs that improve retrievability and navigation Gaining benefits from metadata without getting lost in complexity Using conditional processing to eliminate redundancy and rework Systematically promoting reuse to improve quality and reduce costs Planning, resourcing, and executing effective content conversion Improving quality by editing DITA content and XML markup¿ If you’re a writer, editor, information architect, manager, or consultant who evaluates, deploys, or uses DITA, this book will guide you all the way to success.
Also see the other books in this IBM Press
Developing Quality Technical A Handbook for Writers and Editors The IBM Style Conventions for Writers and Editors
- GenresBusiness
389 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2011
17 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 24, 2020
What a fantastic resource! Some of the practical examples in the book are slightly out of date, and there were quite a few grammatical errors, but otherwise a wonderful book to help writers create and fully utilize structured authoring.
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October 22, 2012Still lost on this one... hoping it will become useful when writing my final project for class this semester! Book is organized well, but hard to jump in when you know and understand very little about programming.
January 12, 2015
Good introduction, but the last few chapters on implementing DITA in an organization aren't really relevant to my situation.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews