1. How to write in DITA
Anindita Basu

2. Learning goals
Understand how DITA is similar to and different from other authoring frameworks
Plan and model a document
Determine the DITA tags you are most likely to use in your day-to-day work
Write in DITA

3. Icebreaker: Read the handout

4. HTML authoring frameworks
Difficult to make global changes
Difficult to handle both new and legacy information
Difficult to determine information completeness
Difficult to share across product groups or external partners

5. XML authoring frameworks
Open standards
Separation of form from content
Extensible and meaningful tags
Tools ecosystem

7. An XML DTD and architecture developed specifically for technical content

8. DITA extends the generic advantages of XML
Customised transforms for easier global changes
Standards for improved portability
Link management
Conditional processing
Re-use
Focused content and better writing

9. Exercise 2: Create a manual

10. DITA topic types Concept Task Reference
How does this work? Why should I do this?
Task
How to do this?
Reference
What else might I need to know?

11. Exercise 3: Recast the manual according to the topic types

12. DITA tags DITA tags are mostly specific to the DITA topic types
Some DITA tags can be used in any topic type
Every DITA topic needs some tags that are essential

13. DITA tags HTML DITA <title> <h1>, <h2> … <h6>
<ol>
<ol>, <steps>
<li>
<li>, <step>, …
<p>
<img>
<image>, <fig>
<table>

14. Exercise 4: Mark the manual up with DITA tags

15. DITA maps

16. DITA maps
Specify which of the topics must be shown in a table of contents
Specify which of the topics need to be build for a specific output
Define links between related topics

17. DITA maps

18. Reuse in DITA Content reuse: Reusing the content itself
Design reuse: Reusing the design of the content
Process reuse: Reusing the process by which DITA content is generated

19. DITA conref

20. DITA and SEO Search engines: Focus on specific tags in the text
Do not understand images
Are confused by tables

21. Backup slides

22. Best practices

23. Challenges