1. Don’t be afraid of DITA
your people will love it 
Professor Sissi Closs
Hochschule Karlsruhe
Comet Computer GmbH, Comet Communication GmbH
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2. Your people will love it 
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3. Benefits of using DITA

Dita supports topic-oriented structuring including
typing and is a standard.

DITA expertise grows.

Knowledge of how to use DITA grows.

The tool landscape continues to grow.
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4. Challenges

How to start?

How to structure?

How to organize everything?
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5. How to start?
start?
Tech Doc Experts
Others
 Analyze Content
 Categorize
 Create topic type
 Use predefined

templates / forms
 Fill-in topics / templates
templates
Define information
architectures
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6. How to start: Tech Doc Experts
start:
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7. How to start: Others
start:
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8. How to structure?
structure?
Tech Doc Experts
Others








Explicitely tag content
Create separate topics
Use XML tools
Make us of complete
feature set
Use only preselected tag subset
Write content in context
Use Wysiwyg tool (no tags)
Use simple predefined
constructs
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9. How to structure: Tech Doc Experts
structure:
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10. How to structure: Others
structure:
Solution 1





Authors write in a well prepared Word template.
VBA macro generates more complex structures.
VBA macro generates XML (“simplified DITA”).
XSLT generates DITA topics.
FrameMaker plug-ins, e.g. for CMS connection,
metadata retrieval and update
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11. How to structure: Others
structure:
Solution 2
1.
2.
3.
4.
Authors write with basic “normal.dot” Word template
VBA macro generates formatted Word document.
Editors finalize this Word document.
Tool chain as in solution 1:




VBA macro generates more complex structures
VBA macro generates XML (“simplified DITA”)
XSLT generates DITA topics
FrameMaker plug-ins, e.g. for CMS connection,
metadata retrieval and update
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12. Complete Tool Solutions
Input
DITA environment
Publications
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13. Why people love it






Multiple output (epub format, word, pdf) in good output
quality
Easy content exchange, combination, and integration
Fast results
Documentation that looks more professional
Less maintainance
Not working isolated
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14. Questions?

Thank you for your attention
www.comet.de
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