The "X" in XML stands for "extensible," and many organizations benefit from designing or adapting XML structural rules for their own needs. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML language designed to be customized, using a feature called "specialization." XMetaL Author Enterprise is easily configured to work with DITA specializations. You can get up and running with a specialization in minutes, and if you have some knowledge of programming you can also customize XMetaL menus and toolbars for an optimal user experience. In this session, we'll show how to set up XMetaL to work with a realistic example of a specialized DITA document type.

1. Episode 17 Custom XML through DITA Specialization Su-Laine Yeo, Solutions Consultant January 2011 in 37 minutes

10. Step 1: Put specialized DTD files in place

12. Step 2: Make XMetaL recognize a document type as being DITA

13. Document “treated as DITA” DITA-specific menus and styling Invisible features such as copy/paste from Word, automatic ID generation

14. Document “not treated as DITA” No “Reuse” or “Paragraph” menus Not styled like other DITA documents

16. Now, paste Paste the PUBLIC identifier without quotes

18. Step 3: Add a template for creating new documents

23. Default styling in XMetaL

24. Optimized styling in XMetaL

25. What controls styling in XMetaL? Default styling comes from base DITA stylesheets that are installed with XMetaL Custom styling comes from this file, which you can edit

26. Edit this file!

35. Global Customers Automotive Aerospace Publishing Other High-Tech Financial