DITA
5 Reasons Not to Convert to Structured Authoring
Introduction XML-based structured authoring has been one of the hottest topics in the technical writing community for quite a while. Shifting from traditional documentation to “structured documentation” has been the “holy grail” of top-echelon technical communicators for the good part of the last decade. In one survey reported by Scott Abel of The Content Wrangler,…
Read More3 Disadvantages of Writing Documents with DITA and Structured Authoring
It’s no secret that DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) and structured authoring represent the way large organizations will handle their legacy documents in the future for various reasons. Ease of updating and freedom in selecting publication platforms are two of the reasons that come to mind. Lower production costs is another, in the long run.…
Read MoreFour Basic DITA Elements in Adobe FrameMaker – Topic, Concept, Task, Reference
There are four basic DITA elements that you can create easily in Adobe FrameMaker 12: Topic Concept Task Reference Topic A topic consists of a single self-contained subject matter. When created through the DITA > New DITA File menu option, a FrameMaker DITA topic looks like this: NOTE: To view the tags, select View >…
Read MoreFramemaker 12 DITA Tutorial – How to Create a Topic, Concept, Task, or Reference
© Ugur Akinci Creating an XML DITA document is so easy when you have Adobe FrameMaker 12 because everything is built-in and ready-made for you. Let’s start with creating a DITA topic in Adobe FrameMaker 12… First make sure you have selected the Structured interface for your copy of FM. Select DITA > New DITA…
Read MoreHow to Write About Changing Contexts in Procedural Task Steps
© Ugur Akinci In using software, the context changes frequently depending on the actions we take. For example, when we click a command button, a new window might open. Or when we select a specific option from a drop-down menu, the system may display a new dialog box in a new tab. A new window,…
Read MoreHow to Create a DITA Topic Object in FrameMaker
Welcome to my tutorial on How to Create a DITA Topic Object in FrameMaker FrameMaker (FM) has a very powerful and built-in DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) engine under its hood. Also known as “structured authoring,” this functionality comes with the FrameMaker as a default feature. When you buy FrameMaker, you do not need to…
Read MoreHow to Create a DITA Concept Object in FrameMaker (Part 2)
Continuing with our tutorial about How to Create a DITA Concept Object in FrameMaker. PREREQUISITE: Make sure your FrameMaker is set for structured authoring. Select File > Preferences > General and select Structure FrameMaker from the Product Interface drop-down list. NOTE: This tutorial is the second part of this tutorial. If you haven’t so far, please read this tutorial post first. Let’s…
Read MoreHow to Create a DITA Concept Object in FrameMaker
How to create a DITA Concept Object in FrameMaker is not an easy task. PREREQUISITE: Make sure your FrameMaker is set for structured authoring. Select File > Preferences > General and select Structure FrameMaker from the Product Interface drop-down list. (1) Select DITA > New DITA File > New <concept> … from the menu bar.…
Read MoreHigh Entry Threshold for New DITA Writers
High Entry Threshold for New DITA Writers is a rarely admitted issue for technical communicators. I receive reader letters about DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) these days that more or less ask the same question: how difficult is it for a technical writer to specialize in single-sourcing and structured authoring? Should they learn DITA? And…
Read More5 Things That Will Never Change Despite Technological Changes in Technical Writing
© Ugur Akinci The technology of technical writing is changing really fast. But the thing is we don’t really need to keep up with all of it, depending on where we stand in the overall landscape of technical communications. Or let me put it this way: there are things that will never change as long…
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