Some say XML doesn't belong in Marketing, where design trumps structure every time. Follow along as our own JustSytems Marketing group adopts DITA to save time and money in the creation, editing and publishing of XMetaL product data sheets. We discuss the challenges faced, along with a detailed look at how we modified the DITA Open Toolkit to match the previous InDesign-produced PDFs. A recording of this presentation is available at http://tinyurl.com/29qxzuv . This presentation is part of the free "XMetaL in 37 Minutes" webinar series. For upcoming webinars, see http://na.justsystems.com/webinars.php .

1. XMetaL and DITA in the Marketing
Department
tastes great, less filling
1 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.

2. Challenge
Publishing product data sheets
• Previously: Word + InDesign
• Cost: $20,000/year
• 9 SKUs x 2 updates/year x $1100/update
• Average turnaround: 5 days
Slow and expensive
2 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.

3. Solution
• maintain product data sheets using DITA,
XMetaL and SubVersion
• publish data sheets using the DITA Open
Toolkit (DITA OT)
• save money! save time! Yay! we're done!
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4. But...
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5. And…
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6. Marking up the document
• DITA map
• title page
• callouts
• company info
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7. DITA Open Toolkit challenges
• page layouts
• callout text
• company info
• 2-column layout, *most* of the time…
• font treatment
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8. DITA OT Anatomy
• PDF output has a specific customization
architecture
• catalog file
• XSL template overrides
• XSL attribute sets overrides
• Fonts, background images
• Locale files for multi-language support
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9. Page layouts
• title page
• inner pages
• last page
Configured via
layout-masters.xml
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10. FO sprites are your friend
• XSL:FO does not support background images
on the page level
• use CSS sprites technique on page regions
• 1 background image per page-master
• Bonus: Marketing can tweak the design without
using XSL
NB: no gaps between page regions!
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11. Title, tagline, summary
• Override main topic
template
• create fo:markers from
title, abstract
• Display markers in the
region-before (header)
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12. Callout text
• <lq>, <cite> elements
mark up the callout
• Override default
template to create an
fo:marker
• Display marker
contents in the region-
start
12 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.

13. 2-column to 1-column layout
• Default layout is 2-
column
• Tables need to be in a
1-column layout
• Makes use of XEP’s
@span extension
• To use @span, must
be a child of the flow
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14. Company Info
• A topic in the DITA map
• Use of @outputclass
• Override default
processing to create an
fo:marker
• Display marker contents
in the start region
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15. Fonts
• Goal: make use of standard Windows fonts
• xsl:fo attribute-sets are similar to CSS
• Make use of:
– font-family, font-style, font-variant
– font-size, font-weight,
– font-stretch, letter-spacing
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16. Let’s compare…
~
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17. Takeaways
• simple markup to start, specialize later
• use xsl:fo sprites; no slicing, users can update
design tweaks
• use page regions, fo:markers to address layout
challenges
• @span support in XEP allows (limited) column-
switching
17 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.

18. Summary
• Marketing can self-publish in minutes vs. days
• Cost: 3 days XSL development + 1 day content
migration
• 100% ROI if updates are 4x more frequent than
design changes
Next steps:
• 6 of the SKUs in XMetaL, rest to come
• More re-use across SKUs
• A4 variant for EMEA
18 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.

19. Thank you
Questions?
chris.johnson@justsystems.com
19 © 2010 JustSystems Inc.