DITA For Publishers: How Publishers Can Really Do XML

DITA for Publishers:
How Publishers Can
Really Do XML
March 10, 2010

©2009 Really Strategies, Inc. | www.rsuitecms.com

Webinar Agenda
 Welcome

 Company Overview and Introduction

 Online Poll
 What is your knowledge of DITA?

 Webinar Overview

 Online Poll
 What is your relationship to publishing?

 DITA for Publishers

 Q&A

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©2010 Really Strategies, Inc. | www.reallysi.com Confidential

Who is Really Strategies?
 Founded: 2000
 Consulting Services to Publishers
2007, 2009

 Specialists in XML-based Content Management Solutions
 Project/Program Management
 Workflow Analysis and Reengineering
2004 - 2009
 Content and Metadata Modeling
 Technology Assessment and Roadmaps
 Much more…
2006, 2007, 2008

 RSuite CMS – A Content Management System for
Publishers
 DocZone – The first SaaS XML Content Management 2007, 2009

System

2004, 2005, 2007

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Serving over 100 companies
STM Educational Media Tech Pubs

4


Webinar Presenter
As Senior Solutions Architect at Really
Strategies, Eliot leads publishers through
various content management initiatives,
including RSuite CMS implementations, XML
and desktop publishing applications, DITA
requirements and standardization, and
information and process analyses.

He is fluent in XML, XSLT, XSL-FO, DTD
development, XSD Schema, XPath, XQuery,
XInclude, Xlink, and other standards that
relate to information management and
publishing.

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What is your knowledge of DITA?

ONLINE POLL

6


Webinar Overview
 DITA for Publishers: How Publishers Can
Really Do XML
 What is DITA?
 Some myths about DITA get busted
 The basic value DITA brings to the use of XML
 DITA for Publishers: What is it?
 DITA for Publishers: Why is it?
 A few real-world users
 Final words: A vision of XML’s promise truly realized
 Questions and answers

7


What is your relationship to
publishing?

ONLINE POLL

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What is DITA?
 An XML-based standard architecture for
authoring and storing documents.
 By ―documents‖ we mean ―stuff people read.‖

 The acronym means ―Darwin Information Typing
Architecture.‖
 Where ―Darwin‖ connotes DITA’s inherent
flexibility and adaptability.
 DITA is produced through OASIS Open.
 Currently at version 1.2 (almost).

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Essential DITA Concepts
 All content is organized as ―topics.‖
 A topic always has a title, may have a body, and
may have subordinate topics.
 Notionally, topics are intended to be standalone,
re-usable chunks of content.
 Topics are organized into deliverable packages
by ―maps.‖
 A map is essentially a tree of hyperlinks to topics.

Maps impose organization onto topics.
 Maps allow a topic to be used in many packages.
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DITA: Maps and Topics
Maps Topics

Part I

My Book
Chapter 1

Section
1.1

Section
1.2

My Vol 1 Issue 2

Magazine
Article 1

Section
1.1

Section
1.2

Re-used
Topics
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Some DITA Myths Get Busted
 Myth 1: DITA is just for technical documentation

 Myth 2: DITA requires modular writing

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Myth 1: DITA is Just for Tech Docs
BUSTED
 While it is true that DITA comes out of technical
documentation…
 …as an architecture DITA is completely generic

 Most current information about DITA focuses on
its use for technical documentation
 Before DITA for Publishers—not always obvious
how to apply DITA to Publishing requirements

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Myth 2: DITA Requires Modular
Writing
BUSTED
 Modular writing is a technical documentation
practice.
 DITA supports modular writing.
 DITA does not require modular writing.
 In particular, DITA does not require each DITA
topic to be in a separate file.
 Although it is often useful to organize things that
way.
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The Value DITA Brings
 DITA enables blind interchange of content…
 …without constraining markup design
 DITA enables iterative development of XML
applications as understanding and requirements
evolve.
 DITA provides many sophisticated features.

 DITA provides deep open-source and
commercial supporting infrastructure.
 With DITA you can start small and simple and
add sophistication as you need it.
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DITA is an Architecture, Not a DTD
 DITA is not a single XML vocabulary or tag set.
 DITA is an architecture for defining new
vocabularies that are inherently interoperable.
 You can have your own special-purpose, use-
case-specific markup.
 Yet still reliably interchange and interoperate
with any other DITA user.
 It is almost magical.
 It is the one aspect of DITA that distinguishes it
from all other standard XML applications.
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Did You say Blind Interchange?
 By ―blind interchange‖ we mean anyone’s
conforming DITA content can be combined with
anyone else’s DITA content and be processed
usefully with DITA-aware tools with no more
negotiation than ―give us DITA-based content.‖

 This works because of some basic rules and
patterns DITA defines.
 Coupled with the DITA-defined ―specialization‖
facility.
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Publishing Is All About Interchange
 Publishing is all about interchange:
 Within an enterprise: re-use and repurposing
 Between enterprises: licensing, aggregation, etc.
 Between now and the future
 Between producers and consumers

 If DITA is about interchange…
 And if DITA really does do interchange in a way
that no other XML application does it…
 Then DITA should be very attractive to
Publishers.
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DITA For Publishers: What is It?
 DITA adapted to the specific needs of
Publishers.
 The things every Publisher needs:
 Basic topic types: Part, Chapter, Article, Subsection,
Sidebar
 Publication map structures: metadata, etc.
 Basic tool customizations and configurations
 Word-to-DITA transforms
 DITA-to-InDesign transforms

 An open-source project:
dita4publishers.sourceforge.net
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DITA For Publishers: Why Is It?
 Short answer: It makes my job easier
 For Publishers coming to XML for the first time,
provides the shortest path to a high-value XML
solution.
 For Publishers with existing XML, provides a
potential path out of aging legacy technology or
an attractive export target for interchange
 Makes cost of entry to XML as low as it could
possibly be.
 Tools can offer more value through generic
DITA support. 20


Getting Started With DITA for
Publishers
 Use basic topic types to capture content initially
 As generic as they could be
 Easy to convert to from legacy content

 Use generic Pubmap to model publications.
 Use out-of-the-box DITA Open Toolkit to
generate some outputs: HTML, PDF, ePub
(using DITA For Publishers ePub plugin).
 Develop process for getting content into DITA-
based XML (usually from Word).
 Start understanding requirements in more detail.

 Add specialized markup and processing as
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needed.

Some Real-World Users
 Magazine articles:
 Editorial work done in Word.
 DITA-based XML generated from Word.
 InCopy articles generated from XML for use in highly-
designed print magazine.
 XML used to generate other forms: HTML, etc.

 Trade books:
 Editorial process takes many forms—impossible to do
XML first.
 Converted to DITA XML at end of print process.
 DITA XML easily recombined, re-used, produced in
different ways to various outputs.
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More Real-World
 Accounting standards: Codified GAAP
Standards authored in DITA-based XML
(predates DITA for Publishers).
 XML published to Web server that generates
HTML dynamically.
 DITA-based XML licensed to publishers
 Commentary
 Textbooks

 At least one publisher authoring their content in
DITA for combination with GAAP DITA content.

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Lots of Publishing Content is Very
Modular
 DITA is also all about modular content.
 Lots of Publishing content is very modular:
 Encyclopedias
 Dictionaries
 Nature and travel guides
 Magazine articles
 Chapters and sections in multi-author books
 How-To guides
 Serialized fiction
…

 So maybe a standard driven by modularity
requirements isn’t such an odd idea after all….
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Some DITA-Supporting Tools
(not an exhaustive list)
 Processing and rendering:
 DITA Open Toolkit (ditaot.sourceforge.net)
 DITA2Go (http://dita2go.com/)
 DITA authoring:
 OxygenXML
 XMetal
 Arbortext Editor
 Xopus
 Quark DITA Studio
 DITA-aware content management:
 RSuite CMS
 DocZone DITA
 IXIASOFT TextML Server

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A vision of XML’s promise truly
realized
 We’ve tried, and failed, to do interchange with
XML for 20+ years using monolithic vocabularies.
 DITA offers a different way.
 As Publishers start using DITA it will lower the
cost of interchange and interoperation.
 As the cost of interchange goes down the
inherent value in the content goes up.
 DITA For Publishers reflects a vision of a DITA-
based content ecosystem where the promise of
XML as a vehicle for interchange is finally
realized. 26


DITA for Publishers: How
Publishers Can Really Do XML

QUESTIONS

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Upcoming Webinars
How RSuite Helped The MIT Press Transform
Its Publishing Operation
April 7, 2010 | 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST

How DocZone DITA is helping Unica
Corporation to achieve new production
milestones and single-source publishing
May 12, 2010 | 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST

More Information: http://www.reallysi.com/webinars

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DITA For Publishers: How Publishers Can Really Do XML

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