Many think that DITA publishing can't match the quality of desktop publishing when it comes to complex formatting. We'll dispel this myth with real world examples and demonstrations showing how DITA can automate high-quality multilingual publishing to PDF, help, web and mobile at the push of a button.

1. Dynamic Publishing in DITA
Joe Gelb
September 11, 2013

2. Who is this guy?
Joe Gelb
• Founder and President of Suite Solutions
Suite Solutions
Our Vision: Enable companies to engage their customers by providing quick
access to relevant information
• Help companies get it right the first time
• XML-based Authoring/Publishing Solutions
• Enterprise Intelligent Dynamic Content: SuiteShare Social KB
• Consultancy, Systems Integration, Application Development
• Cross-Industry Expertise
• High Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Discrete Manufacturing
• Healthcare, Government
• Blue Chip Customer Base
• Hundreds of Person Years of Experience on Staff

3. Main Topics
 The Magic Button: high quality, localized output from DITA
 Common Requirements
 Localization Considerations
 Pushing the envelope
 Dynamic Publishing
….. all peppered with Case Studies

4. What is Dynamic Publishing?
• Dynamic Publishing
• Provides people with easy access to contextually relevant
information, enabling them to be effective
• Harnesses applicable business rules
• Leverages automation to assemble a variety of different content
types on demand according to each individual’s requests
• Quickly renders, packages and delivers the personalized product to
the device, format and language of choice
• Nowadays, becoming the latest buzzword for:
• Single-source, multi-purpose, automated publishing
• We will focus on the second definition and also show examples of the
real thing….

5. The Magic Button
• Common misconceptions about DITA
• DITA publishing can't match the quality and complexity of desktop
publishing
• Loss of control over the final output as with tools like FM and InDesign
[ those last minute tweaks, page-breaks…. ]
• The reality
• Anything we’ve seen can be done using DITA publishing
• Style sheets can be customized, parameterized, localized
• CMS + style sheets gives you the Magic Button: any format in any
language for any device
• Well…. Not so easy at first: takes effort
to set it all up

6. Multi-purpose Publishing
• Reuse topics in multiple publications
• Topics can appear differently depending on where positioned in the map
hierarchy
• Single-source, many outputs
• PDF: hi-fidelity vs online, manuals, data sheets, fold-outs, labels…
• Help: CHM, Web Help, HTML5, website, KB, man pages …
• Mobile: ePUB, Mobi, Nook, feeding native apps, responsive design…
• InDesign
• Word
• Integrations with other systems: Salesforce, Zendesk, SAP…
• Dynamic Publishing: content on-demand

7. Structure
Rules
Presentation
Rules
(Style Sheet)
Document
Instance
Presentation
Content, Structure, Presentation
• Document Type Definition (DTD)
• Schema
• XML
• Media, graphics
• XSL
• XSL-FO
• CSS
• PDF
• HTML
• ePUB
• DOCX
• InDesign
• SVG
• …

8. Typical DITA Toolset
Content Management
System
Manuals
Mobile
Help
Automated Publishing
- DITA Open Toolkit
- DITA Accelerator
CMS
XML Authoring
Web Help
SME Review
On-demand
Dynamic Docs
- SuiteShare

9. The Magic Button - Interface

10. Common Requirements for PDF
• Turn on or off at will
• TOC, Index, mini-TOC
• Draft comments, crop marks, watermark, change markup…
• Variable sized documents and fold-outs
• Letter, A4, custom sizes (fitting it in the box…)
• Custom sizes meant for folding with exact spacing requirements
• Variable page size and orientation
• Displaying a single topic / page / table / figure in landscape or
different page size – e.g. fold-outs, large diagrams
• Automated watermarks
• Example: generate based on metadata combined with current date
• Webinar: Suite Labs: Adding a Watermark to your PDF Output
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL6PFDVItEQ

11. Common Requirements for PDF
• Custom cover and back pages
• Page breaks and keep-with-next
• Tends to irritate people the most: folks are used to tweaking manually
• Complexity: elements that span multiple pages
• Can build logic in the style sheets approximating the thought process
of a real person adding manual page breaks
• Can support adding break instructions manually in the source DITA
• Table footnotes – appear after the table instead of bottom of page
• Flagging – based on conditionalization
• Change tracking
• Via the authoring tool
• Via the review tool
• Comparison between 2 document revisions

12. Graphics and Media
• Support for high-res graphics and EPS
• EPS supported by AntennaHouse + GhostScript
• Automated conversion during publishing from EPS to other formats
(e.g. PNG) for use with HTML
• SVG
• XML format
• Easier to localize – with some caveats…
• Allows you to change the text inside the graphic during publish time
• Can automatically convert to other formats (e.g. PNG)
• Embedded links to video

13. Other Interesting Requirements
• Bar codes and QR codes – generate automatically using AH extension
• Section 503 compliance
• Enable PDF to be read by a screen reader
• AntennaHouse extension adds attributes to the PDF for elements such
as links
• Show tags in the output for review
• Links between documents – instructor and participant guides
• MathML for equations
• Render in PDF using AntennaHouse extension
• Render into HTML by automatically generating graphics
• Webinar: Implementing MathML with DITA XML
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnlZcIwJeMw

14. Documenting the Style Sheet
Now that we can do all this customization, how do authors use it?
Document the style sheet
• Outputclasses
• Parameters
• Metadata usage for the publication

15. Considerations for Localization
Support for localized outputs
• Localization is generally supported with the DITA-OT
• Multilingual documents not supported out-of-the-box but can be done
• When done right: use one style sheet for all languages
Customization
• Font usage
• Varies according to the character set
• Automate right-to-left vs left-to-right (header, footer, cover, margins…)
• Formatting
• Use alternatives for emphasizing text in languages that do not use
italics, bold or quotes as used in most other languages, for example:
 「Japanese italicized text」
 «Chinese italicized text »
 “Chinese bolded text ”

16. Considerations for Localization
• Variable strings
• Text that is static throughout the content but vary per language
Examples: “Warning” “Table of Contents”
• DITA-OT already defines most commonly used strings
• Often need to add new strings for copyright, address, special
headings, etc.
• Index and glossary sort: Chinese and Japanese do not sort
alphabetically – there are 2 options:
1. Use <index-sort-as> and <gloss-sort-as> to manually specify sort
and group orders
2. Use AntennaHouse sort module which automates the sort

17. Pushing the Envelope…
Some advanced use cases
1. List of Effective Pages
2. Multilingual foldouts
3. Modifying graphics during runtime using SVG
4. Automated re-branding online help based on metadata using SuiteHelp

18. Modifying graphics during runtime using
SVG
1. Icon graphic for standards commission needs to have
the serial number embedded depending on the
geographical location of sale
2. During publishing, serial number is inserted into the
SVG from metadata
3. The Catch: Icons need to flow on back cover from
bottom right to left, then up…
4. Solution:
Rotate the entire back page 180 degrees, so can flow
from top left to bottom right…. But then the graphics
are upside-down

19. Automated Re-Branding online help using
SuiteHelp

20. Automated Re-Branding online help using
SuiteHelp

21. Dynamic Publishing
• Variety of content: documentation, videos, how-to articles, safety
information, data sheets, marketing material
• Context filtering: goal-oriented filtering to contextually relevant content
• Personalized docs: allow readers to assemble content on demand and
render to PDF for print and ePub for offline mobile access
• Audience Participation: allow your audience to add new content,
comment on existing content, express approval, and easily share
knowledge with others
• Modern User Experience: smooth transition between mobile and
desktop
• Activity often starts on mobile,
moves to desktop, returns to mobile
• Internet connection not always available

22. Thanks for participating.
Be in touch!
For additional information, contact:
Joe Gelb
solutions@suite-sol.com
U.S. Office EMEA Office
(609) 360-0650 +972-2-993-8054
www.suite-sol.com
Follow us on LinkedIn

23. DITA Quick Start Program
Recorded webinars:
• DITA Quick Start for Authors Part 1 & 2
Join us for our upcoming webinars:
• Getting Started with the DITA Open Toolkit
• Getting Started with Information Architecture
• System Architecture of a Basic DITA Toolset
• Migrating to DITA: Building a Project Plan
• Migrating to DITA: Defining Your Style Sheet Requirements
• Migrating to DITA: Defining Your Conversion Requirements
• Migrating to DITA: Defining Your Translation Requirements
To learn how the DITA Quick Start Program can get you up and running:
http://www.suite-sol.com/pages/solutions/dita-quick-start.html

24. Next Up: DITA for the Web
Don Day, Contelligence
Applying DITA to web-hosted content,
beyond technical documentation.