This document provides an overview of a presentation on how to use DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). The objectives are to encourage the audience that they can learn how to use DITA and to demonstrate some of the practical steps for creating DITA documents using computer tools. It will explain how the author's organization transitioned to using DITA over the course of a year for publishing four documents, with the goal of helping others in their own transition process.

1. Author’s note
This presentation was originally designed as a
visual aid. This copy has been modified to be
more meaningful as a standalone document.
Some speaker's notes have been added as
text.

2. Session objectives
I would like to encourage you that you can
learn about and figure out how to use DITA.
I want to show you—not just talk about—
some of the things you do on your computer
to create DITA documents. At one DITA
conference I heard so much about DITA, but I
was struggling with, how the heck does this
work? What do you do?
I hope to explain in overview fashion how we
went from zero DITA/XML knowledge to being
able to publish four DITA documents within a
year.
This is how we did it. You will have to figure
out what works in your situation. I will tell you
what worked in our situation.