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The DITA documentation process
The DITA publishing process
XSL-T and XSL-FO are the technologies that underpin most DITA publishing tools.

Introduction
Information types and topics
Topics are the building blocks of modular documents, and organising topics by semantic information types is one of the architectural features of DITA.
DITA map files
Syntax and mark-up
Language and punctuation
Graphics and figures
Cross-referencing
Cross-references are a means of binding individual topics into a coherent and navigable document.
Content re-use
Metadata, conditional processing, and indexing
The DITA documentation process
- Structured authoring documentation stages
  The documentation process within a DITA workflow can be separated into stages of building, associating, and publishing.
- Unit testing in a team
  A process where multiple authors are working on a large repository of topics can make it difficult to manage the quality and consistency of the content. Unit testing is a technique to identify validation errors earlier in the documentation process.
- Restricting authors and limiting element choices
  To make it easier for authors to choose semantic mark-up elements, it is possible to reduce the number of elements available for selection. This restriction can be managed by an authoring tool, or through the constraints mechanism introduced in DITA 1.2.
- File and folder naming conventions
  Using an organisation-wide, well-documented file naming and folder structure convention will improve the usability of the authoring process for DITA authors, especially those working in a team.
- Elements for pre-publish review
  The draft-comment element allows review and discussion information to be embedded within topic mark-up. The more basic XML comment can also be used for a similar purpose.
- The DITA publishing process
  XSL-T and XSL-FO are the technologies that underpin most DITA publishing tools.
- Page numbering in page layout documents
  A single page number sequence through an entire page layout document generated from DITA is often preferable to the traditional system of different page number sequences for front matter and back matter.
- Content Management Systems
  Although it is possible to create, manage and edit content in DITA without a CMS, it is invariably easier with the aid of a CMS.
DITA authoring concepts
Moving from style-based authoring to a structured authoring methodology such as DITA requires a radically different approach to writing.

The DITA publishing process

XSL-T and XSL-FO are the technologies that underpin most DITA publishing tools.

DITA content can be published to a range of output reading formats using a number of tools. The publishing tools, or DITA processors, use a number of different technologies.

The majority of processors use two key technologies:

XSL-T: to transform DITA into another mark-up language, including HTML and DocBook

XSL-FO: an XML formatting language used as an intermediary format when DITA is processed to a page layout format such as PDF and RTF

The processing involves a number of steps that interpret ditamaps, resolve conref transclusion elements, resolve cross-references, apply formatting numbering and labels, and map DITA elements to output format elements.

Figure 1 shows an overview of the tools and upper-level processes involved in converting DITA to PDF.

Schematic showing processes involved in transforming DITA to PDF — Figure 1. Overview of typical DITA transformation to PDF