DITA Frequently Asked Questions

What is DITA?
DITA stands for Darwin Information Typing Architecture. This is a topic-based framework for authoring, managing, and publishing technical documentation. DITA defines how technical documentation information should be structured for easy content reuse and publishing.

What are possible business cases for DITA?
These are some situations in which DITA can be beneficial:
  • You extensively reuse content across multiple documents
  • You have multiple content variations
  • You have to customize the look-and-feel of documentation to different OEM partners or customers
  • You need to enforce consistent formatting and structure
  • You produce documentation in multiple formats
  • You have many different audiences with different needs and want to generate documentation dynamically
Can DITA be an appropriate solution for a lone technical writer in a company?
Yes. Any technical writer, both the one who is working alone, and the one who is working in an international team, can face the challenges described in the answer to the above-mentioned questions.

DITA is not about the size of a documentation department. It's about how to solve your documentation needs.

What should be done to implement DITA?
DITA implementation is a multi-step process that usually involves the following stages:
  • Content strategy development
  • DITA customization to your specific needs (optional step)
  • Publishing templates development
  • Legacy content migration
  • Training
How much time does it take to implement DITA?
It depends on the goals you want to achieve, the size of your documentation team, and amount of content. Our fastest implementation took 5 days, from content strategy development to training. The slowest one took several months.

It obviously depends on your goals. By the way, are you sure DITA will work for you? The best way to check it is to arrange a meeting with us so we can understand your initial requirements and outline decide whether or not DITA is a good solution for you.

Does DITA require a content management system (CMS)?
No. There are lone technical writers and entire documentation teams that are using DITA without any content management system. Eventually, as the amount of your content and complexity of products you are documenting grows, you may need a CMS to automate some tasks. However, this is not a “must-have” requirement.

How much does DITA cost?
DITA on its own is just a standard for structuring technical documentation and costs nothing. Costs are related to:
  • DITA tools
  • DITA implementation

What tools are required to work with DITA?
There are two types of tools you must have to author and publish content with DITA:

  • A DITA editor to author content. There are many DITA editors available on the market today. A few examples are:
    • Adobe FrameMaker
    • Arbortext Epic
    • XMetal
  • Publishing engine to generate output formats, such as PDF, HTML, and Java help.

If you are using FrameMaker as a DITA editor, you do not need a separate publishing engine to produce PDF. You can use the FrameMaker capabilities.

If you are using a native XML editor, you will need the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA OT) – a free set of stylesheets and scripts that generates various output formats from DITA content. However, be aware that you may need to configure DITA OT to meet requirements regarding how deliverables should look.

Can I use Adobe FrameMaker to author and publish DITA?
Yes. You can use Structured FrameMaker 7.2 or above. FrameMaker 8 and 9 are provided with the Adobe DITA plugin out-of-the-box. However, we recommend using the DITA-FMx plugin from an independent developer, Leximation. This plugin provides more functionality.