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Program
Description
Topic-based authoring has been a mainstay of technical information
development since we first began developing help systems.
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) builds content
reuse into the authoring process, defining an XML architecture
for designing, writing, managing, and publishing many kinds
of information in print and on the Web.
Sounds good, but how do we get from concept to production?
Anna van Raaphorst and Dick Johnson, principals at
VR Communications, have made the journey and they will
share their experiences with us at the September meeting.
They will describe two of their DITA projects - one simple
and one complex.
The "simple" project is The DITA Open Toolkit User
Guide and Reference, their volunteer contribution to the DITA
community. The User Guide has 300 topics organized into 20
chapters. They output to PDF, CHM, XHTML, and Eclipse.
A project for a major client was much more complex, including
four major documents. They shared many common files between
topics. Reuse included images, installation instructions,
introductions, and object properties. Besides XHTML and PDF
targets, they added JavaDoc and context-sensitive help.
Anna and Dick had done just one joint project before they
volunteered to write the User Guide, but their mix of writing
and software programming talents was critical. Anna has many
years of experience as a tech writer, including structured
writing with Framemaker. Dick built a number of reporting
and analysis tools.
Whether you are brand new to DITA, kicking the tires, or
discussing conrefs like an old pro, you will learn what it
takes to make the transition to this new writing technology.
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