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Architectural specification: All-inclusive edition
The architectural specification portion of the DITA specification outlines the framework of DITA. It contains an overview of DITA markup; addressing; processing; configuration, specialization, generalization, and constraints; as well as information about coding DITA grammar files.
DITA markup
Topics and maps are the basic building blocks of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Metadata attributes and values can be added to DITA topics and maps, as well as to elements within topics, to allow for conditional publishing and content reuse.
DITA metadata
Metadata can be applied in both DITA topics and DITA maps. Metadata that is assigned in DITA topics can be supplemented or overridden by metadata that is assigned in a DITA map; this design facilitates the reuse of DITA topics in different DITA maps and use-specific contexts.
Metadata attributes
Certain attributes are common across most DITA elements. These attributes support content referencing, conditional processing, application of metadata, and globalization and localization.

Specification URIs
Notices
Introduction to DITA 1.3
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information, as well as a set of mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types.
Architectural specification: All-inclusive edition
The architectural specification portion of the DITA specification outlines the framework of DITA. It contains an overview of DITA markup; addressing; processing; configuration, specialization, generalization, and constraints; as well as information about coding DITA grammar files.
- Introduction to DITA
  The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. While DITA historically has been driven by the requirements of large-scale technical documentation authoring, management, and delivery, it is a standard that is applicable to any kind of publication or information that might be presented to readers, including interactive training and educational materials, standards, reports, business documents, trade books, travel and nature guides, and more.
- DITA markup
  Topics and maps are the basic building blocks of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Metadata attributes and values can be added to DITA topics and maps, as well as to elements within topics, to allow for conditional publishing and content reuse.
  - DITA topics
    DITA topics are the basic units of DITA content and the basic units of reuse. Each topic contains a single subject. Topics might be of specific specialized information types, such as task, concept, or reference, or they might be generic, that is, without a specified information type.
  - DITA maps
    This topic collection contains information about DITA maps and the purposes that they serve. It also includes high-level information about DITA map elements, attributes, and metadata.
  - Subject scheme maps and their usage
    Subject scheme maps can be used to define controlled values and subject definitions. The controlled values can be bound to attributes, as well as element and attribute pairs. The subject definitions can contain metadata and provide links to more detailed information; they can be used to classify content and provide semantics that can be used in taxonomies and ontologies.
  - DITA metadata
    Metadata can be applied in both DITA topics and DITA maps. Metadata that is assigned in DITA topics can be supplemented or overridden by metadata that is assigned in a DITA map; this design facilitates the reuse of DITA topics in different DITA maps and use-specific contexts.
    - Metadata elements
      The metadata elements, many of which map to Dublin core metadata, are available in topics and DITA maps. This design enables authors and information architects to use identical metadata markup in both topics and maps.
    - Metadata attributes
      Certain attributes are common across most DITA elements. These attributes support content referencing, conditional processing, application of metadata, and globalization and localization.
      - Conditional processing attributes
        The metadata attributes specify properties of the content that can be used to determine how the content should be processed. Specialized metadata attributes can be defined to enable specific business-processing needs, such as semantic processing and data mining.
      - Translation and localization attributes
        DITA elements have several attributes that support localization and translation.
      - Architectural attributes
        The architectural attributes specify the version of DITA that the content supports; they also identify the DITA domains, structural types, and specializations that are in use by the content.
    - Metadata in maps and topics
      Topic metadata can be specified in a DITA map as well as in the topics that the map references. By default, metadata in the map supplements or overrides metadata that is specified at the topic level, unless the @lockmeta attribute of the <topicmeta> element is set to "no".
    - Cascading of metadata attributes in a DITA map
      Certain map-level attributes cascade throughout a map, which facilitates attribute and metadata management. When attributes cascade, they apply to the elements that are children of the element where the attributes were specified. Cascading applies to a containment hierarchy, as opposed to a element-type hierarchy.
    - Reconciling topic and map metadata elements
      The <topicmeta> element in maps contains numerous elements that can be used to declare metadata. These metadata elements have an effect on the parent <topicref> element, any child <topicref> elements, and – if a direct child of the <map> element – on the map as a whole.
    - Map-to-map cascading behaviors
      When a DITA map (or branch of a DITA map) is referenced by another DITA map, by default, certain rules apply. These rules pertain to the cascading behaviors of attributes, metadata elements, and roles assigned to content (for example, the role of "Chapter" assigned by a <chapter> element). Attributes and elements that cascade within a map generally follow the same rules when cascading from one map to another map, but there are some exceptions and additional rules that apply.
    - Context hooks and window metadata for user assistance
      Context hook information specified in the <resourceid> element in the DITA map or in a DITA topic enables processors to generate the header, map, alias and other types of support files that are required to integrate the user assistance with the application. Some user assistance topics might need to be displayed in a specific window or viewport, and this windowing metadata can be defined in the DITA map within the <ux-window> element.
- DITA addressing
  DITA provides two addressing mechanisms. DITA addresses either are direct URI-based addresses, or they are indirect key-based addresses. Within DITA documents, individual elements are addressed by unique identifiers specified on the @id attribute. DITA defines two fragment-identifier syntaxes; one is the full fragment-identifier syntax, and the other is an abbreviated fragment-identifier syntax that can be used when addressing non-topic elements from within the same topic.
- DITA processing
  DITA processing is affected by a number of factors, including attributes that indicate the set of vocabulary and constraint modules on which a DITA document depends; navigation; linking; content reuse (using direct or indirect addressing); conditional processing; branch filtering; chunking; and more. In addition, translation of DITA content is expedited through the use of the @dir, @translate, and @xml:lang attributes, and the <index-sort-as> element.
- Configuration, specialization, generalization, and constraints
  The extension facilities of DITA allow existing vocabulary and constraint modules to be combined to create specific DITA document types. Vocabulary modules also can be specialized to meet requirements that are not satisfied by existing markup.
- Coding practices for DITA grammar files
  This section collects all of the rules for creating modular DTD, RELAX NG, or XML Schema grammar files to represent DITA document types, specializations, and constraints.
- Technical content specializations
  This section contains information about the technical content specializations. It includes a summary of the document types and domains, as well as information about how the technical content specializations support authoring troubleshooting information.
- Learning and training specializations
  The section contains information about the learning and training specializations: Challenges faced by developers of instructional content; use cases; objectives of the specializations; information about the reusable learning-objects approach to learning and training content; summary of the topic types and domains; and more.
Language reference: All-inclusive edition
The language reference portion of the DITA specification contains a topic for each DITA element. The topic defines the element, its inheritance hierarchy, and provides examples of usage. This portion of the DITA specification also includes information about DITA attributes.
Conformance
Conformance to the DITA specification allows documents and document types that are used with different processors or different versions of a processor to produce the same or similar results with little or no reimplementation or modification.
Acknowledgments
(Non-normative) Many members of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee participated in the creation of this specification and are gratefully acknowledged.
Non-normative information
This section contains non-normative information, including topics about new features in DITA 1.3 and migrating from DITA 1.2 to DITA 1.3.
Content models for learning and training package
For each element in the learning and training package, this section presents the content model and a list of parent elements that can contain that element.

Metadata attributes

Certain attributes are common across most DITA elements. These attributes support content referencing, conditional processing, application of metadata, and globalization and localization.