Home
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.
Topic elements
The base topic elements include elements that make up the core building blocks of the DITA topic, such as topic, body, and related-links, as well as elements like <p> and <ph> that are used in many topic specializations. Some of these elements are also available inside the <topicmeta> map element.
Basic topic elements
The generic topic structure is used for untyped topics. While much of the DITA architecture is built on generic topics, it is generally better to use more specific information types (such as concept, task, or reference) when they are available.
<topic>
The <topic> element is the top-level DITA element for a single-subject topic or article. Other top-level DITA elements that are more content-specific are <concept>, <task>, <reference>, and <glossentry>, all of which are specializations of the <topic> element.

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.
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.
- Element quick reference
  This section contains a listing of DITA elements.
- Topic elements
  The base topic elements include elements that make up the core building blocks of the DITA topic, such as topic, body, and related-links, as well as elements like <p> and <ph> that are used in many topic specializations. Some of these elements are also available inside the <topicmeta> map element.
  - Basic topic elements
    The generic topic structure is used for untyped topics. While much of the DITA architecture is built on generic topics, it is generally better to use more specific information types (such as concept, task, or reference) when they are available.
    - <topic>
      The <topic> element is the top-level DITA element for a single-subject topic or article. Other top-level DITA elements that are more content-specific are <concept>, <task>, <reference>, and <glossentry>, all of which are specializations of the <topic> element.
    - <title>
      The <title> element contains a heading or label for the main parts of a topic: the topic as a whole, sections, examples, and labelled content such as figures and tables. The element also can be used to provide a title for a map or a relationship table; when used in a relationship table, the title typically is used as a authoring convenience and is not rendered for display to an end user.
    - <titlealts>
      The <titlealts> element allows the insertion of alternate titles, such as titles that should be used in creating a table of contents for navigation or a title specific to search results. When the <titlealts> element is absent, the <title> element is used for all title purposes.
    - <searchtitle>
      The <searchtitle> element is used to specify a title that is displayed by search tools that locate the topic. This is most useful when the topic has a title that makes sense in the context of a single information set, but might be too general in a list of search results; for example, a topic title of "Markup example" might make sense as part of a guide to DITA, but when found among thousands of unrelated topics, a search title of "DITA markup example" is more useful.
    - <navtitle>
      The navigation title (<navtitle>) element is one of a set of alternate titles that can be included inside the <titlealts> element. This navigation title might differ from the first level heading that shows in the main browser window. Use <navtitle> when the actual title of the topic isn't appropriate for use in a table of contents, navigation pane, or online content (for example, because the actual title is too long). Beginning with DITA 1.2, the <navtitle> element is also available in the <topicmeta> element in a <topicref> in a map, and its use is preferred over the <topicref> element's @navtitle attribute.
    - <shortdesc>
      The <shortdesc> element provides a short description of the topic. The short description, which represents the purpose or theme of the topic, is also intended to be used as a link preview and for search results. The element can occur both in topics and maps.
    - <abstract>
      The <abstract> element occurs between the topic title and the topic body. It is presented as the initial content of a topic. The <abstract> can contain paragraph-level content as well as one or more <shortdesc> elements which can be used for providing link previews or summaries.
    - <body>
      The <body> element is the container for the main content of a <topic>.
    - <bodydiv>
      The <bodydiv> element is used to contain informal blocks of information within the body of a topic. The <bodydiv> element is specifically designed to be a grouping element, without any explicit semantics, other than to organize subsets of content into logical groups that are not intended or should not be contained as a topic. As such, it does not contain an explicit title to avoid enabling the creation of deeply nested content that would otherwise be written as separate topics. For content that requires a title, use a <section> element or a nested topic.
    - <related-links>
      The related information links of a topic (<related-links> element) are stored in a special section following the body of the topic. After a topic is processed into its final output form, the related links are usually displayed at the end of the topic, although some Web-based help systems might display them in a separate navigation frame.
    - <dita>
      The <dita> element provides a top-level container for multiple topics when you create documents using the ditabase document type. The <dita> element lets you create any sequence of topics, and the ditabase document type lets you nest these topic types inside each other. The <dita> element has no particular output implications; it simply allows you to create multiple topics of different types at the same level in a single document.
  - Body elements
    The body elements support the most common types of content authoring for topics: paragraphs, lists, phrases, figures, and other common types of exhibits in a document.
  - Table elements
    DITA topics support two types of tables. The <table> element uses the OASIS Exchange Table Model (formerly known as the CALS table model). The OASIS table supports the spanning of multiple rows or columns for special layout or organizational needs, and provides a wide variety of controls over the display properties of the data and even the table structure itself.
  - Related links elements
    The related-links section of DITA topics is a special structure that contains links. Links support navigation from a topic to other related topics or resources.
- Map elements
  Map elements include the core components of DITA maps, such as <topicref> and <reltable>, as well as general purpose map specializations in the map group domain.
- Metadata elements
  Metadata elements include information that is located within the <topicmeta> element (in maps) or <prolog> element (in topics), as well as indexing elements that can be placed in additional locations within topic content.
- Domain elements
  General purpose domains are not specific to any type of information, such as the hazard statement domain that provides elements for describing hazardous situations.
- Classification elements
  Classification elements support managing metadata. Those in the subject scheme map are used to define controlled values and to bind the controlled values to DITA attributes as enumerations. Those declared in the classification domain are used in other maps to classify content according to the scheme.
- Specialization elements
  Several DITA elements exist either for architectural reasons or for support of specialized markup yet to be designed. Although there is little need to use these elements unless you are directed to, some of them, such as <state>, can be used if your content makes use of these semantic distinctions. For example, a discussion of signals on a gate of an integrated logic circuit might use the <state> element to represent either on or off conditions of that gate.
- Legacy conversion elements
  Conversion elements exist primarily to aid in the conversion of content to DITA.
- DITAVAL elements
  A conditional processing profile (DITAVAL file) is used to identify which values are to be used for conditional processing during a particular output, build, or some other purpose. The profile should have an extension of .ditaval.
- Technical content elements
  Elements in the technical content section include the original Concept, Task, and Reference specializations, as well as specializations added in later releases. It also includes domains designed primarily for technical content.
- Learning and training elements
  Elements in the learning and training section include specialized topics, maps, content, and metadata elements specially designed to support instructional content.
- Attributes
  This section collects commonly used attributes, with common definitions. If an element uses a different definition, or narrows the scope of, an otherwise common attribute, it will be called out in the topic that defines the element.
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.

`<topic>`

The <topic> element is the top-level DITA element for a single-subject topic or article. Other top-level DITA elements that are more content-specific are <concept>, <task>, <reference>, and <glossentry>, all of which are specializations of the <topic> element.

Content models

See appendix for information about this element in OASIS document type shells.

Inheritance

- topic/topic

Example

<topic id="topic">
 <title>Some little topic</title>
 <body>
  <p>Here's a little topic.</p>
  <ul>
   <li>Some item</li>
   <li>Another item</li>
  </ul>
 </body>
</topic>

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element: Universal attribute group (with a narrowed definition of @id, given below), Architectural attribute group, and outputclass.

@id (REQUIRED): An anchor point. This ID is usually required as part of the @href or @conref syntax when cross referencing or reusing content within the topic; it also enables <topicref> elements in DITA maps to optionally reference a specific topic within a DITA document. This attribute is defined with the XML Data Type ID.