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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.
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.

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.
- 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.
  - <val>
    The <val> element is the root element of a DITAVAL file.
  - <style-conflict>
    The <style-conflict> element declares behavior to be used when one or more flagging methods collide on a single content element.
  - <prop>
    The <prop> element identifies an attribute, and usually values in the attribute, to take an action on. The attribute either must be a conditional-processing attribute (@platform, @product, @audience, @deliveryTarget, @props, and @otherprops) or a specialization of the @props attribute.
  - <revprop>
    Identifies a value in the @rev attribute that should be flagged in some manner. Unlike the other conditional processing attributes, which can be used for both filtering and flagging, the @rev attribute can only be used for flagging.
  - <startflag>
    The <startflag> takes an optional image reference and an optional <alt-text> element for identifying the beginning of flagged content. If an image is specified, the specified image will be used to flag the beginning of the content, with the <alt-text> contents as alternative text. If <alt-text> is specified without an image, that text will be used to flag the content instead of an image. If no image and no <alt-text> are specified, then this element has no defined purpose. The <startflag> element is allowed inside either <prop> or <revprop>.
  - <endflag>
    The <endflag> element takes an optional image reference and an optional <alt-text> element for identifying the end of flagged content. If an image is specified, the specified image will be used to flag the end of the content, with the <alt-text> contents as alternative text. If <alt-text> is specified without an image, that text will be used to flag the content instead of an image. If no image and no <alt-text> are specified, then this element has no defined purpose. The <endflag> element is allowed inside either <prop> or <revprop>.
  - <alt-text>
    The <alt-text> element is allowed inside either <startflag> or <endflag> to provide alternate text for an image when the @imageref attribute sets an image to be used for flagging. When no alternate text is specified for a revision flag, the default alternate text for <revprop> start of change is a localized translation of "Start of change", and the default alternate text for <revprop> end of change is a localized translation of "End of change".
- 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.

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.

The DITAVAL format has several elements: <val>, the root element, can contain a <style-conflict> element followed by <prop> or <revprop> elements; the <prop> and <revprop> elements can contain <startflag> and <endflag> elements; and the <startflag> and <endflag> elements can contain <alt-text> elements.

Notes on ditaval messages

Conditional processing code should provide a report of any attribute values encountered in content that do not have an action associated with them.

Note on ditaval flagging of images

If an image in DITA content becomes flagged using a background color, the color should be represented as a thick border. If a foreground color is expressed, it should be represented as a thin border.