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DITA Topics Document Type (Framework)

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. It divides content into small, self-contained topics that you can reuse in various deliverables. The extensibility of DITA permits organizations to define specific information structures while still using standard tools to work with them. DITA content is created as topics, each an individual XML file. Typically, each topic has a defined primary objective and structure, and DITA also includes several specialized topic types (task, concept, reference, glossary entry).

For much more detailed information, resources, and instructions, see the DITA Authoring chapter.

File Definition

A file is considered to be a DITA topic document when one of the following conditions are true:

The root element name is one of the following: <concept>, <task>, <reference>, <dita>, or <topic>.
The PUBLIC ID of the document is a PUBLIC ID for the elements listed above.
The root element of the file has a @DITAArchVersion attribute for the http://dita.oasis-open.org/architecture/2005/ namespace. This enhanced case of matching is only applied when the Enable DTD/XML Schema processing in document type detection option is selected from the Document Type Association preferences page.

Default Document Templates

There are a variety of default DITA topic templates available when creating new documents from templates and they can be found in various folders inside: Framework Templates > DITA.

The default templates for DITA topic documents are located in the [OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/frameworks/dita/templates/topic folder.

Default Schema for Validation and Content Completion

Default schemas that are used if one is not detected in the DITA documents are stored in the various folders inside DITA-OT-DIR/dtd/ or DITA-OT-DIR/schema/.

Default CSS

The default CSS files used for rendering DITA content in Author mode are stored in the various folders inside: [OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/frameworks/dita/css/.

By default, these default CSS files are merged with any that are specified in the document. For more information, see Configuring and Managing Multiple CSS Styles for a Framework.

Default XML Catalogs

The default XML Catalogs for the DITA topic document type are as follows:

DITA-OT-DIR/catalog-dita.xml
[OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/frameworks/dita/catalog.xml
[OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/frameworks/dita/plugin/catalog.xml
[OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR]/frameworks/dita/styleguide/catalog.xml

Transformation Scenarios

Oxygen XML Author Eclipse plugin includes built-in transformation scenarios for transforming individual DITA Topics to HTML5, XHTML, or PDF output. They can be found in the DITA section in the Configure Transformation Scenario(s) dialog box.