This paper presents some of the implementation experiences that Stilo has had with DITA over the last couple of years. What emerges from this review is a ringing endorsement of DITA as a fundamentally effective way to approach the most common, and frequently most exasperating, challenges associated with projects mandated with modernizing how documentation is created, managed and published. Three cases are included in this paper:

This IBM developerWorks article describes how to use the DITA Open Toolkit to convert DITA documents to various formats without knowing any ant.

Eric Sirois, of IBM, presentation to the Central Texas DITA Users Group. This was an extremely valuable session for anyone considering using DITA to consolidate corporate information on a centralized web site, or for delivering component-based information.

The short description is an optional element in DITA, but it has powerful usability implications. Carefully-written short descriptions can help readers more successfully navigate information and locate topics that answer their questions. In addition, the act of crafting careful short descriptions can help writers clarify their understanding of the technical content. This session will cover how the content of the <shortdesc> element is displayed in various forms of output, such as PDF, Eclipse-based help, and Microsoft HTML Help.

Robert Anderson, IBM Chief Architect of the DITA Open Toolkit, discussed Customizing the Output of the Open Toolkit at the November meeting of the Silicon Valley DITA Interest Group.

You can find the 90-minute presentation in the Open Toolkit Tutorials section of the DITA Users website.

Robert presented remotely from Minneapolis. DITA Users from around the world attended the meeting remotely via an Elluminate screen sharing session.