White paper from the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee. Authored by Marc Speyer. Published 1 March 2010.

This paper shows an interesting similarity between the reuse mechanism of the DITA content reference feature and a translation memory system (TMS). We then discuss this similarity in terms of cost and show that the savings that can be achieved using DITA’s content reuse feature are similar to the savings possible using a TMS.

Many thanks again to Julio Vazquez for his excellent review and feedback on this paper. Thanks Julio!

>Mark Lewis

Keywords:

The attached zip file contains an unedited video of the presentation given by Ben Allums and Stan Doherty to the Central Texas, Boston, and RTP DITA Users' Groups. The video runs about 89 minutes.

Creating a successful context-sensitive help solution requires the
cooperation and respect of two groups which have a history of poor
working relations: Development and Technical Publications. Each group
has an established "best practice", i.e. "the way", that ensures a
successful deliverable. Tension comes from an unwillingness to
compromise on those established practices. Compromise means change,
change that will either enable the creation of useful customer solutions
or change that results in broken builds, failure, and finger pointing.

This document is a working draft from March 2009 developed by the OASIS DITA TC Help Subcommittee to support DITA content developers in producing various forms of online Help.

Stan Doherty

OASIS TC Help Subcommittee, Secretary

Editor, DITA Help Technologies Guide