If you are going to create a brand new publication with DITA, it doesn't really matter where you start. Nevertheless, it is possible to set up a short guide.

(This procedure is based on the Tridion Docs database repository and Oxygen XML editor. Other tools have similar functionality.)

Prerequisites

You have all the tools available, and the relevant access rights to develop new content.

Context

A DITA publication consists of a number of different objects. As an absolute minimum, you must have the following:

1. One topic
2. The bookmap

As soon as you take these two and establish a publication, you get one more object: The publication.

As your publication grows in size, you will quickly see that the order in which additional topics and topic maps are created does not matter.

Procedure

1. Create a topic.

   It does not matter if this is a Task, Concept or Reference topic.

   Creating a new DITA topic from a template

2. Create a bookmap.

   Creating a new DITA bookmap from a template

3. Insert the topic into the bookmap.

   Since you only have one topic, and this ends up at the top of the structure, it automatically becomes a chapter.

4. Open the program you use to publish.

5. Create a new publication.

6. Insert the bookmap.

   Now you have a complete publication. It is not large, but it still contain enough information for you to publish it in the desired format.

   I assume that the template for the bookmap does not contain any variables. If variables are used you must do the following:

   1. In the publishing program, find out which variables that are used.

   2. Create a library topic.

      Creating a new DITA library topic

   3. In the librarytopic, define values for each of the variables used in the publication.

   4. Add the library topic to the publication.

7. Publish to the desired format.

Further work

As soon as this first version of the publication is created and you have seen the document in the desired format, you can continue building. Create multiple topic files. You can enter these directly into the bookmap, or collect them into topic maps which are then inserted into the bookmap.

Remember that DITA is intended for sharing and reuse . You must always check what others have done before creating a new topic. Perhaps something similar already exists?

It is also possible to build a publication in a team. Find out which topics you need, and distribute the writing jobs across the team. Everyone can work at the same time, and one member of the team gets the editor's job of putting the topics into a topic map or bookmap.

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