DITA 101 [Paperback]

Ann Rockley (Author), Charles Cooper (Contributor), Steve Manning (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2009

If you're in the process of implementing DITA, expect to do so in the future, or just want to learn more about it without having to wade through technical specifications, this is the book for you. This book covers everything you need to know about DITA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: lulu.com (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0557072913
• ISBN-13: 978-0557072910
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DITA 101 - Awful Introduction to DITA, October 31, 2010

By 

tekk reader - See all my reviews

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This review is from: DITA 101 (Paperback)

I'm halfway through this book and I'm highly disappointed that I spent $23 on it. The authors might be DITA experts, but they have no idea of how to explain it to someone.

The organization of the book is terrible. After many pages, I still don't know what DITA is for or how it's associated with XML. But I'm deep into detailed tag definitions, etc.

Explanations in the book are convoluted, confusing, and have many references to chapters and sections later in the book. Inconsistent terminology, bad sentence construction, use of technical terms that are unexplained until later in the book, and other classic examples of poor writing abound. Here's the definition of "unique content" from page 52: "Unique - Content which is unique is just that, unique."

You also need a magnifying glass (really!) to read some of the figures in the book.

The book's content might make sense to someone who's already a DITA expert. But to me (only a technical writer trying to understand what DITA is about), it's a waste of time.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High level view of DITA, January 24, 2010

By 

Diane L. Thompson "magicmom" (Suffern, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: DITA 101 (Paperback)

This book offers a high level view of DITA and how DITA could best be used in the context of content management and a single-source environment. It readies the user to understand a more in depth course on DITA. I must admit that before reading this book, the point of DITA escaped me. Now I feel ready for the next step.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Introduction, December 19, 2010

By 

Bob Ryan (Crystal Lake, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DITA 101 (Paperback)

If your technical communications group is considering a move to DITA and you, or your team, don't know what DITA is and what it means to move to a DITA authoring model, this book is a great place to start.

The books does provides a comprehensive high-level overview of the technical aspects of DITA--tags, topic types, DITA maps. But, more importantly, it discusses the broader considerations when moving to DITA. The authors discuss how a DITA environment affects people. How do you plan your information development? How do you reuse information? How does DITA affect the day-to-day roles of writers and managers? What new roles might you need to define in your organization? How does it fit with a Component Content Management System (CCMS)?

It is important to remember that this is "DITA 101" and is not a graduate course on the subject. This book is a great place to start your DITA investigation. I think it would be money well spent for an organization to get a copy of this book for all their people to help shape any pending DITA implementation.