[CMS] Introduction to DITA: A User Guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture Arbortext Edition

[Lovonya Thomas]

Comtech Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the publication of the
Arbortext® Edition of its best-selling book, Introduction to DITA: A User
Guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture. Dr. JoAnn Hackos and
the Comtech team have worked closely with the Arbortext experts at PTC® to
produce a series of lessons that take new users of DITA from the basics of
creating structured, standalone topics and assembling them into DITA maps to
reusing content through conditional processing and content references and
processing through the Arbortext Styler™. Throughout the Arbortext Edition,
users learn how to use both DITA and the Arbortext Editor™, including the
new Arbortext DITA map editor. Each lesson is illustrated with screen shots
that show the Arbortext Editor in use.

The Arbortext Edition provides the same comprehensive explanations and
overviews of the DITA model provided in the original edition. While the
original edition presented all the examples in XML markup, the Arbortext
Edition presents all the examples in Arbortext Editor. An Arbortext user is
well prepared to open the Arbortext Editor and begin creating DITA topics
immediately.

The book is as much a user guide to Arbortext Editor for DITA as it is a
user guide to DITA. It is filled with examples that not only illustrate
using DITA but also show how to use Arbortext Editor to create DITA content.
The book covers profiling and composing with the Arbortext Editor using the
Arbortext Styler composition engine. In fact, the book was authored using
the Arbortext Editor and the PDF was developed with Arbortext Styler.

Dieter Weidenbrueck, senior vice president of publishing solutions, PTC
explains that, “we are excited about the PTC Arbortext Edition of
Introduction to DITA. Every industry standard requires an appropriate set of
tools that leverage the standard to optimize the overall technical
publications process. This book offers a natural combination of the key
characteristics of the OASIS DITA standard and the corresponding Arbortext
capabilities that make it easy for users to create and publish high-quality
documentation based on DITA.”

Bob Doyle, Editor in Chief of the CMS Review, remarked about this book: “All
the great content from the original edition is there, but many illustrations
are now screenshots from Arbortext Editor. Instead of the XML markup code
for examples, you see the tags-on view in Arbortext Editor. A new section
(Lesson 1) describes context-sensitive editing. Allowable elements that can
be inserted depend on the location of your insertion point in the DITA
document. Element entry automatically adds the appropriate start and end
tags. Lesson 9 introduces the Arbortext Map Editor, with its Resource
Manager to locate topic files and a Relationship Tables visual editing
interface. Lesson 21 covers Arbortext's powerful Profiling approach to
conditional processing… That said, this book has a strange metaphysical
quality of being about itself. You are reading a line that describes the
steps in a task and you suddenly realize that the very same steps were
needed to generate the printed words you are looking at! It's a
self-referential reference book. This book is not just about DITA. It is
DITA. Talk about practicing what you preach. Everyone starting out with DITA
should read this book.”

To learn more about the Arbortext Edition and view a sample lesson, visit
http://www.comtech-serv.com/arbordita.shtml. The new book is available for
purchase on our website at http://www.comtech-serv.com/booksale.shtml or by
calling Comtech at 303-232-7586.

About Comtech Services, Inc.—Led by President, Dr. JoAnn Hackos, the Comtech
consultancy assists companies worldwide in implementing more efficient and
cost effective methods of developing and delivering content. The consultancy
works with clients to define requirements for content management solutions,
select and implement content management systems, develop company-specific
information models, and train staff in structured authoring. 

As a founder of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, Dr. Hackos has played a
major role in the development of the DITA model and its growing adoption by
the global information-development community. As chair of the OASIS DITA
Translation Subcommittee, she has led the integration of DITA with
localization and translation management practices to reduce the cost and
increase the quality of translations.

Through the Center for Information-Development Management, Comtech has
managed for the past 10 years three premier industry conferences: Best
Practices in Information-Development Management, Content Management
Strategies, and DITA Europe.

PTC, Arbortext, Arbortext Editor and Arbortext Styler are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its
subsidiaries.

Media Contact—Susan Ebbs, susan.ebbs at comtech-serv.com, 303-232-7586

URL—www.comtech-serv.com arbordita.shtml

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