Structured authoring

Updated: Thu Apr 17 2025

Giving structure to your organization’s content ensures the readers have a consistent experience, which lets them get the answers they need quickly and move on with their day.

A highly structured option is DITA, an XML-based structured authoring language for technical documentation.

DITA’s strength is in content reuse. Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) can use content as components, just as your developers use components. Its extensive use of attributes and metadata makes your technical content more available programmatically, and allows your authors to enforce writing standards across your organization.

Not every organization needs the rigid structure of DITA, but every organization’s content needs structure. I can help you apply these principles to your content.

Examples

• Converted a 1500-topic Adobe RoboHelp project to DITA XML.
• Wrote XSLT code to customize the DITA output to HTML.
• Created a unique publishing platform, using Atlassian Confluence as a content management system (CMS) with a custom front end.