Authoring standards-based intelligent content the easy way with lightweight DITA

Abstract

Lightweight DITA (LwDITA) is a proposed standard and methodology for authoring intelligent technical content. LwDITA aims to ease adoption of the open standard Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) in industry and academia by reducing its dependence on robust XML structures and allowing authors to develop content in a variety of markup languages. LwDITA is designed after three primary authoring formats: 1) a subset of DITA XML elements aimed at an audience of technical communicators (XDITA), 2) an HTML5 format for web content creators (HDITA), and 3) a Markdown format for developers and plain-text aficionados (MDITA). LwDITA is still under development, but some plugins compatible with the DITA Open Toolkit make it functional enough for evaluation and early adoption.