Michael Priestley, IBM DITA Architect and Classification Schema PDT Lead
Introduction to DITA Specialization - Tuesday 11.30AM

Specialization is the technique that allows DITA implementers to create custom markup languages that still conform to the DITA architectural specification, which means they can share content and tools infrastructure with other DITA dialects, while getting the benefits of semantic content models that match your business and customer needs.

This demonstration will show how the DITA model is factored into structural types, such as different kinds of topics and maps, and domains, which provide markup specific to a particular subject area or need, but common to many kinds of topics or maps. When existing types meet your needs, you can quickly create a custom document type that integrates the structures and domains that best match your content; when there's a hole, you can fill it with a new type or domain, created when you need it for immediate results and iterative improvement.