Home
Language reference: All-inclusive edition
The language reference portion of the DITA specification contains a topic for each DITA element. The topic defines the element, its inheritance hierarchy, and provides examples of usage. This portion of the DITA specification also includes information about DITA attributes.
Attributes
This section collects commonly used attributes, with common definitions. If an element uses a different definition, or narrows the scope of, an otherwise common attribute, it will be called out in the topic that defines the element.
Complex attribute definitions
Several DITA attributes require more explanation than can fit in a single table cell. Those attributes are collected here.
The @keys attribute
A @keys attribute consists of one or more space-separated keys. Map authors define keys using a <topicref> or <topicref> specialization that contains the @keys attribute. Each key definition introduces an identifier for a resource referenced from a map. Keys resolve to the resources given as the @href value on the key definition <topicref> element, to content contained within the key definition <topicref> element, or both.

Specification URIs
Notices
Introduction to DITA 1.3
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information, as well as a set of mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types.
Architectural specification: All-inclusive edition
The architectural specification portion of the DITA specification outlines the framework of DITA. It contains an overview of DITA markup; addressing; processing; configuration, specialization, generalization, and constraints; as well as information about coding DITA grammar files.
Language reference: All-inclusive edition
The language reference portion of the DITA specification contains a topic for each DITA element. The topic defines the element, its inheritance hierarchy, and provides examples of usage. This portion of the DITA specification also includes information about DITA attributes.
- Element quick reference
  This section contains a listing of DITA elements.
- Topic elements
  The base topic elements include elements that make up the core building blocks of the DITA topic, such as topic, body, and related-links, as well as elements like <p> and <ph> that are used in many topic specializations. Some of these elements are also available inside the <topicmeta> map element.
- Map elements
  Map elements include the core components of DITA maps, such as <topicref> and <reltable>, as well as general purpose map specializations in the map group domain.
- Metadata elements
  Metadata elements include information that is located within the <topicmeta> element (in maps) or <prolog> element (in topics), as well as indexing elements that can be placed in additional locations within topic content.
- Domain elements
  General purpose domains are not specific to any type of information, such as the hazard statement domain that provides elements for describing hazardous situations.
- Classification elements
  Classification elements support managing metadata. Those in the subject scheme map are used to define controlled values and to bind the controlled values to DITA attributes as enumerations. Those declared in the classification domain are used in other maps to classify content according to the scheme.
- Specialization elements
  Several DITA elements exist either for architectural reasons or for support of specialized markup yet to be designed. Although there is little need to use these elements unless you are directed to, some of them, such as <state>, can be used if your content makes use of these semantic distinctions. For example, a discussion of signals on a gate of an integrated logic circuit might use the <state> element to represent either on or off conditions of that gate.
- Legacy conversion elements
  Conversion elements exist primarily to aid in the conversion of content to DITA.
- DITAVAL elements
  A conditional processing profile (DITAVAL file) is used to identify which values are to be used for conditional processing during a particular output, build, or some other purpose. The profile should have an extension of .ditaval.
- Technical content elements
  Elements in the technical content section include the original Concept, Task, and Reference specializations, as well as specializations added in later releases. It also includes domains designed primarily for technical content.
- Learning and training elements
  Elements in the learning and training section include specialized topics, maps, content, and metadata elements specially designed to support instructional content.
- Attributes
  This section collects commonly used attributes, with common definitions. If an element uses a different definition, or narrows the scope of, an otherwise common attribute, it will be called out in the topic that defines the element.
  - Universal attribute group
    The universal attribute group defines a set of common attributes available on most DITA elements. The universal attribute group includes all attributes from the metadata, ID, localization, and debug attribute groups, plus the @class attribute.
  - Architectural attribute group
    The architectural attributes group includes a set of attributes defined for document level elements such as <topic> and <map>. These attributes are intended to provide information about the DITA namespace, what level of DITA is in use, and what vocabulary modules are in use.
  - Attributes common to many map elements
    This attribute group collects several attributes that are used on a variety of map elements. For a few elements, the group is modified slightly to remove an attribute such as @toc or @format; in those cases the element definition will clarify that the element does not use this full set. That is generally done in order to specify a default for one attribute, such as defaulting @format to "ditamap" on the <mapref> element.
  - Complex-table attribute group
    The Complex-table attribute group includes several attributes that are defined on complex table elements. Most of these attributes are part of the OASIS Exchange model; table elements generally use only a subset of the attributes defined in this group. These attributes are not available for the <simpletable> elements.
  - Data element attributes group
    The data element attributes group includes attributes that are defined for the <data> element, and are reused on most or all specializations of the <data> element.
  - Date attributes group
    The date attributes group includes attributes that take date values, and are defined on metadata elements that work with date information.
  - Display attribute group
    The display attribute group includes attributes whose values can be used for affecting the display of many elements.
  - Link relationship attribute group
    The link relationship attribute group includes attributes whose values can be used for representing navigational relationships. These attributes occur only on elements that represent relationships among DITA elements or between DITA elements and non-DITA resources.
  - Other common attributes
    These common attributes are used across a wide variety of elements, with the common definition included below. These attributes are not defined as a group, and many elements only specify one or two from this list.
  - Simpletable attribute group
    The simpletable attribute group includes several attributes that are defined on the <simpletable> element and <simpletable> specializations. These attributes are not defined for the OASIS exchange table (<table>).
  - Specialization attributes group
    These attributes are designed to be used by specializers, and are not intended for direct use by authors.
  - Topicref element attributes group
    The topicref element attributes group includes attributes that are defined for the <topicref> element, and are reused on most or all specializations of the <topicref> element.
  - Complex attribute definitions
    Several DITA attributes require more explanation than can fit in a single table cell. Those attributes are collected here.
    - The @href attribute
      The @href attribute is used to reference another DITA topic or map, a specific element inside a DITA topic or map, an external Web page, or another non-DITA resource.
    - The @keys attribute
      A @keys attribute consists of one or more space-separated keys. Map authors define keys using a <topicref> or <topicref> specialization that contains the @keys attribute. Each key definition introduces an identifier for a resource referenced from a map. Keys resolve to the resources given as the @href value on the key definition <topicref> element, to content contained within the key definition <topicref> element, or both.
    - The @keyref attribute
      The @keyref attribute provides an indirect, late-bound reference to topics, to collections of topics (ditabase), to maps, to referenceable portions of maps, to non-DITA documents, to external URIs, or to XML content contained within a key definition topic reference. When the DITA content is processed, the key references are resolved using key definitions from DITA maps.
    - The @keyscope attribute
      The @keyscope attribute consists of one or more space-separated key scope names. Map authors define the boundaries for key scopes by specifying the @keyscope attribute on <map> elements, <topicref> elements, or elements that are specializations of <map> or <topicref>. Such elements, their contents, and any locally-scoped content referenced from within the element, are considered to be part of the scope. Keys defined within a scope are only directly referenceable from within the same scope. They can be referenced from the parent scope using the scope's name, followed by a period, followed by the key name.
    - The @conref attribute
      The @conref attribute is used to reference content that can be reused. It allows reuse of DITA elements, including topic or map level elements.
    - The @conaction attribute
      The @conaction attribute allows users to push content from one topic into another. It causes the @conref attribute to work in reverse, so that the content is pushed from the current topic into another, rather than pulled from another topic into the current one. Allowable values for @conaction are: pushafter, pushbefore, pushreplace, mark, and -dita-use-conref-target.
    - The @conrefend attribute
      The @conrefend attribute is used when referencing a range of elements with the conref mechanism. The @conref or @conkeyref attribute references the first element in the range, while @conrefend references the last element in the range.
    - The @conkeyref attribute
      The @conkeyref attribute provides an indirect content reference to topic elements, map elements, or elements within maps or topics. When the DITA content is processed, the key references are resolved using key definitions from DITA maps.
    - The @type attribute
      The @type attribute is used on linking elements to describe the target of a cross-reference. It also is used on the <note> element to describe the note type, as well as on several other elements for varying purposes.
    - The @format attribute
      The @format attribute identifies the format of the resource that is referenced. If no value is specified, but the attribute is specified on an ancestor within a map or within the related-links section, the value will cascade from the closest ancestor.
    - The @scope attribute
      The @scope attribute identifies the closeness of the relationship between the current document and the target resource.
    - The @role and @otherrole attributes
      The @role attribute defines the role the target topic plays in relationship with the current topic. For example, in a parent/child relationship, the role would be "parent" when the target is the parent of the current topic, and "child" when the target is the child of the current topic. This structure could be used to sort and classify links at display time.
Conformance
Conformance to the DITA specification allows documents and document types that are used with different processors or different versions of a processor to produce the same or similar results with little or no reimplementation or modification.
Acknowledgments
(Non-normative) Many members of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee participated in the creation of this specification and are gratefully acknowledged.
Non-normative information
This section contains non-normative information, including topics about new features in DITA 1.3 and migrating from DITA 1.2 to DITA 1.3.
Content models for learning and training package
For each element in the learning and training package, this section presents the content model and a list of parent elements that can contain that element.

The `@keys` attribute

A @keys attribute consists of one or more space-separated keys. Map authors define keys using a <topicref> or <topicref> specialization that contains the @keys attribute. Each key definition introduces an identifier for a resource referenced from a map. Keys resolve to the resources given as the @href value on the key definition <topicref> element, to content contained within the key definition <topicref> element, or both.

The @keys attribute uses the following syntax:

The value of the @keys attribute is one or more space-separated key names.
Key names consist of characters that are legal in a URI. The case of key names is significant.
The following characters are prohibited in key names: "{", "}", "[", "]", "/", "#", "?", and whitespace characters.

A key cannot resolve to sub-topic elements, although a @keyref attribute can do so by combining a key with a sub-topic element id.

The @keys attribute

The `@keys` attribute