Introduction
Information types and topics
Topics are the building blocks of modular documents, and organising topics by semantic information types is one of the architectural features of DITA.
DITA map files
Syntax and mark-up
Language and punctuation
Graphics and figures
Cross-referencing
Cross-references are a means of binding individual topics into a coherent and navigable document.
Content re-use
- Content re-use definition
  Content re-use is a means of improving efficiency by eliminating repetition of phrases, blocks of text, topics, and even collections of topics.
- Re-use and the DITA Maturity Model
  Content re-use is one of the features that you should adopt early in your move from style-based authoring to structured authoring with DITA.
- The content reference (conref) attribute
  The conref feature allows DITA content to be used in any number of different places in a collection. The conref attribute in a referencing topic specifies the source topic and the element within that topic to re-use.
- Re-use practices
- Variables
- Organising re-use topics and elements
- Embedded topics and ditamaps
  The ditamap is a powerful tool for re-using topics in different output publications. Topics can also be re-used using ditabase topics, but you should avoid this technique.
- Advanced conref principles
  - Transcluding a group of elements as a whole
    The conrefend attribute was introduced in DITA 1.2 to allow a group of adjacent elements to be transcluded as a group.
  - Indirect content referencing
    The keyref feature was introduced in DITA 1.2 to allow indirect referencing in links, images, and content references. Rather than referencing an element directly in the conref attribute, you can reference a key, the destination of which you specify in the ditamap.
  - The conref push technique
    The conref push technique allows content from a source topic to be inserted into another topic, without any special code in the topic where the content will be re-used.
Metadata, conditional processing, and indexing
The DITA documentation process
DITA authoring concepts
Moving from style-based authoring to a structured authoring methodology such as DITA requires a radically different approach to writing.

Advanced conref principles

The features and capabilities of content referencing was extended in DITA 1.2, making it possible to conref multiple elements at the one time, to indirectly reference content, and to push content from the source element.