Inheritance of attributes and metadata in maps

Some of the attributes and metadata in a map can be inherited based on the structures in the map.

Inheritance is additive except where this would cause a conflict. When there is a conflict, the value defined closest (most specifically) to the topicref takes effect. In a relationship table, row-level metadata is considered more specific than column-level metadata, as shown in the following containment hierarchy:

map (most general)
- topichead/topicgroup/topicref container (more specific)
  - topicref (most specific)
- reltable (more specific)
  - relcolspec (more specific)
    - relrow (more specific)
      - topichead/topicgroup/topicref container (more specific)
        
        topicref (most specific)

The following attributes and metadata elements are inheritable:

Attributes: audience, platform, product, otherprops, rev; props and any attribute specialized from props; linking, toc, print, search; format, scope, type; xml:lang, dir, translate
Elements: author, source, publisher, copyright, critdates, permissions; audience, category, prodinfo, othermeta

Attributes and metadata can be defined at the root level (attributes on the map element itself, topicmeta as a direct child of the map element) to apply them to the entire map. They can also be applied at any point in a hierarchy, group, or table. Tables can be particularly useful for attribute and metadata management, since they can be applied to entire columns or rows as well as individual cells.

While the chunk attribute no longer inherits a value from containers (new with DITA 1.1), specifying a value for the chunk attribute on the map or map specialization element establishes a default value for chunking that applies to the entire map unless overridden by more specific chunk attribute settings elsewhere within the document.