DITA Version 1.1 Specification

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.1 comprises the following individual components: an architectural specification, a language specification, a set of DTDs and an equivalent set of Schemas.

This document was last revised or approved by the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC on the above date. The level of approval is also listed above. Check the "Latest Version" or "Latest Approved Version" location noted above for possible later revisions of this document.

Technical Committee members should send comments on this specification to the Technical Committee’s email list. Others should send comments to the Technical Committee by using the “Send A Comment” button on the Technical Committee’s web page at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita.

For information on whether any patents have been disclosed that may be essential to implementing this specification, and any offers of patent licensing terms, please refer to the Intellectual Property Rights section of the Technical Committee web page (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita/ipr.php.

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Version 1.1 of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is made up of four distinct units: an architectural specification, a language specification, and the DTD and Schema implementations of the language.

The architectural specification defines many of the core concepts behind DITA. It is divided into the following sections:

While the specification does contain some introductory information, it is not intended as an introduction to DITA nor as a users guide. The intended audience of this specification consists of implementers of the DITA standard, including tool developers and specializers.

The language specification defines each element that is part of the core DITA specification. It includes all elements from the core DITA map and topic specifications, as well as all OASIS approved specializations (both topic and domain specializations). Beginning with version 1.1 it also includes each element in the DITAVAL format, which may be used when processing or displaying DITA content.

Many elements in the language specification also include usage examples. In general, processing implications are not listed unless they are useful in describing the purpose of the element.

The DITA specification includes DTD and Schema implementations of all OASIS DITA components. They each include the following document types:

The architectural specification includes overviews of each document type, as well as suggestions on when to use each one.

Although the DTDs are considered normative, the DTDs and Schemas are functionally equivalent.

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].