Display attributes is a parameter entity declaration in the topic DTD that includes attributes whose values may be used for affecting the display of a topic or its selection by search tools. ID attributes (%id-atts;) is a parameter entity declaration in the topic DTD that includes attributes that enable the naming and referencing of elements in a DITA topic: id and conref. Attributes that support both filtering and flagging include platform, product, audience, and otherprops. Attribute rev only lets you flag information that matches a run-time parameter. Attribute importance currently provides output effects only for steps (where only the values "optional" and "required" are supported). Universal attributes is a parameter entity declaration in the topic DTD that includes all of the attributes in the select-atts and id-atts attribute groups. Debugging attributes, normally hidden from authoring view. The <title> element contains a heading or label for the main parts of a document such as <topic>, <section>, and <example> and for the display elements such as figure (<fig>) and <table>. The <keyword> element identifies a keyword or token, such as a single value from an enumerated list, the name of a command or parameter, or a lookup key for a message (contrast with term). The <desc> element contains the description of the current element. A description should provide more information than the title. The phrase (<ph>) element is used to organize content for reuse or conditional processing (for example, when part of a paragraph applies to a particular audience). It can be used by future specializations of DITA to apply specific processing or formatting to marked up phrases. var & keyword defined by syntax diagram The <term> element identifies words that represent extended definitions or explanations. In future development of DITA, for example, terms might provide associative linking to matching glossary entries. Inline content (prhases) The trademark (<tm>) element in DITA is used to markup and identify a term or phrase that is trademarked. Trademarks include registered trademarks, service marks, slogans and logos. ( Deprecated ) - The <boolean> element is used to express one of two opposite values, such as yes or no, on or off, true or false, high or low, and so forth. The element itself is empty; the value of the element is stored in its state attribute, and the semantic associated with the value is typically in a specialized name derived from this element. If you need more than two values (for example, "yes," "no" and "don't care") use the <state> element instead. This element is primarily for specialization, where it can be used to require a logical true or false designation in a particular part of the document. The <state> element specifies a name/value pair whenever it is necessary to represent a named state that has a variable value. The element is primarily intended for use in specializations to represent specific states (like logic circuit states, chemical reaction states, airplane instrumentation states, and so forth). A paragraph element (<p>) is a block of text containing a single main idea. TThe long quote (<lq>) element indicates content quoted from another source. Use the quote element <q>for short, inline quotations, and long quote <lq> for quotations that are too long for inline use, following normal guidelines for quoting other sources. You can store a URL to the source of the quotation in the href attribute. A <note> element contains information, differentiated from the main text, which expands on or calls attention to a particular point. A quotation element (<q>) indicates content quoted from another source. This element is used for short quotes which are displayed inline. Use the long quote element (<lq>) for quotations that should be set off from the surrounding text. In an unordered list (<ul>), the order of the list items is not significant. List items are typically styled on output with a "bullet" character, depending on nesting level. An ordered list (<ol>) is a list of items sorted by sequence or order of importance. The <sl> element contains a simple list of items of short, phrase-like content, such as in documenting the materials in a kit or package. A simple list item (<sli>) is a single item in a simple list<sl>. Simple list items have phrase or text content, adequate for describing package contents, for example. When a DITA topic is formatted for output, the items of a simple list are placed each on its own line, with no other prefix such as a number (as in an ordered list) or bullet (as in an unordered list).. A list (<li>) item is a single item in an ordered <ol> or unordered <ul> list. When a DITA topic is formatted for output, numbers and alpha characters are usually output with list items in ordered lists, while bullets and dashes are usually output with list items in unordered lists. The <itemgroup> element is reserved for specialization of DITA. As a container element, it can be used to sub-divide or organize elements that occur inside a list item, definition, or parameter definition. A definition list (<dl>) is a list of terms and corresponding definitions. The term (<dt>) is usually flush left. The description or definition (<dt>) is usually either indented and on the next line, or on the same line to the right of the term. The <dlhead> element contains optional headings for the term and description columns in a definition list. The definition list heading contains a heading <dthd> for the column of terms and an optional heading <ddhd>for the column of descriptions. The definition descriptions heading (<ddhd>) element contains an optional heading or title for a column of descriptions or definitions in a definition list The definition term heading (<dthd>) element is contained in a definition list head (<dlhead>) and provides an optional heading for the column of terms in a description list. In a definition list, each list item is defined by the definition list entry (<dlentry>) element. The definition list entry element includes a term <dt> and one or more definitions or descriptions <dd> of that term. The definition term <dt> element contains a term in a definition list entry. The definition description (<dd>) element contains the description of a term in a definition list entry. The figure (<fig>) element is a display context (sometimes called an exhibit) with an optional title for a wide variety of content. Most commonly, the figure element contains an image element (a graphic or artwork), but it can contain several kinds of text objects as well. A title is placed inside the figure element to provide a caption to describe the content. The <figgroup> element is used only for specialization at this time. Figure groups can be used to contain multiple cross-references, footnotes or keywords, but not multipart images. Multipart images in DITA should be represented by a suitable media type displayed by the <object> element. The preformatted element (<pre>) preserves line breaks and spaces entered manually by the author in the content of the element, and also presents the content in a monospaced type font (depending on your output formatting processor). The <lines> element may be used to represent dialogs, lists, text fragments, and so forth. The <lines> element is similar to <pre> in that hard line breaks are preserved, but the font style is not set to monospace, and extra spaces inside the lines are not preserved. Include artwork or images in a DITA topic by using the <image> element. The <image> element has optional attributes that indicate whether the placement of the included graphic or artwork should be inline (like a button or icon), or on a separate line for a larger image. An href attribute is required on the image element, as this attribute creates a pointer to the image, and allows the output formatting processor to bring the image into the text flow. To make the intent of the image more accessible for users using screen readers or text-only readers, always include a description of the image's content in the alt attribute. The alt element provides an element equivalent of the alt attribute on the image element. As an element, it provides direct text entry within an XML editor and is more easily accessed than an attribute for translation. DITA's <object> element corresponds to the HTML <object> element. The <object> element allows authors to include animated images, applets, plug-ins, ActiveX controls, video clips, and other multimedia objects in a topic for rendering after transformation to HTML. The parameter (<param>)element specifies a set of values that may be required by an <object> at runtime. Any number of <param> elements may appear in the content of an object in any order, but must be placed at the start of the content of the enclosing object. This element is comparable to the XHMTL <param> element. The <simpletable> element is used for tables that are regular in structure and do not need a caption. Choose the simple table element when you want to show information in regular rows and columns. For example, multi-column tabular data such as phone directory listings or parts lists are good candidates for simpletable. Another good use of simpletable is for information that seems to beg for a "three-part definition list"—just use the keycol attribute to indicate which column represents the "key" or term-like column of your structure. The simpletable header (<sthead>) element contains the table's header row. The header row is optional in a simple table. The <simpletable> row (<strow>) element specifies a row in a simple table, like row in a conventional table. The simpletable entry (<stentry>) element represents a single table cell, like <entry> in <table>. You can place any number of stentry cells in either an sthead element (for headings) or strow element (for rows of data). The <draft-comment> element allows simple review and discussion of topic contents within the marked-up content. Use the <draft-comment> element to ask a question or make a comment that you would like others to review. To indicate the source of the draft comment or the status of the comment, use the author, time or disposition attributes. A <required-cleanup> element is used as a placeholder for migrated elements that cannot be appropriately tagged without manual intervention. As the element name implies, the intent for authors is to clean up the contained material and eventually get rid of the <required-cleanup> element. Authors should not insert this element into documents. Use footnote (<fn>) to annotate text with notes that are not appropriate for inclusion in line or to indicate the source for facts or other material used in the text. An <indextermref> is a reference to an index entry in a lookup table used by the indexing process. If you want to create index markers pointing to referenced items, but only want page numbers instead of separate index entries to be generated, use the index term reference <indextermref> element. This adds the page number of the reference to the index without creating a separate index entry. The <cite> element is used when you need a bibliographic citation that refers to a book or article. It specifically identifies the title of the resource. Its keyref attribute allows the citation to be associated to other possible bibliographic processing (not supported yet). Use the cross-reference (<xref>) element to link to a different location within the current topic, or a different topic within the same help system or DITA document. You can also point to external sources, such as Web pages, or to a location in another topic as well. The href attribute on the <xref> element is used to create the link pointer, or URL. The class attribute supports specialization. Its predefined values help the output transforms work correctly with ranges of related content. The <data> element represents a property within a DITA topic or map. While the <data> element can be used directly to capture properties, it is particularly useful as a basis for specialization. Default processing treats the property values as an unknown kind of metadata, but custom processing can match the name attribute or specialized element to format properties as sidebars or other adornments or to harvest properties for automated processing.

The <data-about> element identifies the subject of a property when the subject isn't associated with the context in which the property is specified. The property itself is expressed by the <data> element. The <data-about> element handles exception cases where a property must be expressed somewhere other than inside the actual subject of the property. The <data-about> element is particularly useful as a basis for specialization in combination with the <data> element.

Don't use the <data-about> element to identify the object of a property. The href attribute of the <data> element serves that purpose.

 The <foreign> element is an open extension that allows information architects to incorporate existing standard vocabularies for non-textual content. like MathML and SVG, as inline objects. If <foreign> contains more than one alternative content element, they will all be processed. Specialization of <foreign> should be implemented as a domain, but for those looking for more control over the content can implement foreign vocabulary as an element specialization. An <indexterm> is an index entry. You can nest entries to create multi-level indexes. The content is not output as part of topic content, only as part of the index. The <index-base> element allows indexing extensions to be added by specializing off this element. It does not in itself have any meaning and should be ignored in processing. The <unknown> element is an open extension that allows information architects to incorporate xml fragments that does not necessarily fit into an exisitng DITA use case. The base processing for <unknown> is to supress unless otherwise instructed.