How are aerospace documents generated and published from DITA sources?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Generating and publishing aerospace documents from DITA sources is a structured and efficient process that leverages the power of DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) to create, manage, and distribute content. DITA allows aerospace organizations to author content in a modular and reusable manner, ensuring consistency and ease of maintenance. Once the content is ready, it can be transformed into various output formats and published for different purposes.

To achieve this, organizations use DITA-optimized authoring tools that support the creation of content in DITA’s structured format. These authoring tools allow authors to create topics that represent specific units of information, such as safety procedures, compliance guidelines, or equipment maintenance instructions. Topics can be enriched with metadata, linking, and multimedia elements as needed.

Example:

Here’s an example of a DITA topic representing a safety procedure:

<!-- Example of a DITA safety procedure topic -->
<topic id="safety-procedure" domains="aerospace safety">
  <title>Safety Procedure</title>
  <body>
    <section id="introduction">
      <title>Introduction</title>
      <p>An introduction to a safety procedure in aerospace.</p>
    </section>
    <section id="steps">
      <title>Procedure Steps</title>
      <p>Detailed steps to follow for safety.</p>
    </section>
    <section id="references">
      <title>References</title>
      <p>Related regulations and guidelines.</p>
    </section>
    <!-- More sections as needed -->
  </body>
</topic>

Once content creation is complete, DITA offers a transformation process that converts DITA sources into various output formats like PDF, HTML, or even custom XML formats. This transformation process ensures that the same content can be published for different audiences and purposes, including printed documentation, web-based resources, and integration with other systems.