How do IT organizations manage variations of documentation for different software versions using DITA?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

In IT organizations, managing variations of documentation for different software versions using DITA is essential to meet the needs of users who may be using different versions of the software. DITA provides a structured and efficient way to manage these variations while maintaining consistency and accuracy. Here’s how IT organizations can achieve this:

1. Conditional Processing: DITA allows you to apply conditional processing based on software versions. This means you can mark sections of content that are specific to particular software versions. For example, you can create content variations for version 1.0, version 2.0, and so on. When delivering documentation, you can choose which content variations to include based on the user’s software version. This ensures that users receive information relevant to their specific software version.

2. Single Source of Truth: DITA promotes a single-source approach, meaning you maintain one source for all common content shared across different software versions. This common content includes general concepts, features, and functionalities that don’t change between versions. By keeping a single source, you reduce redundancy and errors, as updates only need to be made in one place, and they automatically apply to all variations.

3. Example:

Let’s consider an IT organization managing documentation for different versions of a software product. With DITA, they can apply conditional processing to include version-specific content:


<!-- DITA Conditional Processing for Software Versions -->
<topic id="software_documentation">
  <title>Software Documentation</title>
  <body>
    <section conref="common_content.dita"/>
    <section conref="version_1.0.dita" product-version="1.0"/>
    <section conref="version_2.0.dita" product-version="2.0"/>
  </body>

In this example, the “common_content.dita” section contains content applicable to all software versions. Conditional processing ensures that when generating documentation for version 1.0, the “version_1.0.dita” section is included, and the same applies to version 2.0. This way, the organization efficiently manages documentation for different software versions using a single source.