Can agricultural organizations leverage DITA’s support for multilingual content delivery?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Indeed, agricultural organizations can leverage DITA’s robust support for multilingual content delivery to effectively communicate their agricultural practices and knowledge to a global audience. DITA’s features make it well-suited for managing content in multiple languages, ensuring consistency and accuracy in translations, and delivering localized information to diverse regions.

Localization and Translation

In the context of agriculture, where terminology and practices may vary by region and language, DITA allows organizations to create content in a source language and then efficiently translate it into multiple target languages. This process involves the extraction of modular content, translation, and seamless integration, ensuring that agricultural terminology and instructions are accurately conveyed in different languages.

Language Attributes

DITA supports language attributes such as xml:lang and xml:lang-dita, which enable the specification of target languages and dialects for content. By applying these attributes at the topic or element level, organizations can ensure that readers receive content in their preferred language, enhancing the user experience for a global audience. Here’s an example:


<topic id="crop_cultivation" xml_lang="en-US">
  <title>Crop Cultivation</title>
  <body>
    <p>For successful <ph keyref="crop_type">crop cultivation</ph>, follow these steps:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>Prepare the <ph keyref="soil_type">soil</ph>.</li>
      <li>Plant the <ph keyref="crop_seeds">seeds</ph>.</li>
      <li>Water the <ph keyref="crop">crop</ph> regularly.</li>
    </ul>
  </body>

This example demonstrates how content can be tagged with language attributes, ensuring that readers who prefer English (United States) receive the content in that specific dialect.