How does content reuse benefit aerospace documentation projects in DITA?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Content reuse is a fundamental advantage of DITA in aerospace documentation projects. It offers numerous benefits, including increased efficiency, consistency, and accuracy throughout the documentation process. In the aerospace industry, where precision and adherence to standards are paramount, content reuse plays a vital role in creating and maintaining high-quality documents.

Efficiency: Aerospace documentation often involves repeating elements, such as safety guidelines or parts descriptions. With DITA, these elements can be authored once and reused across multiple documents. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to produce comprehensive documentation.

Example:

Here’s a simplified DITA example showcasing content reuse for aerospace documentation:

<!-- DITA XML for Content Reuse -->
<concept id="safety-guidelines">
  <title>Safety Guidelines</title>
  <body>
    <p>These guidelines ensure safety during aerospace manufacturing and assembly...</p>
  </body>
</concept>

<topic id="assembly-procedure">
  <title>Aircraft Assembly Procedure</title>
  <body>
    <conbody>
      <section>
        <title>Procedure: Safety Precautions</title>
        <p>This section includes the <conceptref keyref="safety-guidelines"/>, which are crucial for ensuring safety during assembly...</p>
      </section>
      <!-- Other sections of the assembly procedure -->
    </conbody>
  </body>

By reusing content like safety guidelines, aerospace documentation projects can maintain consistency and ensure that important information is consistently applied across various documents.