What role does content profiling play in government content reuse with DITA?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Localizing and translating government content to meet diverse language requirements is a common need for reaching a broad audience. DITA XML provides several mechanisms to facilitate the localization and translation of content efficiently.

Content Reuse for Translation

DITA allows for the reuse of content components. When content is separated into reusable modules, such as topics or sections, translation becomes more efficient. Translators can work on individual modules, and any updates or corrections made in the source language are automatically reflected in all translated versions. This eliminates redundancy and minimizes the effort required for translation.

Attributes and Metadata

DITA provides the ability to add attributes and metadata to content components. This can be particularly useful for localization. Metadata can be used to specify the target language for a particular topic, allowing automatic filtering and extraction of content for translation. Attributes can store language-specific information, making it easier for translators to understand the context and requirements of the content they are working on.

Conditional Processing for Localization

Conditional processing, as seen in the previous example, can also be used for localization. Content that needs to be localized can be tagged with language-specific conditions, enabling the system to generate localized versions of documents based on audience language requirements. This streamlines the localization process by automatically including or excluding content based on language criteria.

Example:

Here’s an example of how DITA facilitates the localization and translation of government content:


<topic id="public_announcement">
  <title>Public Announcement</title>
  <body>
    <section>
      <title conkeyref="translation" conref="announcement_text_en">English</title>
      <p>English version of the announcement.</p>
    </section>
    <section>
      <title conkeyref="translation" conref="announcement_text_fr">French</title>
      <p>French version of the announcement.</p>
    </section>
  </body>
  <metadata>
    <keywords>
      <keyword conkeyref="translation">translation</keyword>
    </keywords>
  </metadata>

In this example, the ‘Public Announcement’ topic includes sections for English and French versions. The ‘translation’ keyword and conditions are used to specify language requirements, enabling efficient localization and translation of the content.