# Structured DITA XML format

Reducing production and translation costs, shortening time to market, and improving documentation quality. These are the challenges facing technical writers today. One of the best ways to achieve this is to reduce the source volume of documentation and better manage enterprise content.

> **Note**
>
> This section explains how structured formats, and DITA XML in particular, reduce the source volume of documentation. This page covers [degrees of structuring](#degrees-of-structuring), [why redundancy costs](#redundancy-useful-to-readers-costly-in-sources), and [how DITA XML removes it](#dita-xml-standardized-building-blocks), then points to [the article to read for each purpose](#explore-this-section).

## Degrees of structuring

Documentation formats differ in their degree of structuring, from reStructuredText to DITA XML:

> **Diagram: Technical documentation formats by degree of structuring**
>
> Diagram ranking reStructuredText, FrameMaker, DocBook, and DITA XML by increasing degree of structuring.

**Technical documentation formats: degrees of structuring**

## Redundancy: useful to readers, costly in sources

The information that technical writers provide to the public *must* be redundant: the company must present each of its audiences with all the information they need, in the medium that is appropriate for them. To take the simplest example, each information medium must include the company's contact details. But up to 50% of the information disseminated by the company is repeated.

On the other hand, internal information redundancy generates additional costs, lengthens production cycles, and leads to a decrease in the consistency, and therefore the quality, of the content. It is therefore essential to reduce and better share source content and decrease its volume. The technical writer must divide the information into unique, standardized, and generic building blocks so that it can be assembled on demand. They must therefore use modules that are structured in a consistent manner and can be easily manipulated by applications.

> **Diagram: Documentation sources must be less voluminous than deliverables**
>
> Diagram showing compact, non-redundant sources producing a PDF deliverable.

**Documentation sources must be less voluminous than deliverables**

## DITA XML: standardized building blocks

DITA XML is a structured XML architecture for creating modular documents and reusing content. Using a common base of atomic DITA XML information modules, technical writers can provide all the information each user needs in real time, on any type of media, from e-learning to PDF or paper documents, to websites.

DITA XML applies the principle of non-redundancy of information specific to standardized databases. This architecture brings the revolution introduced in industry by standardization to technical documentation: just as different car models can be built from a set of identical parts, technical writers can publish different documents from a set of standardized information building blocks.

## Explore this section

### Choose a format

- [**Structured and unstructured formats**](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/structured-vs-unstructured-formats/): Structured formats promote the creation of minimalist, complete, and coherent documents.

### Organize content in modules

  - [**From document to modular document base**](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/modular-documentation/): The DITA XML structured authoring format offers a transition from the book model to a modular document base.
  - [**Too complex a document architecture?**](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/document-architecture-complexity/): DITA XML enables productivity gains by reducing the source volume that the technical writer creates, translates and maintains, at the cost of greater complexity.

### See DITA XML in practice

  - [**Case study: NuFirewall documentation**](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/nufirewall-case-study/): NuFirewall
  - [**Case studies in using DITA XML**](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/dita-xml-case-studies/): My daily use of the DITA XML structured authoring format on multilingual projects as a technical writer has enabled me to develop several solutions and tips, which I

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Source: https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/