Glossary
Overview
Section titled “Overview”Quick definitions for terms used across this manual. Each entry links to the article that covers the concept in depth - this page is for lookup, not for learning a topic from scratch.
- CMS (Content Management System)
- A tool that adds workflow and file-locking to content management, at the cost of reliability trade-offs compared to plain version control. See CMS: workflow as a bonus, but reliability to be tested.
- Concept, task, reference
- DITA XML’s three base information types: a concept introduces or explains an idea, a task is a numbered procedure, and a reference is lookup material like a parameter list. This manual’s own articles are tagged with the same three types. See structured and unstructured formats.
- Conref
- A DITA XML mechanism for reusing a block of content by reference: the content of a target node is replaced by the content of a source node at compile time. See reusing information blocks with conrefs.
- Ditamap
- An external table-of-contents file that assembles DITA XML topics into a document, without the topics themselves needing to know their position in that document. See on-demand DITA content assembly with ditamaps.
- Ditaval
- A DITA XML filter file that includes or excludes content marked with matching attributes at compile time - the mechanism behind DITA’s conditional text. See provide targeted information with ditaval conditional text.
- Docs-as-code
- Treating documentation like source code: text-based formats, version control, code review, and CI/CD, rather than a separate publishing process. See adopt docs-as-code.
- DITA XML
- A structured, modular XML authoring architecture built around the concept/task/reference typology and content reuse via conrefs and ditamaps. See structured DITA XML format.
- Information typing
- The discipline of classifying content by its communicative purpose (concept, task, reference) rather than writing undifferentiated prose. See structured and unstructured formats.
- Minimalism (minimalist writing)
- A task section contains only what’s needed to complete the task - prerequisites, steps, and a few closely related elements - with conceptual and reference material placed elsewhere. See structured and unstructured formats.
- Modular documentation
- Content built from small, reusable, standalone units (topics or modules) assembled on demand, rather than authored as monolithic documents. See from document to modular document base.
- Single-sourcing
- Generating multiple deliverables (PDF, HTML, help formats) from one source, rather than maintaining a separate source per output format. See target format.
- Source format
- The format content is authored in, as distinct from the target format it’s published to - the recipe versus the dish. See source format.
- Structured authoring
- Writing content whose markup encodes meaning (this is a warning, this is a step) rather than just visual appearance - enabling automated processing, reuse, and consistency checks that unstructured formats can’t support. See structured and unstructured formats.
- Target format
- The format a reader actually consumes - PDF, HTML, compiled help - generated from the source format. See target format.
- Technical communication
- The broader discipline that spans the entire product life cycle and reaches general audiences, prospects, and journalists - as distinct from technical writing, which produces user-facing product documentation after a sale. See from technical writing to technical communication.
- Topic
- The smallest autonomous, titled unit of information in DITA XML, typed as concept, task, or reference and assembled into documents via ditamaps. See topics: basic DITA XML information modules.
- XSL-FO
- A stylesheet language for transforming and laying out XML content for print/PDF output, commonly paired with DITA XML publishing pipelines. See DITA XML and XSL-FO tutorials.