| author | publisher | ID |
|---|---|---|
Larry Kollar |
Oje Media |
reuse |
One of DITA's strengths is reuse, the ability to pull a topic, block (lists, paragraphs, and tables), or phrase into different parts of your document as needed, or into different documents. LwDITA supports reuse as well.
Examples of candidates for reuse include:
- Boilerplate information, such as copyright or trademark information, that must be consistent across documents
- Cautions or warnings that appear frequently in instructions
- Product names or model numbers, especially in topics used in multiple documents (document variables)
- Steps, duplicated across multiple tasks.
LwDITA adopts two DITA mechanisms for reuse:
- Content references (conref)—reuses block content.
The block to be reused must have a unique
idattribute. - Key references (keyref)—equivalent to document variables.
Later chapters, documenting each supported format, provide details about using references.
Tip: You can collect reusable paragraphs into a separate file, making them available to related documents. You must define key references in the bookmap.