DITA XML: a reuse by reference architecture for technical documentation

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an XML architecture for producing and reusing technical information. DITA promises the following:

• Scalable reuse, so you can reuse content in any number of delivery contexts simultaneously without complicating the source

• Descriptive markup, so you can use markup that describes your information in terms your customers need

• Interchangeability, so you can treat specialized markup as if it were general, getting reuse of tools and processes defined at more general levels of descriptiveness

• Process inheritance, so you can reuse existing process logic in your specialized processes.