About a month ago, we ran an informal survey asking people what publications about DITA would be most useful to them. An author’s guide was at the top of the list. DITA 101: Fundamentals of DITA for Authors and Managers (published through Lulu.com, $25.37 print, $9.95 download), the new book from The Rockley Group, addresses this audience and lives up to its title.

Like every other book about DITA I’ve read, DITA 101 spends a lot of time discussing the DITA philosophy. At first, this troubled me. I’m used to DocBook, where I don’t need a primer on how to write in order to use the schema. My attitude has been, “show me the grammar and leave me alone.”

DITA is different.

Continue reading DITA 101 — Book Review

In collaboration with XML Press, O’Reilly Media will publish DocBook: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition.

It is nearly 10 years since the original edition of DocBook: The Definitive Guide was published. Since then, DocBook has grown to become the most widely used schema for technical documentation, with extensive use in both commercial and open source environments including Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, GNOME, Hewlett-Packard, IBM Linux Technology Center, KDE, Linux Documentation Project, Mandriva, O’Reilly Media, PHP, Red Hat, SUSE, Subversion, and Sun Microsystems, to name just a few.

DocBook: The Definitive Guide is, as the title implies, the definitive reference to the DocBook standard. The OASIS DocBook Technical Committee, which maintains the standard, has recently released Version 5.0, which is a significant enhancement that brings much greater flexibility and customizability to the standard.

This new edition brings the guide up-to-date with the current version of the standard, removes out-of-date information related to previous versions, and re-writes material that describes how to use and customize DocBook.

Norman Walsh will author this new edition, and Richard Hamilton will edit it for XML Press. The book is scheduled to be available later this year. For more information, check out the companion web page. For updates, you can sign up for the XML Press Feed, email updates, or follow us on twitter (@xmlpress).

Here is the front cover art for Conversation and Community, designed by Patrick Davison. Both Anne and I are very pleased with both the cover art and the interior design of the book. And, in keeping with Anne’s commitment to Creative Commons Licensing, the pictures used in the cover are both under Creative Commons licensing (see Credits).

We are getting near the publication date for Conversation and Community and expect to have it available for order by early July. Right now, Anne is gathering technical review and copy-edit comments and working on the penultimate draft.

If you would like more information, subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for email alerts. If you choose the email signup, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for a free copy of Conversation and Community.

Over the last week, I’ve been reviewing drafts of Anne Gentle’s new book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. I think it is going to be an important book that will help connect the dots between Web 2.0, aka the “Social Web,” and documentation.

Reading her book brought me to a revelation that, while surely not original, strikes me as critical to an understanding of Web 2.0 and how to use it. That revelation is that Web 2.0, while groundbreaking in terms of technology, is a throwback in terms of communication.

Continue reading Technical Communication comes full circle

This is the third installment in A DITA Adventure. The first two installments covered downloading and installing the DITA Open Toolkit and installing the DITA Open Toolkit on Linux. This installment is my first attempt to build content outside the demo package, and it has been a less than happy experience.

Continue reading A DITA Adventure: Beyond Testing

Curious about social web? Wondering how you can use the social web to build a conversation with your customers and a community of interest around your products or services? Anne Gentle’s new book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, will help you understand the social web and will teach you techniques and best [...]

The folks at LiveTechDocs.com reviewed Managing Writers and interviewed the author, Richard L. Hamilton. The interview talks about reviewing documentation, since that is the focus of LiveTechDocs.com, and also delves into the future of DocBook.

For more details, check out the interview at: Live Tech Docs Interview.

Thanks to Fabrice Talbot and Jeff Boudier of LiveTechDocs.com for [...]

Part Two in the continuing saga of installing and using the DITA Open Toolkit. Part One (check it out first if you haven’t, yet) followed the initial download and installation of the DITA Open Toolkit, version 1.4. With a few minor caveats, that worked just fine, so I decided to try the same thing on [...]

Looking for a way to increase team collaboration, manage your company’s knowledge, manage projects
with customers or suppliers, or give customers a better path for feedback?

If so, a wiki might be just what you need.

Alan J. Porter’s forthcoming book, WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit, will show you how to take full advantage of [...]

XML Press is planning several new publications related to DITA. Our DITA Information Needs Survey collected data about what information about DITA you need.
The survey is now closed, and we will post a summary shortly.
If you participated in the survey, we will send you the full results. Thanks to everyone who participated.