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DITA is one of the output options for Flare. You can create a new DITA target right alongside any HTML or PDF targets. We don't use it at my company, but I've played with it a bit to see how it wor...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:47:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26745 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Kirasha
·
2019-12-08T05:47:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
DITA is one of the output options for Flare. You can create a new DITA target right alongside any HTML or PDF targets. We don't use it at my company, but I've played with it a bit to see how it works.
I'm not sure how extensively the DITA structure is supported. In my brief experiments, I've seen that madcap's **keywords** are translated to **indexterm** element tags in the DITA output. Variables are wrapped in **ph** element tags with _conref_ attributes in the DITA output and a mcvars.dita file is included in the output's Resources folder. That file lists only the variables selected in the Flare Target file for the DITA Output.
To illustrate, this is an small example of the DITA output from Flare:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic id="Get_Help">
<title>Get Help</title>
<body>
<p>
<indexterm>Get Help</indexterm>
<indexterm>Customer Service</indexterm>Get Help</p>
<p>
<ph conref="Resources/mcvars.dita#mcvars/variableId2" /> is committed to providing a variety of helpful resources to support your needs.</p>
<p>Online Help</p>
<p>From anywhere within <ph conref="Resources/mcvars.dita#mcvars/variableId1" />, click Help to browse our Online Help Center, where you'll find a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for quick answers to common questions.</p>
</body>
</topic>
And, for comparison, the same topic as seen in Flare's text editor:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd">
<head>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="NewPage"><MadCap:keyword term="Get Help;Customer Service" />Get Help</h1>
<p><MadCap:variable name="Text.Brand" /> is committed to providing a variety of helpful resources to support your needs.</p>
<h2>Online Help</h2>
<p>From anywhere within <MadCap:variable name="Text.AccountPage" />, click <strong>Help</strong> to browse our Online Help Center, where you'll find a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for quick answers to common questions.</p>
</body>
</html>
The output uses .ditamap and .dita filetypes and Madcap's [help site](http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare12/Content/DITA/About_DITA.htm) for Flare makes note that you can't edit in the DITA structure natively:
> As DITA takes on a bigger role in technical communication, more and more tools are becoming available to create this type of structured content. In this version, you cannot use Flare to edit DITA content natively. However, you can use a third-party tool (e.g., XMetal) to create your structured DITA files.
However, after doing a bit of research, I found this [youtube tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13s_NkSg5pA) on how to create custom DITA elements by using the _mc-dita-type_ attribute on paragraph classes in Flare. For example:
p.Note
{
background-image: url('../Images/Icons/noteicon.png');
mc-auto-number-format: '{b}{color #9EB515}Note: {/color}{/b}';
mc-dita-type: quicktest;
}
After building the DITA output, that _mc-dita-type_ attribute becomes a **quicktest** element tag in the topic file.
Conditions, however, do not work seem to in DITA output. Any text in the topic is included, regardless of condition tags used.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-02-15T23:23:18Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 2