This tutorial guides you through creating your first concept topic using DITA XML.

Overview

By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to:

  • Create a new DITA concept topic using the built-in templates
  • Save an XML file with appropriate naming conventions
  • Modify the default title element in a concept topic
  • Apply proper paragraph formatting to body text in DITA
  • Identify the basic structure of a DITA concept document

Background

Concepts give conceptual or descriptive information about a thing, a product or a process. Concepts help readers understand essential ideas, terms, products, processes, or any descriptive information they need before doing tasks or understanding reference material.

A concept is similar to an encyclopedia entry and provides more detail than a reference topic, which is similar to a dictionary entry.

When should I use a concept topic?

Use a concept topic when you need to give explanations, definitions, or overview information. This type of topic is ideal for introducing a product, explaining a process, defining key terms, or describing how something works.

Create a concept topic

  1. Go to File > New or click the New… ( New File Icon ) icon.

  2. In the folder structure, click Popular > DITA > Topics > Concept.

    Templates Oxygen New File

  3. Click Create to create a new concept with the default elements.

    New Concept

  4. Go to File > Save

  5. For the file name, follow the existing naming convention:

    1. Choose a descriptive name for your file, for example my-first-concept

      File names must not include spaces. The only allowed special characters are: ( ) - = _

    2. Go to www.uuidgenerator.net in your browser to generate a GUID.

    3. Copy the generated GUID.

    4. Name your file using the format: [descriptive-name]=[UUID].xml

      For example: my-first-concept=3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6.xml

  6. Change the <title> element text to Hello World.

  7. Click between the opening <p> tag and closing <p> tag and type the following: Always wrap body text in paragraph tags.

  8. Save the file.

Expected result

Expected result