Upcoming Conferences


Best Practices 2008
September 15–17
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Click here for more information.

PTC/USER
June 1–4
Long Beach, California
Click here for more information.

STC's 55th Annual Conference and Expo
June 1–4
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Click here for more information.

LISA Forum USA 2008
June 23–27
Foster City, California
Click here for more information.


Upcoming Workshops


To learn more about our workshops...

Webinar


Getting Management On Board: Building a Business Case for Content Management

To listen to this recorded webinar click here.

A critical part of every content management initiative is the supporting and funding that senior management and key stakeholders must provide. Building a sound business case is your means of gaining that support. Learn how to analyze the political climate in your organization, understand the key business drivers, and construct a successful, business-focused argument for your cause.

Speakers:
JoAnn Hackos–Comtech Services
Suzanne Mescan-Vasont Systems


Getting Started with DITA - Practical Tips for Using Arbortext for DITA

To listen to this recorded webinar click here.

Getting started with DITA takes more than a little knowledge of task, concept, and reference. Learn the best practices for launching your DITA project with the support of a professional XML Editor. Know the key components of a DITA solution and connect the base model with your customers and your product requirements.

Speakers:
JoAnn Hackos–Comtech Services
Peter Velikin–PTC

Center for Information-Development Management

New CIDM Blog

CIDM Blog

JoAnn Hackos Publishes New Book

Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People offers a completely new look at best practices for all phases of the document development lifecycle.

New DITA Guide, Arbortext Edition

Interested in learning more about DITA using Arbortext? Read more in the DITA: Arbortext Edition user guide published by Comtech Services, Inc., Introduction to DITA: A User Guide to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture: Arbortext Edition

View Press Release

Reviews of Introduction to DITA: Arbortext Edition

All the great content from the original edition is there, but many illustrations are now screenshots from Arbortext Editor. Instead of the XML markup code for examples, you see the tags-on view in Arbortext Editor. A new section (Lesson 1) describes context-sensitive editing. Allowable elements that can be inserted depend on the location of your insertion point in the DITA document. Element entry automatically adds the appropriate start and end tags. Lesson 9 introduces the Arbortext Map Editor, with its Resource Manager to locate topic files and a Relationship Tables visual editing interface. Lesson 21 covers Arbortext's powerful Profiling approach to conditional processing. That said, this book has a strange metaphysical quality of being about itself. You are reading a line that describes the steps in a task and you suddenly realize that the very same steps were needed to generate the printed words you are looking at! It's a self-referential reference book. This book is not just about DITA. It is DITA. Talk about practicing what you preach. Everyone starting out with DITA should read this book.
Bob Doyle
Editor, CMS Review
Founder, DITA Users