Types Of Companies Who Would Benefit From Using the DITA XML Standard

31 Dec 2023

Read time: 3 minute(s)

In general, I would divide the companies that benefit from using DITA XML for their technical documentation needs in three large sections:

Companies Creating Physical Products: These companies create real-world objects, such as cars, refrigerators, or computer chips. Each version of each product has an unique product ID and needs to be documented. Different products are sometimes similar in functionality but they also have some differences.
Companies Creating Version-ed Software Products: These companies provide software components that are version-ed and usually get installed on the client's side. As each client may have an older version of the product, user manuals for older versions need to be made available.
Companies Creating Version-less Software Products: These companies usually provide cloud-based services, the end-user always receives access to the latest stable release, and there is no user manual made available for past releases.

The benefits for companies would be as follows:

Table 1. Benefits
Benefits	Company Types
Benefits	Physical Products	Version-ed Software Products	Version-less Software Products
Take advantage of DITA XML high reuse capabilities and condition profiling/filters to produce multiple similar, but not identical, manuals from the same project.	Produce manuals for similar components.	Produce user manuals for similar types of software products.	Produce user manuals for similar types of software products.
Add structure-based validation rules that must be followed by all members of a team.	Use common validation and terminology rules for the entire team.	Use common validation and terminology rules for the entire team.	Use common validation and terminology rules for the entire team.
Create custom vocabulary of semantic elements.	Useful to add specific semantic meaning to content specific for the company.	Useful to add specific semantic meaning to content specific for the company.	Useful to add specific semantic meaning to content specific for the company.
Besides web-based outputs, produce PDFs with a relatively high degree of control over the PDF customization.	Useful to produce PDFs for print or online delivery.	Useful to produce PDFs for print or online delivery.	Useful to produce PDFs for print or online delivery.