As the Technical Communication Specialist at Streamline Designs, Lael works with client and in-house SMEs to develop, implement, and maintain a host of technical documentation including Manuals, Operating Handbooks, Checklists, and more. After receiving her BA in Public Relations, Advertising, and Communication, Lael worked with a Fortune 50 company first in Marketing and later in Operations. Lael joined Streamline Designs in 2014 as an Executive Assistant but was given the opportunity to begin learning technical communication early on and in 2020 was promoted to Technical Communication Specialist.

DITA 201: How to Optimize Conditional Text and Reuse

If learning how to write for topic based authoring in a structured format is the first hurdle of using DITA, then mastering conditional text and reuse is the next. Conditional text and reuse are powerful tools and one of the biggest advantages to DITA, but learning how and when to use them effectively can be a challenge. Words and phrases like “conditional processing”, “variables”, “attributes”, and “conref” can feel like a foreign language to the new DITA user. Being able to understand those terms and then implement conditional text effectively will make reuse an even more powerful tool. This session will introduce some of the ways to set up conditional text in DITA and how to use them in conjunction with reuse. It will also address how to develop a strategy for conditional content while remaining software agnostic. Participants will learn how to take a document and add conditional text to allow for two or more variants of the document.
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In this session, attendees will learn:

• Introduce conditional text and the different tools in DITA.
• How to select which tools to use when and the basics of taxonomy and information architecture.
• Best practices for using conditional text without going crazy.
• How to set up a document for more than one variant.