DITA and Slideshows: Like Inviting the Pope to a Rave?

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides an open framework for the creation of topic-based content. Technical authors often use DITA to produce structured, context-independent, reusable, semantically-rich topics of information—just enough to help a user solve a problem or perform a task. The goal is to provide only the information needed, and nothing more. DITA topics aren’t particularly suited for storytelling, especially the type of stories presenters tell when addressing an audience. Slide shows, on the other hand, are a useful tool used by many storytellers to inspire, inform, educate, and convert. They’re especially useful when we need to compare and contrast approaches or convince our audience that our ideas have merit. As such, slideshows are often designed to help us sell an idea, approach, product or service. And, while they are sometimes used to present training and learning content, they are particularly suited to provide topic-based content. But, what would happen if we were able to leverage DITA and slideshows together? And, if so, can we produce visually-compelling, colorful, lively content and present it in a slide deck? Spoiler: Inviting slideshows to our reuse party does make a lot more sense than getting the Pope to a rave. And guess what? You'll cash in on all of the benefits of DITA: faster content creation, quality through consistency of content and layout, lower maintenance costs (from reuse), lower translation costs (also from reuse), and more. What are you waiting for? Join Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler and France Baril, owner of Architextus Inc. for this free, one-hour webinar about adding a new channel to your multichannel publishing solution.