Summary of Part II: Key Takeaways

This summary highlights the key takeaways from Part II on DITA maps and their role in structured content organization and navigation.

• DITA maps are the organizational backbone that assemble and organize individual topics into full documents or deliverables. They define content structure, sequence, and navigation.
• Maps do not contain content; they reference topics, enabling true single-sourcing and allowing the same topics to be organized differently across multiple publications.
• Hierarchical organization, combined with conditional attributes, supports creating tailored publications for multiple audience needs from one master map structure.
• Collection types and relationship tables create sophisticated cross-referencing capabilities without manual maintenance overhead.
• Automatic navigation generation ensures consistency across various output formats (HTML, PDF) while adapting to each format's strengths.
• Navigation design directly impacts user experience and should be planned with specific use cases and devices in mind.