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Author: Sarah O'Keefe

DITA White papers

Conditional content in DITA

This post provides an overview of techniques you can use to handle conditional content in DITA. The need for complex conditions is a common reason organizations choose DITA as their content model. As conditional requirements get more complex, the basic Show/Hide functionality offered in many desktop publishing tools is no longer sufficient.

Conditional processing is especially interesting–or maybe problematic—when you combine it with reuse requirements. You identify a piece of content that could be reused except for one small bit that needs to be different in the two reuse scenarios.

Sarah O'Keefe
February 9, 2015
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Change management DITA DITA XML—authors Structured content

XML overview for executives

Over the past year or two, our typical XML customer has changed. Until recently, most XML publishing efforts were driven by marketing communications, technical publications, or IT, usually by a technical expert. But today’s customer is much more likely to be an executive who understands the potential business benefits of XML publishing but not the technical details. This article provides an XML overview for executives. What do you need to know before you decide to lead your organization into an XML world?

Sarah O'Keefe
January 20, 2015
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Food & fun

Celebrating the good stuff (Blog Secret Santa)

Or: A stranger takes over the Scriptorium blog and gets all enthusiastic about tone of voice
Merry Christmas, Scriptorium readers. And, Sarah O’Keefe, an especially Merry Christmas to you. I’m your writer, Santa, and this is your Blog Secret Santa gift. (Everyone else: yep, hi. I’m a random stranger writing for Sarah’s blog. Because Christmas is fun.)

And here’s your present: Four websites that perform the rare magic trick of taking things that are normally really boring and making them entertaining.

Sarah O'Keefe
December 24, 2014
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Change management Structured content

Content strategy and relocation: the trauma is the same

We moved into a new office at the end of October. The new space is bigger and nicer than the old space, but nonetheless, the moving process was painful. As a child, I moved several times and changed schools every two or three years. I then landed in North Carolina for college and stayed put. It occurs to me that a new content strategy introduces much of the same pain as relocation.

Sarah O'Keefe
December 1, 2014
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Structured content

Content strategy: first steps (premium)

Content: You’re doing it wrong. That’s easy for me to say—we rarely hear from people who are happy with their content. But are you ready for a major transformation effort? Our approach is to assess the overall content lifecycle, meet with all the stakeholders, identify needs, develop a strategy, and then execute the strategy. If you want a more incremental approach, consider these inexpensive first steps.

Sarah O'Keefe
November 24, 2014
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