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Arbortext Editor
8.3.0.0
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3
Creating a Map...................................................................................................67
Opening Edit View for Part of a Map .....................................................................68
Adding Content to a Map .....................................................................................69
Using Column View.............................................................................................78
Updating References ..........................................................................................86
Generating a Resolved Document for Editing........................................................88
Index........................................................................................................................91
4 Tutorial
About This Guide
This Tutorial introduces you to the basic concepts for editing and authoring with
Arbortext Editor. The tutorial includes both general examples and step-by-step
exercises that you can duplicate with Arbortext Editor for practice.
The exercises cover two document types: DocBook and DITA (Darwin
Information Typing Architecture). For these document types, some Arbortext
Editor features are different. The exercises note where these differences occur.
Prerequisite Knowledge
The following knowledge is prerequisite to the content in this document:
• Familiarity with your operating system and computer
• Experience using authoring or editing software
5
• Working with DITA Topics — Exercises providing an introduction to authoring
DITA topic documents
• Working with DITA Maps — Exercises providing an introduction to authoring
DITA map documents
Related Documentation
For more information refer to the PTC Arbortext Help Center.
Technical Support
The PTC eSupport portal provides resources and tools to support your Arbortext
implementation:
www.ptc.com/support/
If you encounter problems using this product, contact PTC Technical Support. For
complete details, see “Opening a Case” on the Processes tab of the PTC
Customer Support Guide:
www.ptc.com/support/csguide/Processes
You must have a Service Contract Number (SCN) before you can receive
technical support. If you do not know your SCN, see “Preparing to contact TS” on
the Processes tab of the PTC Customer Support Guide for information about how
to locate it.
www.ptc.com/support/refdoc
You must have a Service Contract Number (SCN) before you can access the
Reference Documents site. If you do not know your SCN, see “Preparing to
contact TS” on the Processes tab of the PTC Customer Support Guide for
information about how to locate it:
www.ptc.com/support/csguide
• Help Center
Use the following link to access all PTC Help Centers:
support.ptc.com/apps/help_center/help/
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Global Services
PTC Global Services delivers the highest quality, most efficient and most
comprehensive deployments of the PTC Product Development System including
Creo, Windchill, Arbortext, and PTC Mathcad. PTC’s Implementation and
Expansion solutions integrate the process consulting, technology implementation,
education and value management activities customers need to be successful.
Customers are led through Solution Design, Solution Development and Solution
Deployment phases with the continuous driving objective of maximizing value
from their investment.
Contact your PTC sales representative for more information on Global Services.
Comments
PTC welcomes your suggestions and comments on its documentation:
• To send feedback about a topic you are viewing in the PTC Arbortext Help
Center, click the send feedback icon in the top right corner of the topic.
The title of the help topic you were viewing when you clicked the icon is
automatically included with your feedback.
• You can also send an email to [email protected].
To help us more quickly address your concern, include the name of the PTC
product and its release number with your comments. If your comments are
about a specific help topic or book, include the title.
Documentation Conventions
This guide uses the following notational conventions:
• Bold text represents exact text that appears in the program's user interface.
This includes items such as button text, menu selections, and dialog box
elements. For example,
Click OK to begin the operation.
• A right arrow represents successive menu selections. For example,
Choose File ▶ Print to print the document.
• Monospaced text represents code, command names, file paths, or other
text that you would type exactly as described. For example,
At the command line, type version to display version information.
• Italicized monospaced text represents variable text that you would
type. For example,
8 Tutorial
1
Structured Documentation
Overview
Structured documents conform to a set of rules that define and control the
structure of a document. XML and HTML are examples of structured documents.
The set of rules that define a document's structure is called its “document type.”
When you author a document in Arbortext Editor, the Editor is constantly
checking the rules defined in the associated document type and will only let you
insert content into the document that conforms to those rules. DocBook and DITA
(Darwin Information Typing Architecture) are examples of document types.
A document type defines the following components of a document:
• The set of tags that can be used in a document
A tag is the basic building block of a structured document. A tag is a container
and has a start tag and an end tag. Tags can contain other tags, attributes, and
text. Paragraphs and lists are examples of tags.
• The “attributes” associated with each tag
An attribute provides additional information about a tag and is contained
inside of the tag. For example, a tag could have an attribute that defines the
type of user for whom the information in the tag is intended.
• The structure in which the tags can be arranged
Each document type has a single tag that contains all of the other tags defined
in the document type. The document type defines the tag hierarchy contained
in that outer tag. The document type also defines whether a tag is optional or
required and whether it can contain other tags, text, or both.
Following is an example of a document type for writing a letter:
Letter
Date
9
Greeting
Body
Paragraph or List or Table
Close
The Letter document type contains the following primary tags:
• Letter
The Letter tag is the outer tag in the document type and contains seven other
tags. Four of those tags (Date, Greeting, Body, and Close) are required and
must be in a Letter document in that order.
• Date
The Date tag must be the first tag inserted into a Letter document. It can only
contain text and is intended to contain a date.
• Greeting
The Greeting tag must be the second tag inserted into a Letter document. It
can only contain text.
• Body
The Body tag must be the third tag inserted into a Letter document. It can only
contain other tags, not text. The Body tag can contain one or more Paragraph,
List, or Table tags. Body can contain any number of these tags in any order.
• Close
The Close tag must be the last tag inserted into a Letter document. It can only
contain text.
Stylesheets
The formatting for a structured document is not stored in the document itself.
Instead, each document type has one or more stylesheets associated with the
document type that controls the appearance of the document through a collection
of style settings. Style settings can include basic formatting information such as
font size, paragraph spacing, and page layout, or more advanced formatting such
as automatic generation of a table of contents and an index.
The appearance of a document in the Arbortext Editor window is controlled by a
stylesheet.
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2
The Arbortext Editor Environment
Opening a Sample Document.....................................................................................12
Arbortext Editor Window Components.........................................................................12
Viewing Cursor Changes ...........................................................................................15
Expanding and Collapsing Tag Content.......................................................................16
Using Drag and Drop .................................................................................................17
Deleting Tags and Content .........................................................................................19
Viewing Generated Text .............................................................................................19
Getting Help..............................................................................................................20
11
Opening a Sample Document
Before performing this exercise, start Arbortext Editor.
Most of the document types in Arbortext Editor have both a template and sample
document associated with them. A template is a predefined set of empty tags that
provide all of the basic tagging required for a document. In this exercise, you will
open a sample document.
1. Choose File ▶ New to open the New Document dialog box.
2. Choose DocBook in the Category list and Arbortext XML DocBook V4.0 in the
Type list, then select the Sample option and click OK.
The sample document displays in the Arbortext Editor window. Note that the
sample document that displays in your Arbortext Editor window might differ from
the document shown in the following examples.
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Menus and Toolbars
The menus and toolbars display a standard set of commands. For detailed
descriptions of the menus, toolbars, and their functionality, refer to the online Help
topics available from Help ▶ Arbortext Editor.
Edit View
The Edit view displays your document with its content and the tags that control
the structure of the document. You can change the display of these tags using the
View menu. The options enable you to control how much of the tagging structure
you want to see as you add content and new tags to your document. The following
examples are from the Arbortext XML DocBook document type (the tag
appearance in your documents might vary):
Document Map
The Document Map enables you to navigate a graphical outline of the document
structure. You can also collapse large sections of the document and move them
within the Document Map. The Document Map and the Edit view are fully
interactive, so any changes made in one pane are immediately reflected in the
other.
14 Tutorial
icon associated with a graphic to obtain information about the graphic. The
graphic displays in the Edit view.
• Table icon
Table — Identifies a table in your document. The Document Map contains
the tagging for a table, but does not display the table as rows and columns.
The graphical representation of the table is displayed in the Edit view.
Status Bar
The status bar, located in the lower left area of the screen, displays tool tips and
other messages related to Arbortext Editor's interface and operation.
The I-beam cursor indicates that you can enter text and possibly other tags.
3. Type the following text: Inserting text into my document using
the Document Map.
As you type, a new para tag is added automatically to accommodate the new
text.
4. Move the cursor to the end of a chapter tag.
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Note that the entire book content collapses, but the title remains so you can
identify the collapsed content. The collapse icon is replaced with the expand
icon , as in the following figure.
3. Click and, holding down the mouse button, drag the selected text down the
Document Map hierarchy.
Notice how the pointer changes:
• This symbol displays when moving the selected region would result in a
location:
• This symbol displays if the drop location is positioned over a valid paste
location, but will result in an element being added to the pasted content to
18 Tutorial
5. Release the mouse button to complete the drop operation.
You could also select some of the text inside of the para tag and then drag that
text to another location in the document. The same symbols are displayed for this
operation, as when you are moving a tag and its content.
For more information, refer to the Drag and Drop topic in the Arbortext Editor
help.
1. In the Document Map, click the tag icon to the left of a para element.
2. Press the DELETE key.
The element and its contents are deleted.
3. Click the Undo toolbar button to undo the deletion.
You could also select some of the text inside of the para tag and delete just that
text.
For more information, refer to the Deleting a Tag Pair topic in the Arbortext
Editor help.
Getting Help
Before performing this exercise, open the Arbortext XML DocBook V4.0 sample
document in Arbortext Editor.
Arbortext Editor provides online help through the Arbortext Help Center. The
Help Center contains all of the documentation for Arbortext Editor and its
associated product options. The Help Center also contains the documentation for
other Arbortext products. However, when you invoke the Help Center as online
help for a particular product, only the documentation associated with that product
is displayed in the Help Center.
Follow these steps to get help:
1. Choose Help ▶ Arbortext Editor.
The Arbortext Help Center appears displaying the Arbortext Editor online
help.
2. Enter keyboard shortcuts into the search field and click the Search
button.
The Help Center displays your search results in the Search tab. Note that
the search terms are highlighted in the title and excerpt displayed in the search
results.
3. Select the Keyboard shortcuts overview topic in the search results list.
The Help Center displays the topic. Note that the search terms are also
highlighted in the topic. By default, search terms are highlighted and linked
together in a help topic displayed from the search results. You can use the
TAB key or click on the highlighted search terms to navigate through
occurrences of the search terms in the topic.
4. Click on the Show in Table of Contents toolbar button.
The Help Center opens the Table of Contents tab with the Keyboard shortcuts
overview topic highlighted in the table of contents.
20 Tutorial
5. Select the Keyboard shortcuts topic below the Keyboard shortcuts overview
topic.
The Help Center displays the Keyboard shortcuts topic.
6. Close the Arbortext Help Center.
For more information, refer to the Arbortext Help Center help. You can access the
Help Center help by clicking Help ▶ Help Center.
Now that you are more familiar with the Arbortext Editor user interface, the
following topics provide some exercises that introduce you to using Arbortext
Editor for authoring documents.
23
Creating a New Document
Follow these steps to create a new document:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. In the New Document dialog box, select DocBook in the Category list and
Arbortext XML DocBook V4.0 in the Type list and then click OK.
24 Tutorial
3. Using the mouse, click on para to insert a new para tag.
8. Between the second set of para tags, type Authors were once
responsible for maintaining both the content and the
26 Tutorial
format of their documents. Structured documents allow
authors to focus entirely on content.
28 Tutorial
3. Enter the following text, inserting a new para tag at the end of each the first
three lines, resulting in four para elements and their content:
A numeric list can provide step by step instructions.
Each item is preceded by a number, which is automatically
generated by Arbortext Editor.
The appropriate indentation is also determined and
applied automatically.
Working with structured content reduces the amount of
manually applied formatting required for consistent
presentation.
4. Select all four paragraphs (including the para tags) and click on the Numeric
List toolbar button on the Application toolbar.
The four paragraphs are displayed as a numeric list.
You can also develop a list by inserting an numeric or bullet list tag into your
document and adding list items to the list.
For more information, refer to the Creating Lists topic in the Arbortext Editor
help.
Note
DITA documents reuse content in a different way. Refer to the Working with
DITA Topics on page 39 for information on DITA references.
Inserting Links
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
You can link from one location in your document to another, or to a URL, using
Link tags.
30 Tutorial
Note
DITA documents support linking in a different way. Refer to the Working with
DITA Topics on page 39 for information on DITA references.
Modifying Attributes
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
Tags such as sections, titles, paragraphs, and lists make up the basic structure of a
document. An attribute defines a particular aspect of a tag. Adding attributes
assigns special properties such as file references, magnification, and font styles.
Note
DITA documents support modifying some attributes in a different way. Refer
to the Working with DITA Topics on page 39 for information on modifying
DITA references.
Inserting Graphics
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
In Arbortext Editor, graphics are included in a document by reference. The
document contains a reference to an external graphic file, not the graphic itself.
Note
DITA documents support inserting graphics in a different way. Refer to the
Working with DITA Topics on page 39 for information on DITA references.
Follow these steps to insert a graphic and modify the size of the graphic:
1. Insert a new para tag.
2. Choose Insert ▶ Graphic.
The Insert Graphic dialog box opens.
3. Choose the inlinegraphic tag to allow your graphic to remain in line
with the flow of text in your document and click OK.
The Locate Graphic file to reference dialog box opens.
4. Navigate to a graphic file on your system, or open the graphics folder in
the Arbortext Editor installation folder and select instrument.jpg, then
select Open to insert the graphic.
The graphic is displayed in your document in line with the existing text.
32 Tutorial
5. Display the attributes associated with your new graphic by clicking on the
Modify Attributes icon in the Document Map.
6. Click once on the displayed attributes to open the Modify Attributes dialog box.
7. Type 25 in the scale field and click OK to close the dialog box.
The graphic is scaled to 25 percent of its original size.
For more information, refer to the Inserting Graphics Overview topic in the
Arbortext Editor help.
Inserting Symbols
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
You can insert a variety of symbols into your document. Follow these steps to
insert a symbol:
1. Place your cursor within a para tag.
2. Choose Insert ▶ Symbol.
The Insert Symbol dialog box displays.
3. Click on a symbol in the dialog box.
34 Tutorial
Working with Tables
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
Arbortext Editor provides a table editor to assist you with authoring tables. The
table editor hides the tags associated with a table and enables you to manipulate
the parts of a table in the Edit view.
Follow these steps to insert and work with a table in your document:
1. Place your cursor inside a para tag.
2. Choose Insert ▶ Table.
The Insert Table dialog box opens.
3. In the Rows field, click the up arrow to increase the number of rows to 7, then
click OK.
The table is inserted into your document.
4. Place the cursor in the first cell in the table.
5. Click on the Insert Column Left toolbar button.
A new column is inserted into the table to the left of the cursor. You can also
choose Table ▶ Insert ▶ Column Left for this and other table operations.
6. Select the new column by clicking in the column ruler above the column.
The cursor changes to a down arrow when it is in the ruler:
Checking Spelling
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
Arbortext Editor automatically checks your document for spelling errors as you
type and marks any suspect words with a red wavy line. Arbortext Editor also
automatically corrects a limited set of misspelled words and similar errors. In
addition to the automatic spell checking, you can also explicitly check a selected
portion of a document, or the entire document, for spelling errors.
Follow these steps to check the spelling in your document:
1. Choose Tools ▶ Preferences.
The Preferences dialog box opens.
2. Select the Spelling category icon.
3. Make sure the Check Spelling as you type spelling preference is on and click
OK to close the dialog box.
4. Place your cursor in a para tag, and enter the misspelled word bok.
The misspelled word will have a red wavy line under it.
5. Right mouse click on the misspelled word to get a shortcut menu with
alternative words.
6. Choose book from the menu.
bok is replaced by book in your document.
7. Enter another misspelled word in the para tag and select the contents of the
tag.
8. Choose Tools ▶ Spelling.
The Spelling dialog box opens when Arbortext Editor detects a spelling error.
9. From the list of Suggestions, click on the correct word and choose Change to
correct the misspelled word.
Arbortext Editor displays a status message with details about the spell check
operation.
10. Click OK to close the status message and the Spelling dialog box.
36 Tutorial
For more information, see Spelling and Autocorrection Checks in the Arbortext
Editor help.
Note
This feature is not available for DITA documents.
Comparing Documents
For this exercise, use the Arbortext XML DocBook document you modified in the
previous exercise.
You can compare the differences between two documents using the compare
feature. The documents must either use the same document type, or they must
both be free-form XML.
Follow these steps to compare your document to the last saved version of the
document:
1. Save your document.
2. Modify the document by adding or deleting text, tags, and so forth.
3. Choose Tools ▶ Compare ▶ Last Saved.
The Compare window opens. This window is an Arbortext Editor view that
highlights the changes made since the last time you saved the document.
4. Close the Compare window.
5. Close your document.
For more information, refer to the Document Comparison Overview topic in the
Arbortext Editor help.
This completes the first part of the Arbortext Editor tutorial. In the next part of the
tutorial, you will learn how to use Arbortext Editor to author DITA (Darwin
Information Typing Architecture) documents.
38 Tutorial
4
Working with DITA Topics
Concept....................................................................................................................41
Task .........................................................................................................................43
Reference.................................................................................................................46
Glossary ...................................................................................................................50
Inserting a section .....................................................................................................51
Generating an ID .......................................................................................................53
Using the Resource Manager .....................................................................................54
Adding Index Terms...................................................................................................61
Checking Completeness ............................................................................................62
39
• Concept
• Task
• Reference
• Glossary
The Arbortext Editor configuration for editing DITA topics is similar to the
standard configuration for editing other types of XML documents. Arbortext
Editor also provides a tool called the Resource Manager that assists you with
locating content to include in your DITA topics.
Note
Some Arbortext Editor features are different depending on whether you are
authoring a DITA document or a document in another document type, such as
Arbortext XML DocBook. For example, when authoring a DITA document
you use the Resource Manager to add links and other references to your
document instead of using the Insert Link dialog box.
This part of the Tutorial introduces you to some basic DITA topic concepts and
provides more step-by-step exercises to help you become familiar with the support
for DITA documents.
For more information, refer to the DITA Authoring Overview and Authoring DITA
Topics topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
40 Tutorial
Concept
The DITA Concept topic is used to provide background information that users
must understand before they can work with a product or interface, or perform a
task. This topic type answers “What is...” questions. Concepts can provide an
extended definition of a process, function, or product. You often use a Concept
topic as an introduction to another topic, such as a task or reference.
A Concept contains the following primary tags:
• concept — Contains all of the other tags
• title — The subject of the topic
• shortdesc — A short description or overview of the topic
• prolog — Various types of metadata about the topic, such as author,
copyright, index terms, and so forth
• conbody — Contains the actual content of the topic
The Concept body contains paragraphs, lists, table, sections, and other tags
used to author the content of the topic.
• related-links — Cross reference links to related information
Most of these tags are optional, so you only use the ones you need to author the
topic.
Creating a Concept
Before performing this exercise, start Arbortext Editor. If necessary, turn on full
tags with View ▶ Full Tags.
For this and the following exercises, you will be creating some DITA topics that
will eventually be used to develop a DITA map. Be sure to save the topics in a
location where you can retrieve them later, such as on your Windows desktop.
Follow these steps to create a Concept topic:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Select the appropriate version of DITA Technical Content in the Category list
and DITA Concept in the Type list and then click OK.
42 Tutorial
• Provide meeting minutes
• Follow up on action items
9. Save the document with the name prodMeetings.dita.
Note that Arbortext Editor automatically assigns an ID to the top topic tag
when you first save it.
Your completed Concept should look like this:
Task
The DITA Task topic provides procedural information. This topic type answers
“How to...” questions. Tasks generally provide step-by-step instructions that
enable a user to perform a specific task. Tasks also provide information on
prerequisites, the expected result, and other aspects of a task.
A Task contains the following primary tags:
• task — Contains all of the other tags
• title — The subject of the topic
• shortdesc — A short description or overview of the topic
• prolog — Various types of metadata about the topic, such as author,
copyright, index terms, and so forth
• taskbody — Contains the actual content of the topic
A Task is much more structured than a DITA Concept. The topic body
contains the following series of tags in a set order:
Creating a Task
Follow these steps to create a Task topic:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Select the appropriate version of DITA Technical Content in the Category list
and DITA Task in the Type list and then click OK.
A DITA Task template is loaded into the Arbortext Editor window:
44 Tutorial
3. Enter the following text in the title tag:
Preparing for a Meeting
4. Enter the following text in the shortdesc tag:
There are certain steps you should follow to prepare for a
meeting.
5. Enter the following text in the prereq tag:
Before scheduling a meeting, make sure that the things
you want to discuss cannot be handled in another way such
as through E-mail.
6. Enter the following text in the context tag:
Whether a meeting is successful or not is usually
determined by the things you do to prepare for it. Follow
these steps to prepare for a successful meeting:
7. In the steps tag, for each bullet in the following list enter the following steps
in the cmd tag inside of the step tag (adding additional step tags as
needed):
• Define the desired outcome of the meeting.
• Design the meeting agenda and objectives.
• List the participants and their role in the meeting.
• Reserve the meeting room and make sure it has the
equipment you need.
• Invite the meeting participants including information
about the agenda, their roles, and anything they need
to review before the meeting.
• An hour before the meeting, check the meeting room to
make sure it is set up correctly.
8. Enter the following text in the result tag:
If you follow these steps, your meeting is much more
likely to be a successful one.
9. Select and delete the example tag.
10. Enter the following text in the postreq tag:
Be sure to take minutes during the meeting and send them to
all participants.
11. Save the Task with the name schedMeetings.dita.
Reference
The DITA Reference topic describes the regular features of a subject or product,
such as the commands in a programming language or an application programming
interface (API). DITA Reference topics can provide information on any subject
that has regular content, including recipes, catalogs, bibliographies, and similar
structured descriptive information.
A Reference contains the following primary tags:
• reference — Contains all of the other tags
• title — The subject of the topic
• shortdesc — A short description or overview of the topic
• prolog — Various types of metadata about the topic, such as author,
copyright, index terms, and so forth
• refbody — Contains the actual content of the topic
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A Reference is typically organized into one or more sections, tables, and lists
that you can arrange in any order. Following are the primary tags in the
Reference body:
○ section — A container for content that you want to group in a reference
○ refsyn — Syntax or similar information
○ properties — A list of properties associated with the subject of the
reference, usually presented as a table
○ example — Examples that illustrate or support the reference information
The refbody tag can also contain the standard DITA tables.
• related-links — Contains cross reference links to related information
Most of these tags are optional, so you only use the ones you need to author the
topic.
Creating a Reference
Follow these steps to create a Reference topic:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Select the appropriate version of DITA Technical Content in the Category list
and DITA Reference in the Type list and then click OK.
48 Tutorial
The properties tag appears as a table in the Edit view:
Glossary
The DITA Glossary topic provides a single term and its associated definition,
enabling users to get an explanation of unfamiliar terminology. The topic can also
provide additional information about the term. If a term has multiple definitions,
you should create a separate DITA Glossary topic for each definition.
A Glossary contains the following primary tags:
• glossentry — Contains all of the other tags
• glossterm — The term
• glossdef — The definition
• prolog — Various types of metadata about the topic, such as author,
copyright, index terms, and so forth
• glossBody — Provides additional information about the term
The glossBody tag contains several other tags that enable you to provide
additional information about the term, such as the part of speech, its usage,
variants of the term, and so forth.
• related-links — Cross reference links to related terms
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Most of these tags are optional, so you only use the ones you need to author the
topic.
Creating a Glossary
Follow these steps to create a Glossary topic:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Select the appropriate version of DITA Technical Content in the Category list
and DITA Glossary in the Type list and then click OK.
A DITA Glossary template is loaded into the Arbortext Editor window:
Inserting a section
For this exercise, you will need the prodMeetings.dita document you
created in the Creating a Concept Topic exercise.
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Your completed document should look like this:
Generating an ID
For this exercise, you will need the prodMeetings.dita document you
modified in the previous exercise.
DITA tags contain an id attribute to hold the tag's ID. An ID enables you to
uniquely identify either a DITA topic or one of the tags contained in the topic. All
topics must have an ID assigned to them. Arbortext Editor automatically assigns
an ID to a new topic the first time that you save the topic. IDs are optional on all
other DITA tags.
You use IDs to identify the target for a link or cross reference. Arbortext Editor
also provides a feature that enables you to generate an ID for any DITA tag.
Follow these steps to generate an ID for a tag:
1. In the prodMeetings.dita document, place the cursor to the right of the
opening section tag:
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To assist you in adding these reference types to your documents, Arbortext Editor
provides the Resource Manager. The Resource Manager is a dialog box that
enables you to browse a file system, content management system, or the Internet
to find references to add to your document. It contains tabs enabling you to add all
of the above reference types:
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Adding Links
For this exercise, you will need the prodMeetings.dita,
meetingsMinutes.dita, and schedMeetings.dita documents you
created in the previous exercises.
You use DITA links in the related-links tag of a topic. Links can link to a
topic or an external document. Unlike cross references, links cannot link to a tag
inside of a topic. Links use the link tag.
Follow these steps to add a related links section in the prodMeetings.dita
document:
1. If necessary, open prodMeetings.dita in Arbortext Editor.
2. Place the cursor after the closing conbody tag near the end of the document
and press ENTER to display the Quick Tags menu.
3. Click on related-links in the menu to insert a related links section into the
document.
4. Use Quick Tags to insert a linklist tag in the related-links tag and a
title tag in the linklist tag.
5. Enter the following text in the title tag:
Related Topics
6. Place the cursor after the closing title tag.
7. If necessary, open the Resource Manager and navigate to the folder where you
saved the DITA document created in these exercises.
8. Select the schedMeetings.dita topic and click the Insert button.
The Resource Manager inserts the link into your document:
Note that Arbortext Editor automatically inserts the title of the topic into your
link as preview text. If you do not want to author the text for your links, you
can use these titles for your link text. Since the topic also had a short
description, that description is also added to the link. If you do not want to use
the automatically inserted text in your document, you can click on the preview
text to highlight it and enter authored link or description text instead.
For more information, refer to the Using Linking with DITA Documents and Link/
Xref Tab topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
Adding an Image
For this exercise, you will need the schedMeetings.dita document you
created in the previous exercises. You will also need access to your Arbortext
Editor installation folder.
Follow these steps to add an image in the schedMeetings.dita document:
1. Open schedMeetings.dita in Arbortext Editor.
2. Place the cursor at the end of the text in the postreq tag and enter the
following sentence:
Minutes are an essential tool for holding the results of a
meeting together:
Add a space after the sentence.
3. Open the Resource Manager, select the Image tab, and navigate to the
graphics folder in the Arbortext Editor installation folder.
4. Select the staplegun.tif image in the Resource Manager browser and
click the Insert button.
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The Resource Manager inserts the image into your document:
5. Save schedMeetings.dita.
For more information, refer to the Image Tab topic in the Arbortext Editor help.
6. Place the cursor inside of the referenced xref tag and try to edit the text.
Since this content is referenced from another file, you cannot edit it.
7. Double-click on the agenda link.
The meetingAgenda.dita topic opens in a new Arbortext Editor window,
just as it would in the prodMeetings.dita document.
8. Close meetingAgenda.dita and save schedMeetings.dita.
For more information, refer to the Inserting and Modifying DITA Content
References and Content Reference Tab topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
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In addition to the standard Resource Manager, an undocked version of the
Resource Manager is available through the Modify Attributes dialog box. You use
this version of the Resource Manager to modify existing references in your DITA
topics.
Follow these steps to change the image in the schedMeetings.dita
document:
1. If necessary, open schedMeetings.dita in Arbortext Editor.
2. Place the cursor inside of the image tag in the postreq tag.
3. Choose Edit ▶ Modify Attributes.
The Modify Attributes dialog box opens.
The Modify Attributes - Resource Manager opens with just the Image tab
available.
5. If necessary, use the Modify Attributes - Resource Manager browser to navigate
to the graphics folder in the Arbortext Editor installation folder.
6. Select the dtduck3.gif image in the browser and click the Modify button.
The Resource Manager modifies the value of the href attribute to the new
image and closes.
7. Click OK to close the Modify Attributes dialog box.
The image in your document is changed to the new image:
8. Save schedMeetings.dita.
For more information, refer to the Resource Manager Overview and Image Tab for
Modifying Attributes topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
Checking Completeness
For this exercise, you will need the prodMeetings.dita document you
created in the previous exercises.
Arbortext Editor provides a completeness checking feature that enables you to
perform a check on a document to make sure that all of the components required
by the document type are contained in the document. For DITA documents,
Arbortext Editor enhances the regular completeness check by also checking for
details described in the DITA specification that cannot be validated against the
document type. For example, enhanced completeness checking checks for missing
files, incorrect or unusual URL formats, unusual attribute values, the use of
deprecated elements or attributes, and so forth.
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Follow these steps to run a completeness check on the prodMeetings.dita
document:
1. If necessary, open prodMeetings.dita in Arbortext Editor.
2. Place the cursor inside of the xref tag.
3. Choose Edit ▶ Modify Attributes.
The Modify Attributes dialog box opens.
4. Change the value of the type attribute from glossentry to task, and
click OK to close the dialog box.
5. Choose Tools ▶ Check Completeness.
Arbortext Editor runs a completeness check on the document. The progress of
the check is displayed on the status bar. Since the check found a problem in
the document, the Completeness Check Log dialog box opens:
6. Place the cursor somewhere in the document outside of the xref tag.
7. Double-click on the xref link next to the warning in the Completeness Check
Log dialog box.
Arbortext Editor moves the cursor to the xref tag, which is the location in
the document that corresponds to the warning.
8. Use the Modify Attributes dialog box to change the value of the xref tag's
type attribute from task back to glossentry, and click OK.
You could also use the Tools ▶ Update References feature to fix the attribute.
9. Close the Completeness Check Log dialog box, and choose Tools ▶ Check
Completeness again.
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5
Working with DITA Maps
Creating a Map .........................................................................................................67
Opening Edit View for Part of a Map............................................................................68
Adding Content to a Map............................................................................................69
Using Column View ...................................................................................................78
Updating References .................................................................................................86
Generating a Resolved Document for Editing ..............................................................88
Authoring a DITA map is very different from authoring a DITA topic. DITA maps
primarily contain tag and attribute content with relatively little text. You use DITA
maps to organize a collection of DITA topics and other types of resources into a
deliverable document. Instead of containing the content for the deliverable, a
DITA map contains references to the topics and other documents that are included
in the deliverable. These references are called topic references (topicref).
When you are developing a DITA document, it is often better to start with a DITA
map instead of DITA topics. The map is essentially the outline for the document
and enables you to develop and rearrange the hierarchy for your document as you
author it. DITA topics are intended to be standalone modules that provide
information about a single subject. The DITA map is where you take these
standalone topics and provide the overall structure for the deliverable as a whole.
Arbortext Editor provides the following features that help you develop DITA
maps:
• Resource Manager — The Resource Manager provides two new tabs that help
you add new and existing topics to your map
• Column view — Column view is a special Arbortext Editor view that provides
both a hierarchical view of a DITA map and a series of rows and columns,
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similar to a spreadsheet, where you can view and edit the attributes of the tags
in the map.
• DITA Map toolbar — This toolbar enables you to rearrange the tags in your
DITA map.
This part of the Tutorial introduces you to some basic DITA map concepts and
provides more step-by-step exercises to help you become familiar with how
Arbortext Editor supports DITA map editing.
For more information, refer to the DITA Authoring Overview and Authoring DITA
Maps topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
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Creating a Map
Before performing this exercise, start Arbortext Editor.
For this and the following exercises, you will be creating and adding content to a
DITA map. You will be using the DITA topics created in the previous exercises to
develop your map. Be sure to save the map in a location where you can retrieve it
later.
Follow these steps to create a DITA map:
1. Choose File ▶ New.
The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Select the appropriate version of DITA Technical Content in the Category list
and DITA Map in the Type list and then click OK.
A DITA map template is loaded into the Arbortext Editor window in column
view with the Resource Manager open:
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The Edit window shortcut menu opens.
7. Select Close View from the menu.
The Edit view closes.
8. Save the map.
For more information, refer to the Using Column View and Edit Window Shortcut
Menu topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
The DITA standard provides for key based references. However, key
definitions are beyond the scope of this tutorial. For more information about
key references, refer to the Using Keys and Key References topic in the
Arbortext Editor help.
As with DITA topics, an undocked version of the Resource Manager is available
through the Modify Attributes dialog box to modify existing topic references. This
version of the Resource Manager also enables you to add content references to
DITA maps.
For more information, refer to the Resource Manager Overview topic in the
Arbortext Editor help.
The Outline column has a special cursor that helps you determine where a
topic reference will be inserted into your map.
2. Select DITA Concept in the Resource Manager’s New Topic tab.
3. Type Introduction in the Title field.
Note that the Resource Manager automatically adds a name to the File Name
field based on the title. If desired, you can change the file name before the new
topic is created.
4. In the Folder field, use the Browse for Folder button to open the Browse for
Folder dialog box. In the dialog box, navigate to the location where you stored
your DITA topics. Select OK to close the dialog box and add that location to
the Folder field.
5. Click the Insert button.
The new topic is created and a reference to the topic is added to the map:
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Meetings can often cause more harm than good to a business
by wasting the time and hurting the productivity of
meeting participants. It is important to only hold
meetings when truly necessary and to make those meetings
as efficient as possible. It is also important to make
sure that meeting participants have an accurate record of
what took place at a meeting. This document will help you
make your business meetings more productive.
9. Save and close Introduction.dita.
10. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
For more information, refer to the New Topic Tab topic in the Arbortext Editor
help.
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You can also double-click on a topic in the browser to insert that topic into
your map.
5. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
For more information, refer to the Topic Tab topic in the Arbortext Editor help.
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References to those topics are added to the map:
Multiple topics are inserted into the map in the order the topics appear in the
browser. You can also select a folder in the browser and use the Insert button
to insert all of the topics in that folder into your map at the same time. You
will learn how to rearrange topic references in a later exercise.
4. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
4. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
You have now added all of your topics to the DITA map.
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The Topic tab changes to the mode for inserting a reference to a web page:
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Rearranging the Map Structure
For this exercise, use the businessMeetings.ditamap document you
developed in the previous exercises.
You use the Column view Outline column to rearrange the structure of a DITA
map. Arbortext Editor provides the DITA Map toolbar to assist you with changing
the map hierarchy. You can also use drag and drop to modify the hierarchy.
Follow these steps to add hierarchy to the businessMeetings.ditamap
document:
1. Place the Column view cursor on the line under the Preparing for a Meeting
topic:
6. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the topic above the Meeting Agenda
topic:
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The Parts of Meeting Minutes topic also becomes a child of the Preparing for a
Meeting topic:
8. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
For more information, refer to the DITA Map Toolbar and Column View Cursor
topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
2. Click on the expand control next to the Preparing for a Meeting topic to reopen
that part of the map.
3. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
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3. Right click on the Outline column title bar to display the related shortcut
menu:
When the attribute for a tag are displayed in the modify attributes column, the
icon next to the tag changes to the attribute minus icon .
If a tag does not currently have any attributes defined, the attribute icon is
displayed next to the tag. In this case, clicking on the icon opens the Modify
Attributes dialog box.
2. Click on the concept value for the type attribute.
The attribute value is selected for modification:
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Follow these steps to modify an attribute value using the attribute value columns:
1. In businessMeetings.ditamap, use the scroll bar at the bottom of
Column view to scroll the columns until you see attribute values:
You can also set the place in columns where you want to scroll in the
Preferences dialog box. Note that the Outline column is always the first
column, and it never scrolls.
2. Double-click on the value in the Type column for the Preparing for a Meeting
tag.
The attribute value is selected for modification:
You can use this dialog box to select which attributes you want to display in
the columns, to reorder the columns, and to set the scroll boundary.
Updating References
For this exercise, use the businessMeetings.ditamap document you
modified in the previous exercise.
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Arbortext Editor provides an update references feature for DITA maps that
enables you to check all of the DITA topics referenced from the map and update
any incorrect information in the associated topic references. You can also use the
update references feature for a DITA topic. In that case, the operation will update
things such as cross references, link preview text, and so forth.
Follow these steps to update the references in businessMeetings.ditamap:
1. In businessMeetings.ditamap, double-click on the The Parts of
Meeting Minutes topic to open that topic in a new Arbortext Editor window.
2. Change the title of the meetingMinutes.dita topic to the following text:
The Format of Meeting Minutes
3. Save and close meetingMinutes.dita.
4. In businessMeetings.ditamap, choose Tools ▶ Update References.
The progress of the update references operation is displayed on the status bar.
Since the operation found references in the map that needed to be updated, the
Update References Messages window opens:
The operation corrected the changes you made in previous exercises to the
type attribute for two of the topic references. It also updated the map’s
navigation title to reflect the change you just made to the title of
meetingMinutes.dita.
5. Save businessMeetings.ditamap.
In addition to the update references feature, you can also use Arbortext Editor’s
enhanced completeness checking with DITA maps.
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The Resolved Document View of businessMeetings.ditamap opens in a new
Arbortext Editor window:
A message displays showing where the topic is located on the file system:
Note that the changes you made to this topic in the resolved document are
reflected in the source file.
10. Close prodMeetings.dita.
11. Save and close businessMeetings.ditamap.
This concludes the Tutorial.
For more information, refer to the Authoring DITA Maps and Using Object
Boundaries topics in the Arbortext Editor help.
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Index
A DITA
Column view, 78
Arbortext Editor
completeness checking, 62
opening a sample document, 12
Concept topics, 41
attribute values
creating, 41
inserting, 31
content references, 59
attributes
adding, 59
introduction to, 31
cross references
adding, 55
C DITA Maps
creating, 67
change tracking, 37
Edit view, 68
collapse icon
tutorial, 65
Document Map, 12
DITA Topics
Column view
DITA maps, 78 tutorial, 39
attribute value columns, 84 Glossary topics, 50
changing the hierarchy, 79 creating, 51
modify attributes column, 83 IDs, 53
images
opening and closing the hierarchy,
adding, 58
81
index terms
showing the columns, 82
adding, 61
completeness checking
links
DITA, 62
adding, 57
content
Reference topics, 46
deleting, 19
creating, 47
finding, 34
references, 54
inserting, 24
DITA maps, 69
content references, 59
modifying, 60
adding, 59
Resource Manager, 54
cross references
DITA maps, 69
adding, 55
sections, 51
cursors, 15
Task topics, 43
creating, 44
D DITA Maps
Delete button, 19 Column view, 78
91
attribute value columns, 84 F
changing the hierarchy, 79
finding
modify attributes column, 83
content, 34
opening and closing the hierarchy,
tags, 34
81
showing the columns, 82
resolved document for editing, 88 G
Resource Manager, 69 generated text, 19
adding existing topics, 71 graphic icon
adding multiple topics, 73 Document Map, 12
adding new topics, 69 graphics
adding topics with drag and drop, inserting, 32
75 scaling, 32
adding web pages, 76
updating references, 86
Document Map, 12 H
collapse icon, 12 help, 20
components, 12 HTML
element icon, 12 saving documents as, 37
expand icon, 12
graphic icon, 12
modify attributes icon, 12 I
navigating in, 17 icons
table icon, 12 collapse, 12
documents element, 12
change tracking, 37 expand, 12
comparing, 38 graphic, 12
creating new, 24 modify attributes, 12
saving, 24 table, 12
drag and drop IDs
tag with content, 17 DITA, 53
text, 17 index terms
adding, 61
E inserting
attributes values, 31
Edit view, 12 graphics, 32
element icon links, 30
Document Map, 12 symbols, 33
expand icon tables, 35
Document Map, 12 tags, 24
Quick Tags, 24
text entities, 29
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Inserting S
content, 24
sample document
opening, 12
L searching
for content, 34
links
for tags, 34
adding, 57
sections
inserting, 30
DITA, 51
spelling
M check, 36
modify attributes icon check automatically, 36
Document Map, 12 Split bar, 12
structure
in content, 28
O structured documentation, 9
overview symbols
structured documentation, 9 inserting, 33
Q T
Quick Tags, 24 table icon
Document Map, 12
tables
R editing, 35
Resource Manager, 54 inserting, 35
content references tags
adding, 59 collapsing, 16
cross references deleting, 19
adding, 55 expanding, 16
DITA maps, 69 finding, 34
adding existing topics, 71 inserting, 24
adding multiple topics, 73 moving, 17
adding new topics, 69 text entities
adding topics with drag and drop, inserting, 29
75
adding web pages, 76 U
images
adding, 58 Undo button, 19
links
adding, 57 W
references
modifying, 60 window
Index 93
components, 12
Document Map, 12
Edit view, 12
menus, 12
Split bar, 12
status bar, 12
toolbars, 12
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