Migrating to DITA

Best Practices for Authors Before Converting Legacy Content

by Doug Williams

I am a fan of the STILO guidelines for preparing DITA for conversion. I’ve converted dozens of books myself, and I’ve seen the truth of the guidelines STILO provides played out, for better or worse–sadly, typically for worse–far too many times.

STILO’s whole business model is to ensure you have as successful a DITA conversion as possible. They have literally lifetimes of years of experience dealing with the problems that occur when one ventures to take legacy content and convert it into DITA. If you are planning a conversion, then there is no better use of your time than for you and your authors to take a moment to read over this page carefully, and think about how you can apply this guidance to your content, before you start conversion. If you take this guidance to heart, then every minute spent considering these words will save you hours of time, and not just this week, or this month, but–again, I speak from sad experience–literally years into the future.

Migrating to DITA – best practices for authors to consider before converting legacy content