Convert Markdown Content to DITA in 20 seconds

by Tom Johnson on Dec 3, 2014 •
categories: technical-writing

A while ago I posted some thoughts on converting Markdown to DITA. I refined this conversion process using the Multimarkdown script and OxygenXML. Here's a demo:

(There's no audio to this 20 second video -- it just loops over and over.)

I added more details on how to configure this in my DITA QRG: Author in Markdown, Publish with DITA.

Why would you want to convert from Markdown to DITA? Mainly, you would use this script in the content development stages of a project. As you're gathering information, finding out details, adding and removing steps from lists, and otherwise developing your information, you need a quick way to author and shape content. Markdown offers this quick syntax for creating content.

Once you get to a point where you want to start working with the XML, such as re-using notes or adding specific attributes to different elements, convert it all to DITA and work with it there.

Note that you can't create DITA specific elements in Markdown, such as notes. But you can author a lot of elements that do carry over.

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