The most commonly used block elements are borrowed from HTML and as
such, should be immediately familiar to the reader.
Paragraphs and lists
A paragraph is represented
by the
p 
element.
A preformatted paragraph
is represented by the
pre element.
An itemized list is
represented by the
ul element. As expected, it contains
li list item elements.
An ordered
list is represented by the
ol element.
A variable list is
represented by the
dl element. Unlike HTML's
dl,
the
dt (term being defined) and the
dd (term definition) elements must be
wrapped in a
dlentry element.
Example:
<ul>
<li>First item.
<p>Continuation paragraph.</p>
</li>
<li>Second item. This item contains an ordered list.
<ol>
<li>First do this.</li>
<li>Then do that.</li>
<li>Finally do this.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Third item. This item contains a variable list.
<dl>
<dlentry>
<dt>Term #1</dt>
<dd>Definition of term #1.</dd>
</dlentry>
<dlentry>
<dt>Term #2</dt>
<dd>Definition of term #2.</dd>
</dlentry>
</dl>
</li>
</ul>The above example is rendered as follows:
- First item.
Continuation paragraph.
- Second item. This item contains an ordered list.
- First do this.
- Then do that.
- Finally do this.
- Third item. This item contains a variable list.
- Term #1
- Definition of term #1.
- Term #2
- Definition of term #2.
Sections
DITA has no
h1,
h2,
h3, etc, heading elements. Instead it has the
section element which generally always
has a
title child element. Note that
section elements cannot nest. Example:
<section>
<title>The customary “hello word” program in Tcl/Tk</title>
<pre frame="all">button .hello -text "Hello, World!" -command { exit }
pack .hello</pre>
</section>The above example is rendered as
follows:
The customary “hello word” program in Tcl/Tk
button .hello -text "Hello, World!" -command { exit }
pack .hello
Figures and examples
Of course, DITA has also
figure, table and example elements.
The
example element is just a specialized
kind of
section.
The
fig element generally has a
title and generally contains an
image
element.
Like
img, its HTML counterpart, the
image “inline element” may be contained
in any “block element”. The graphics file which is to be displayed is
specified using the
href attribute. The
image element
also has
width,
height, scale and
align attributes.
Example:
<example>
<title>Converting a color image to black and white</title>
<pre>$ convert -dither Floyd-Steinberg -monochrome photo.png bwphoto.gif</pre>
<fig>
<title>The photo converted to black and white</title>
<image href="bwphoto.gif" align="center"/>
</fig>
</example>The above example is rendered as
follows:
Converting a color image to black and white
$ convert -dither Floyd-Steinberg -monochrome photo.png bwphoto.gif
Figure 2. The photo converted to black and white
Tables
DITA has two kinds of table element:
simpletable which is specific to DITA,
and
table which is in fact a
CALS table (also know as a DocBook
table).
Simpletable example:
<simpletable relcolwidth="1* 2* 3*">
<sthead>
<stentry>A</stentry>
<stentry>B</stentry>
<stentry>C</stentry>
</sthead>
<strow>
<stentry>A,1</stentry>
<stentry>B,1</stentry>
<stentry>C,1</stentry>
</strow>
<strow>
<stentry>A,2</stentry>
<stentry>B,2</stentry>
<stentry>C,2</stentry>
</strow>
</simpletable>A
simpletable element contains an
optional
sthead element, followed by one or more
strow elements. Both row elements,
sthead and
strow, contain
stentry cell elements. The
relcolwidth attribute may be used to specify the relative width
of each column.
The above example is rendered as
follows:
Same as above example but using a CALS table
this time:
<table>
<title>Sample CALS table</title>
<tgroup cols="3">
<colspec colwidth="1*"/>
<colspec colwidth="2*"/>
<colspec colwidth="3*"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry align="center">A</entry>
<entry align="center">B</entry>
<entry align="center">C</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>A,1</entry>
<entry>B,1</entry>
<entry>C,1</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>A,2</entry>
<entry>B,2</entry>
<entry>C,2</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>CALS tables are quite complex and explaining how they
can be used is out of the scope of this tutorial. Our recommendation is to
use CALS tables rather than simpletables only when you want a
cell to span more than one row and/or more than one column.
The
above example is rendered as follows:
Table 1. Sample CALS table
