Review of content reference basics

In the Introduction to reuse in DITA course you learned how to use the conref attribute to reuse elements. The conref attribute allows you to pull content from one element (possibly from a different topic) into another element.

To use a content reference:

• The referenced element (the information being pulled) must have an id attribute.

  <p id="use_me">This is a reusable paragraph.</p>

• The referencing element (which is nominally empty) uses the conref attribute to specify the id of the containing topic and the id of the referenced element. For example:

  <p conref="#my_topic/use_me"/>

  or, if the referenced element is in another file:

  <p conref="topic_file.dita#my_topic/use_me"/>

The content reference is resolved when the topic containing the referencing element is processed for output. Some DITA editors can also display the referenced content (as read-only text).

Contributors

• Simon Bate
• Jake Campbell
• Gretyl Kinsey