I would say DITA. DITA is topic based and modular. I suppose you could
write in DocBook that way, but the tendancy would be to blur the lines
between descriptive (concepts) vs proceduaral data. Force the writers to
deal with linking the modules together, creating a map of their contents,
etc. instead of allowing them to write a hydraulics chapter.
If you had the stylesheets, I would say it would be possible to keep a
simple S1000D environment going. Just ignore all the version management
stuff. The biggest overhead would probably be creating the data module
code and assigning it to the proper SNS structure.
..dan
> Knowing we'll be moving a new small as-yet unwritten manual to S1000D late
> this year but needing to write it now, as far as converting it later goes,
> would you suggest a DITA DTD? Or DocBook?
>
> I converted a 20-page document into DocBookx from Word (was able to get
> docbookx 4.5 installed on the Print Engine) and was happy with the ease of
> use and simplicity (this isn't a computer manual but it worked alright)
> although I definitely need to learn how to hide most of its overly
> abundant tags! Before I did, I thought I'd ask if maybe one of the DITA
> DTDs that come with Arbortext would be more appropriate.
>
> Thanks,
> John T. Jarrett
> BAE Systems
>
