How to Work with Reusable Components

When you need to reuse a part of a DITA topic in different places (in the same topic or in different topics) it is recommended to create a separate component and insert only a reference to the new component in all places. Below are the steps for extracting a reusable component, inserting a reference to the component and quickly editing the content inside the component.
  1. Select with the mouse the content that you want to reuse in the DITA file opened in Author mode.
  2. Start the action Create Reusable Component that is available on the DITA menu, the Author framework actions toolbar and the contextual menu of the Author editor.
  3. In the combo box Reuse Content select the DITA element with the content that you want to extract in a separate component. The combo box contains the current DITA element where the cursor is located (for example a p element - a paragraph - or a step or a taskbody or a conbody etc.) and also all the ancestor elements of the current element.
  4. In the Description area enter a textual description for quick identification by other users of the component.
  5. If you want to replace the extracted content with a reference to the new component you should leave the checkbox Replace selection with content reference with the default value (selected).
  6. Press the Save button which will open a file system dialog where you have to select the folder and enter the name of the file that will store the reusable component.
  7. Press the Save button in the file system dialog to save the reusable component in a file. If the checkbox was selected in the Create Reusable Component dialog the conref attribute will be added to the element that was extracted as a separate component. In Author mode the content that is referenced by the conref attribute is displayed with grey background and is read-only because it is stored in other file.
  8. Optionally, to insert a reference to the same component in other location just place the cursor at the insert location and run the action Insert Reusable Component that is available on the DITA menu, the Author framework actions toolbar and the contextual menu of the Author editor. Just select in the file system dialog the file that stores the component and press the OK button. The action will add a conref attribute to the DITA element at the insert location. The referenced content will be displayed in Author mode with grey background to indicate that it is not editable.
  9. Optionally, to edit the content inside the component just click on the open icon at the start of the grey background area which will open the component in a separate editor.