In most cases, a map's topics inherit all metadata configured at the map level.
There are some exceptions as follows:
- For all versions of the DITA specification including and after DITA 1.2: topics do not inherit
<othermeta>. - For all versions of the DITA Open Toolkit including and after DITA-OT 3.5: topics do not inherit
<othermeta>. -
For all versions of the DITA Open Toolkit prior to DITA-OT 3.5: topics may or may not inherit
<othermeta>depending on how the DITA content is authored.For example, topics nested inside
<topichead>elements do not inherit<othermeta>. -
Topics do not inherit keyword elements such as
<indexterm>and<keyword>.
When defining built-in metadata for a topic, it is necessary to do so in the topic (.dita) file and not in the DITA map (.ditamap). Indeed, this may lead to unintended inheritance between the document and the topic.
For more information about metadata inheritance, see Reconciling topic and map metadata elements.