Legacy documentation, migrated to clean, valid DITA — for documentation teams moving to a CCMS.
DocentraX converts legacy documentation — including scanned PDFs with no styling information — into topic-based DITA that validates and imports into your CCMS. Run it as a managed migration, or convert on the same platform yourself.
- FrameMaker
- MadCap Flare
- RoboHelp
- Word
- InDesign
- DocBook
- HTML
- Markdown
- Sphinx
- Drupal
Every source. One destination: DITA.
We do one thing: migrate legacy documentation — structured or unstructured — into clean, topic-based DITA that your team can maintain, reuse and publish without the tool it was written in.
Structured & semi-structured sources
Authoring tools and help systems whose structure can be read back. A converter built for each format maps every heading, procedure, table, note and cross-reference to the correct DITA element, the same way on every run.
The hard cases — scanned & legacy PDF
Scanned page images, old PDFs with no styling information, print-era manuals and mixed archives have no structure left to read, so we rebuild it: OCR and AI-assisted layout recognition, conversion rules written for your documents, and human review of every deliverable.
- Scanned PDF → DITA
- Unstyled legacy PDF → DITA
- Print-era manuals → DITA
- Image-only pages (OCR)
- Mixed legacy archives
Valid, not just converted
Every topic is validated against the DITA DTDs. Links, cross-references and tables are resolved and preserved, and the validation report is part of the delivery.
Architecture, not just files
You receive a working DITA map with keys, relationship tables and a reuse strategy, ready to import into any DITA CCMS or publishing pipeline.
Accountable to the end
The migration is finished when your content is imported, valid and accepted in your CCMS — Heretto, Paligo, IXIASOFT, Tridion Docs or any DITA-compliant system — not when files land in a folder.
Next step: open the guide for your source format above, or start with the three pillar guides — DITA conversion · DITA migration · DITA transformation · all conversion guides → — then send us 25 pages to see the output on your own content.
Deterministic where it matters. AI where it helps.
Conversion driven only by AI is hard to certify: every run can differ and every page has a cost. Conversion driven only by rules fails on sources with no structure to read. We use rules for everything they can decide, AI for the remainder, and review on both.
🔧 Deterministic core
- Conversion rules written for your content patterns
- Identical output on every run, so every fix is permanent
- DTD validation, link and conref resolution built in
- No AI cost on the pages rules handle, which is most of them
✨ AI where rules can't reach
- Structure recognition on scanned and unstyled pages
- Topic-type detection: concept, task or reference
- Terms, keywords and metadata written into topic prologs
- Every AI decision reviewed, cached and auditable
Analyze
We inventory your corpus, identify its patterns and write the conversion rules and style mappings for your documents specifically.
Convert
Rule-based converters run first. AI handles only the pages and fragments the rules flag as ambiguous.
Review
Our reviewers and yours check the output together. Every correction becomes a permanent rule, so the same issue does not come back.
Deliver
Valid DITA, a working DITA map and the validation report, imported and accepted in your CCMS. That is when we call it done.
Next step: read how we combine rules and AI in one migration → or test the pipeline on 25 of your pages.
One pipeline, every legacy format
The pipeline structures content rather than just moving it: topics are recognized and split by type, the DITA map is built for reuse, and every topic arrives validated, with terms, keywords and metadata already in its prolog.
Next step: see how a conversion runs, stage by stage →
See it on your content first. 25 pages, free.
A migration is a trust decision, so we show you the output before we talk about budget. Send up to 25 pages of your own documents; we convert them through the production pipeline and review the result with you. No rate card, no commitment.
- 1
Send up to 25 pages
Any format we list above: a scanned manual, an old PDF, FrameMaker books, Word files. Pick the pages you expect to be hardest.
- 2
We convert them to DITA, free
Through the same pipeline we use in production: rules first, AI where the rules cannot decide, then validation against the DITA DTDs.
- 3
Review the output together
You see exactly what your DITA will look like: topics, DITA map, metadata and the validation report.
- 4
Pricing, one-to-one
If the output meets your bar, we shape a pricing model around your volume, formats and timeline.
A real conversion platform, not a folder of scripts
Every migration runs on the DocentraX conversion portal at convert.docentrax.com — the same platform your team can use for its own conversions once the migration is done.
Modular conversion pipelines
Every converter is a versioned module with job logs, validation reports and repeatable results. Multi-step pipelines chain several conversions in one job.
Knowledge that compounds
Terms, acronyms, product names and metadata are learned per customer and reused on every later project, so the share of work that needs AI falls as your knowledge base grows, and the cost falls with it.
Enterprise-grade isolation
Multi-tenant with strict per-organization isolation, role-based access and audit logging. Your content never mixes with anyone else's.
Next step: open the conversion portal → or read how Knowledge Fabric enriches your DITA →
Documentation that reports on itself
Because your content passes through the Knowledge Fabric enrichment layer, the platform can report on it as a whole: which topics are duplicated, which glossary terms conflict, which procedures differ between manuals and which documents are out of date.
Next step: Knowledge Fabric → · Content Convergence: reuse and normalization → · the DITA completeness check →
From our team
Wherever legacy content meets high stakes
Documentation teams whose manuals, procedures and knowledge bases must stay accurate across many products, output channels and years of revisions.
Not sure your content fits? Describe it to us and we will tell you what the migration takes.
The expertise behind every migration
DocentraX is led by Suman Saurav, the technologist behind the platform, who has spent his career deep inside enterprise content pipelines, converting, structuring and publishing complex documentation for global organizations, and by Lief Erickson, co-founder and principal strategist with more than 25 years in the content industry.
Questions we hear from every migration team
Short answers for documentation managers scoping a DITA migration. Each guide linked below goes deeper.
Which source formats can you convert to DITA?
Structured sources: FrameMaker (published WebHelp and structured books), MadCap Flare, RoboHelp, Word, InDesign, HTML and Drupal exports, Sphinx, Markdown, DocBook and legacy XML. Unstructured sources: PDFs of any age, including scanned PDFs and old PDFs with no styling information, and mixed legacy archives. If your format is not listed, ask. Each converter is a separate module, so a new source is added without touching the others. The conversion guides cover each format in detail.
Can you convert scanned or image-only PDFs to DITA?
Yes. Image-only pages go through OCR first. AI-assisted structure recognition then finds the headings, lists and tables on each page, conversion rules written for your documents turn that structure into DITA elements, and a reviewer checks every deliverable. Expect this pile to need more review than content from an authoring tool; we scope it separately so it does not hold up the rest of the migration. See PDF to DITA conversion.
How do you keep AI-assisted conversion reliable — and affordable?
Rules do the bulk of the work, so results are repeatable and most pages involve no AI at all. AI is applied only where rules cannot decide: recognizing structure in unstructured pages, resolving ambiguous cases and enriching metadata. Each AI decision is cached and reviewed, every topic is validated against the DITA DTDs, and our team checks the output before delivery. Read the full article.
How much does DITA conversion cost?
We do not publish a per-page rate card, because the drivers differ too much between corpora: source format, how much structure can be read back, reuse and conditions, and the target CCMS. Start with the free sample: send up to 25 pages and we convert them at no charge. Once you have seen the output on your own content, we agree a pricing model one-to-one that fits your volume, formats and timeline. The guide on what drives DITA conversion cost explains the variables.
Which CCMS platforms do you deliver into?
Any DITA-compliant CCMS, including Heretto, Paligo, IXIASOFT, Tridion Docs and Oxygen Content Fusion, or a plain DITA repository. Delivery is in the structure your platform expects: topic-per-file or composite, map or bookmap, your folder layout and naming conventions. We stay accountable until the content is imported, valid and accepted in the target system. See CCMS migration: getting DITA accepted on import.
Is the delivered DITA actually valid?
Yes. Valid means each topic conforms to the DITA DTDs — or to your own specialization if you use one — not merely that it is well-formed XML. Links, cross-references, conrefs and keyrefs resolve; tables and images are preserved; ids and keys are unique; and you receive a working DITA map rather than a folder of loose files. The validation report is part of every delivery. See the DITA completeness check.
A question we have not covered? Ask us, or work through the DITA migration checklist →
Ready to see your content in DITA?
Tell us what you have — FrameMaker books, a shelf of scanned manuals, a wiki export — and which CCMS it is going into. We will tell you plainly what the migration takes. The first 25 pages are free.
Talk to us
Describe your content, its format and your target CCMS. We reply within one business day.