Whether you're a developer seeking a quick API fix, a marketer requiring platform-specific steps, or a customer simply trying to get something done, generic, static documentation feels like flipping through a dusty manual.

Modern users expect documentation that feels like it was written just for them, tailored to their role, device, and preferences. Think personalized, dynamic, and interactive content that adapts to your taste, just like Netflix tailors shows to yours.

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Guides help you deliver highly personalized documents, whether for PDFs or dynamic web outputs, using conditional attributes, profiling, and smart publishing strategies.

In this blog, we’ll explore:

• How to personalize content in AEM Guides using attributes like audience and platform
• How to set up publishing filters
• How to manage dynamic multi-version outputs from a single DITA source
• Best practices for clean and scalable personalized documentation

How does dynamic content personalization work in AEM guides?

Dynamic personalization helps you create multiple versions of documentation from a single source by applying filters based on audience, platform, region, product, or any other business-specific need.

Instead of maintaining multiple documents, you use DITA attributes like audience, platform, product, region, etc., and AEM Guides dynamically generate filtered outputs during publishing.

Examples:

• Admin Manual vs End User Manual Instructions (Software)
• Mobile App User Guide vs Desktop Web User Guide (Platform)
• Country-specific product instructions vs Global version (Product)
• Healthcare Practitioner vs Patient User Guides (Healthcare)
• Different vehicle models and their feature availability based on regions (Automotive)
• Internal vs External policy documents (Finance, Human Resources)
• Free Users Vs. Premium Users (Subscriptions)

Methods of personalization in AEM guides

You can personalize content in AEM Guides using:

• Conditional Attributes in DITA Topics
• Profiling Rules
• Filtered Output Presets

These allow fine-grained control over what content appears in each output without duplicating your DITA source.

Example 1: Persona-based personalization 

— Service technician manual vs. end user manual

Business Scenario: A company that manufactures electric scooters needs two different manuals:

• One for Service Technicians who repair and maintain the scooters.
• Another for End Users who simply operate the scooters.

While much of the content overlaps (like the braking system), the level of detail differs significantly:

• Service Manual: Technical, procedural, and diagnostic content.
• End User Manual: Simple, usage-focused instructions.

End User Manual ➔ Filter: audience=end-user
Service Manual ➔ Filter: audience=service-tech

Output Presets Setup:
audience="end-user" → Visible only in the End User Manual
audience="service-tech" → Visible only in the Service Manual

Example 2: Platform-based personalization 

— Mobile vs desktop

Business Scenario: A mobile app and desktop platform have different navigation instructions.

platform="mobile" → Visible in Mobile user guide
platform="desktop" → Visible in Desktop user guide

Output Presets Setup:

Mobile Documentation ➔ Filter: platform=mobile
Desktop Documentation ➔ Filter: platform=desktop

Example 3: Combining multiple attributes 

— Audience + Platform

Now, let’s make it even more dynamic!

Business Scenario: A banking app has different features for Admins and Users on Mobile and Desktop platforms.

Different content based on both audience and platform.

Output Presets Setup:

Mobile Admin Guide ➔ Filters: audience=admin, platform=mobile
Desktop Admin Guide ➔ Filters: audience=admin, platform=desktop
Mobile End User Guide ➔ Filters: audience=end-user, platform=mobile
Desktop End User Guide ➔ Filters: audience=end-user, platform=desktop

Step-by-step personalization process in AEM Guides

Step 1: Apply conditional attributes in DITA topics

Goal: Tag specific content pieces that should only appear for certain audiences, platforms, or products.

How to do it:

• In AEM Guides Editor, select the paragraph, table, or image you want to condition.
• In the Properties Panel, assign attributes like audience, platform, or product.

Example:

Step 2: Define Profiling Rules 

Goal: Set up rules that define how filtered outputs should behave during publishing.

How to do it:

• Navigate to Profiles and Conditions in AEM Guides.
• Define a new Profiling Rule Set.

• Specify the attributes, values, and labels you need. You can also assign colors to differentiate content visually.
• Once done, save and publish the profiling rule.

This enables AEM Guides to manage content inclusion or exclusion during output generation automatically.

Step 3: Create and Configure Filtered Output Presets

Goal: Associate profiling rules with specific publishing outputs (such as PDFs or Sites).

How to do it:

• Open the Map Dashboard.

• Navigate to Condition Presets and click Create.
• Click Add All on the preset creation screen to import the attributes defined in the profiling rules. Rename the conditions based on the scenario. (For example: Include "admin" and exclude "end-user" for admin-specific outputs.)

• Save the conditional preset.

• Go to Output Presets and create a new preset (e.g., PDF Output for Admin). In the General section, select the previously saved conditional preset.

• Click "Generate" to produce the final output.

• Now, when you publish, only content that matches the conditions will be included in the final output. You can also preview filtered content before publishing.

Best practices for dynamic personalization

• Plan attributes carefully during documentation design (audience, platform, region, etc.).
• Use consistent attribute naming (case-sensitive in DITA!).
• Keep profiling manageable — avoid too many overlapping conditions.
• Test outputs separately to ensure content renders correctly.
• Document your profiling strategy for the whole team (new writers need to understand the rules easily).

Integrating user profile attributes for advanced personalization

While AEM Guides supports rule-based filtering using conditional attributes like audience, platform, and product, personalization can be extended further by integrating with external user repositories. You can configure AEM’s publish instances to connect with systems such as LDAP, SAML providers, Adobe IMS, or other user authentication and profile management APIs and databases to fetch user-level profile attributes, including roles, job titles, or departments. These attributes can then be used to dynamically apply filters and personalize documentation experiences based on the user's identity. This setup enables AEM Guides to deliver truly personalized content tailored to individual user profiles.

Dynamic personalization in AEM Guides is a powerful strategy that simplifies content management and delivers highly targeted, user-specific documentation — all from a single source of truth.

By applying simple conditional attributes and smart publishing filters, you can significantly reduce maintenance effort, enhance accuracy, and provide a better experience for every user type.

It’s not just about documentation — it's about delivering the right information to the right user at the right time.