From rinehuls@access.digex.net Mon Jul 21 23:48:11 1997 Received: from access2.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access2.digex.net [205.197.245.193]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA28517 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:48:05 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access2.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id RAA13328 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:47:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 17:47:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2527 - Electronic Document Tips and Techniques Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ____________________ beginning of title page __________________________ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N2527 July 1997 TITLE: Electronic Document Tips and Techniques Guide for E-Mail and Diskette Distribution - Version 6 SOURCE: Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 WORK ITEM: N/A STATUS: N/A CROSS REFERENCE: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: N/A ACTION: To SC22 Member Bodies for information. Address reply to: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat William C. Rinehuls 8457 Rushing Creek Court Springfield, VA 22153 USA Tel: +1 (703) 912-9680 Fax: +1 (703) 912-2973 email: rinehuls@access.digex.net ___________________end of title page; beginning of text ____________ ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4763 DATE: 25 June 197 Replaces: JTC 1 N 4759 DOC TYPE: Standing Document (for comment) TITLE: Electronic Document Tips & Techniques Guide for e-mail and diskette distribution- Version 6 SOURCE: Electronic Document Tips & Techniques Editor (P.A. Gibbon, UK) PROJECT: -- STATUS: As per JTC1 N 4559, Recommendation 1 of the JTC1 ad-hoc group meeting on Strategy & Implementation of Information Technology held in Reston, VA, USA. on 25-27 February 1997 requested the editor of the (diskette and e-mail) Tips & Techniques Guide to produce a revised version of JTC1 N 4367 taking into account the agreements reached in the Reston meeting and changes to the JTC 1 policy on electronic document distribution. This document contains the changes requested in JTC 1 N 4559 and also incorporates updated material to reflect policy changes agreed at the Copenhagen, Denmark meeting of the JTC 1 Ad Hoc IT strategy group. This document is now forwarded to JTC1 National Bodies and Subcommittees for information. ACTION ID: COM DUE DATE: DISTRIBUTION: P & L Members SC Chairmen and Secretariats MEDIUM: Diskette NO. OF PAGES: 10 Address reply to: Secretariat ISO/IEC JTC 1American National Standards Institute, 11 West 42nd Street, NY, NY 10036 Telephone: 212-642-4932; Facsimile: 212-398-0023; e-mail: lrachjel@ansi.org ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT TIPS & TECHNIQUES GUIDE - Version 6.0 Status of this version: As per JTC1 N 4559, Recommendation 1 of the JTC1 ad-hoc group meeting on Strategy & Implementation of Information Technology held in Reston, VA, USA. on 25-27 February 1997 requested the editor of the (diskette and e- mail) Tips & Techniques Guide to produce a revised version of JTC1 N 4367 taking into account the agreements reached in the Reston meeting and changes to the JTC 1 policy on electronic document distribution. This document contains the changes requested in JTC 1 N 4559 and also incorporates updated material to reflect policy changes agreed at the Copenhagen, Denmark meeting of the JTC 1 Ad Hoc IT strategy group. Readers are reminded that Version 3 of this document (JTC1 N 4185), included, as Annex A, the then latest available version of a substantial contribution from CEN/CENELEC sources setting out techniques to be used in the preparation of WordPerfect 5.x documents which would increase the likelihood of a document being converted to Word 2 and/or Word 6 without loss of information. Readers are encouraged to make referenced to that version of the Tips & Techniques Guide until the final version of the CEN/CENELEC guide is published under ISO/IEC auspices. 1. Scope This "Electronic Document Tips & Techniques Guide" has been developed as an aid to those involved in the diskette and e-mail electronic document distribution activities within JTC1 and its subcommittees in an attempt to minimize the impact of problems experienced in the process. This document exists as JTC1 Standing Document (SD) for the information and advice of all parties involved in the electronic document activities of JTC1 Any participant can, and is encouraged to, contribute tips and information. The information contained herein is furnished on a "best efforts" basis. Any errors or omissions are regretted. Where reference is made to a product or name to which copyright or a trade mark applies, the appropriate reference, where known, is made on the first occurrence of that term in the text of this document. 2. References ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4737 : Revised Electronic Document Templates ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: Revised JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution using diskettes and e-mail, March 1997. (for 60-day ballot prior to the JTC1 ad-hoc group meeting on Strategy & Implementation of Information Technology June 1997 Copenhagen meeting). ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4761: Revised JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, February 1997. (for 60-day ballot prior to the JTC1 ad-hoc group meeting on Strategy & Implementation of Information Technology June 1997 Copenhagen meeting). 3. Definitions 3.1.1 platform a particular computer environment for which a specific version of software is required (e.g. IBM Personal Computer (PC), Apple Macintosh , Unix , etc.) 4. Abbreviations IPS Internet Protocol Suite PDF Portable Document Format RTF Rich Text Format 5. General Considerations for Electronic Document Distribution 5.1 Minimizing change in the distribution process In order to minimize change in the distribution process and thus increase the chances of error-free distribution of documents, the following aspects should be observed: Submit the document in the word processing package, platform and release version in which it was originally prepared, provided that the format is one of the permitted formats. When submission in another platform, release or word-processing package is necessary, then minimize the number of such changes and attempt to make them in the following order of preference: Change the computer platform whilst keeping the word processor and equivalent release level the same Change the release version of the word processor package Change the word processor package Where possible, submit the document using one of the provided templates (Word)/ styles (Word Perfect). For many document types, a suitable template or sample document is to be found in JTC 1 N 4737. Guidance on the choice of an appropriate format is contained in Annex E of ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, March 1997. In instances where a sample document is insufficient, change can be minimized by maintaining the original document in the form submitted by the originator and generating a separate cover page at the secretariat. To assist in this process, the document originator should supply their own template/style with the document. File naming considerations for this approach are documented in 4.4.2 of ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, February 1997. Several examples, covering both simple and complicated cases, are contained in Annex B to JTC 1 N 4769. It is important to note that the ability to leave the submitter s document unchanged will often outweigh the disadvantage of a document being a composite of more than one file. 5.2 Information to be provided by the originator of a document Document originators should provide any relevant information they consider might be useful to the recipient of a document in order to enhance the recipient's chances of viewing the document in the way intended by the originator. Examples of information that might be of value to the recipient includes: Word processing package and version used for creation of the document (e.g. Microsoft Word for Macintosh Version 5.1) Operating system and version Hardware platform Graphics usage Language version, if more than one involved. This information should be added to the preamble of the document. 5.3 Font and Character Set Guidance There are many factors which result in discrepancies from the originator's layout being experienced by a receiver of a document. One contributory factor is the occurrence of font substitution in the recipient s machine environment. Font substitution results in different kerning and vertical spacing characteristics being used which upsets the original document format. In order to limit the occurrence of this phenomenon, it is recommended wherever possible, that the usage of fonts be limited to those shown in the table below: Font Type Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows (TM) other environments 1/ environment Non-serif ITC Helvetica Arial (TM) TT (TrueType (TM)) Serif ITC Times Roman Times New Roman TT Finex pitch font Courier Courier New TT Note 1. Other environments means any environment where Adobe Type Manager (for example IBM PC/DOS or equivalent) or Apple TrueType fonts are used. It is recognized that observation of this recommendation may not always be possible in complex documents with specific font requirements (e.g. use of ASN.1 or test notations). The character set used in text documents should be encoded according to ISO 8859-1 as defined in Annex D of ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution. 5.4 Page-size considerations Adherence to the common printable area of A4 and 8.5" x 11".defined in Annex A of ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution will reduce, but not necessarily eliminate, difficulties caused by the use of different paper sizes in North America from the ISO 216 standard sizes elsewhere. Particular attention needs to be paid to page layout in landscape format to ensure that the common area is utilized. Particular care needs to be taken in the preparation of documents which require both portrait and landscape orientation. In order not to inconvenience recipients who may have widely different printing environments, the use of separate sections in a document for each orientation should be utilized. If, for some reason, this can not be accomplished, consideration should be given to making the parts of the document with separate orientations into separate documents. 6. Graphics As defined in ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, March 1997, simple graphics may be embedded in revisable documents provided they are editable by the graphics applications of the accepted word processing packages. For other graphics the following approach should be considered: In general, figures in documents (of certain types, especially developing standards) should be developed as separate files, using whatever application software is available and appropriate for the task. Then, final figures should be converted into files using ISO/IEC10918-1 (JPEG). Finally, the individual files are inserted into the word processing document at the appropriate points using, for example, Word's JPEG filter. Even when the figures are inserted into the document, it is important to consider the provision of the figures/graphics files as separate files in the original image file format. There are several reasons for this approach. Most commercial publication firms prefer separate text and figures files. This also can ease the conversion of the document to other formats. There is a wide variety of application software for generating graphical figures. This approach allows the most appropriate software to be used for each figure, and yet requires that the figures in the final deliverable form will not require support of more than one standard file format. It must be emphasized that JPEG files can be very compact representations of bitmaps, but are still bitmaps. So the original files in the native format of the production application should be kept for future maintenance editing. The figures and the text document can be worked by different editors in parallel. Having text place-holders in the document instead of the inserted figures can make the text editing task easier, since the file is smaller and graphics do not need to be rendered. The figures can be inserted only when a draft must be presented for consideration. (There is a possibility of using other file formats during the transition: TIFF ,GIF and EPSF are generally acceptable.) 7. Word Processor Considerations 7.1 General Word Processor considerations In the JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution (ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769) the release versions of acceptable word processor software are stated as, for example, "Microsoft Word Version 2.0 7.0" or "Word Perfect Version 5.1 7.0". Clearly, difficulties can arise if one user is at a lower level of the software and another user utilizes a higher version which either stores the file in an incompatible format or uses functions which are unique to the higher version. However, the acceptable formats have been defined in this way in order to encourage a move towards the highest common factor of software use, rather than expressly limiting it to the perceived lowest common denominator. Two types of software can also be extremely useful in bridging the gap between different releases of word processor packages. They are in addition to the built-in capability of many word processor to convert from and save in many formats: Converters which permit the conversion of earlier or even later versions of the same software. These are usually available form the software vendor, often at no extra charge. Examples are the availability of converters so that Microsoft Word 6.0/95 documents can be read by Word for Windows 2.0 software and, more recently, the provision of converters for the Word 97 format. With this capability a user may both read and revise a document from a different release. Viewers which permit a user, usually at no charge, to read and print, but not modify, a document in a word processor form, without that user needing to have the word processing package itself. No charge Microsoft Word viewers are, again, an example. 7.2 Rich Text Format (RTF) considerations RTF is one of the formats as defined in ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution. Care should be taken to ensure that the content of the document is such that fidelity of transfer can be expected when the document is transferred in RTF form. If the document contains aspects which are unlikely to be transferred with integrity in RTF, then distribution in a permissible word-processor should be considered. Guidance on format choice is given in Annex E of JTC1 N 4769. Examples of technical aspects which may not be transferred with integrity in RTF are: The use of revision marking such as the strike-out and underline approach for deleted and inserted text respectively. The strikeout and underlining may be lost in RTF, rendering the document unreadable. The use of other than trivial graphics. For guidance see the section on Graphics. Another aspect to be aware of when RTF is used as a transfer format is the possibility of losing space characters in the text. Many gateways, usually for performance reasons, are configured so that trailing blanks (i.e. space characters) at the end of each line are treated as nulls and stripped off before forwarding. This has no effect on transfer of ordinary ISO 646 data streams but can cause the loss of space characters between words in RTF data streams. As RTF data streams are a composite of control and text characters, the omitted spaces may occur anywhere in the document. If a user frequently experiences this phenomenon, it is likely that the source of the difficulty is close to that user (e.g. at the user gateway) and it may be possible to arrange for the option of stripping trailing blanks to be suppressed. Since RTF can be processed by many word processors, it is highly desirable to avoid the use of features which may not translate directly in another (or possibly the same) word processor environment. Examples of such features are: The use of printer's quotes (known as smart quotes in Microsoft Word) Bullets, en- and em-dashes The Symbol character set 7.3 Microsoft Word specific section 7.3.1 General Word considerations The following are some of the areas which may affect the ability to reproduce a document with content and layout fidelity: When moving between different platforms, font substitution may take place. Since this may result in the substitution of a font with different kerning characteristics, reformatting and re-pagination may well take place. This is particularly true when Macintosh fonts such as New York and Monaco are present in the incoming document. Word set-up can be varied to select a more appropriate font. Similar to font substitution, style formatting alterations may take place. A typical problem is the substitution of 18-point for the "spacing before" paragraph attribute instead of the more typical settings of "single-space", zero point, or a point size equal to the point size being used in the paragraph. A global change to the document will help. Submitters should try, wherever possible, to limit the size of an object such as a table or a diagram to a size which is equal to or less than the size of the common printable area of A4 and 8.5" x 11". The dimensions of this area are defined in Annex A of ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, March 1997. It is important to note that the sensitivity of word processors to changes in a document is such that changes of as little as 0.3mm can be sufficient to cause re-pagination of the document. Attempts to keep within the common printable area may therefore not be sufficient to prevent re-pagination taking place. If it is deemed to be of great importance to maintain the same pagination over different paper sizes, then consideration should be given to using the PDF file format as specified in 4.1 of JTC 1 N 4769. Many of these factors, as well as other important considerations associated with both moving to Microsoft Word and from one computer platform to another within Microsoft Word, are treated in detail in the on-line Microsoft Office webpages to be found at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/021/021.htm. Converters and viewers, as mentioned in 7.1, are available from the http://www.microsoft.com site. 7.3.2 Word for the Macintosh 5.1 considerations Preparers of documents using Word for the Macintosh 5.1 should pay specific attention to the following points in order to increase the probability of trouble-free document distribution to other environments. Word for the Macintosh 5.1 contains a filter which enables pictures generated on a MAC to be saved in PC Word format. The equivalent filter is not present in Word for Windows 2 or Word 6 in a PC Windows environment. Accordingly MAC Word 5.1 documents containing MACDRAW graphics should be saved as Word for Windows documents before attempting to export them to a PC environment. Fonts used in drawing objects may not be preserved when moving from a MAC to a PC platform. Although it may be possible to edit the drawing and change the fonts, doing so on a PC may cause links to be lost. This difficulty can be minimized by a judicious choice of fonts at drawing creation time (see Section 5.3). There is a Truetype (TT) font for the MAC which is identical (from an identifier standpoint) to the Windows fonts (e.g. Arial TT). The easiest way of ensuring, in a MAC environment, that font conversion problems are minimized is to use the MAC version of the Windows fonts. These fonts are distributed with PowerPoint , but may also be purchased separately. If conversion cannot be avoided, then the non-graphics fonts convert as defined in Section 5.3, but the fonts in pictures convert to printer fonts which may well cause editing difficulties where Adobe Type Manager is not used. Printing difficulties may also occur where the printer fonts (PostScript Type 1 or 2) are not available. 7.4 WordPerfect specific section Annex A contains a draft of a report generated by the CEN/CENELEC AGC Project Team 1, entitled "Originating documents: Keep it simple". When completed, it is the aim of the CEN/CENELEC AGC group to submit the final document into the ISO/IEC process via the ITSCG. This information is based on the latest draft (March 1996). The aim of this guide is to provide recommendations on the preparation of documents intended to be used on different word processors. Primarily it applies to documents created in WordPerfect 5.x (5.1, 5.2 or 5.2+) and imported into Word 2 and Word 6. This guide has four main sections covering: text attributes; tables; formulae; graphics. There are comprehensive tables at the end of the document which set out the character sets which can be successfully translated from and to WordPerfect and Word. These common sets cover ASCII, Multinational 1 & 2, Box Drawing, Iconic Symbols, Math/Scientific Basic and Extension sets and Greek characters. The annex gives recommendations that should increase the likelihood of a document being converted from WordPerfect 5.x to Word 2 and Word 6 without loss of information and with the presentation preserved as far as possible and with the format preserved as far as possible. Many of the general observations in the areas of fonts, tables and margin and tab settings are also useful in other word-processing environments. In addition, the website mentioned in the Microsoft Word specific section above (http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/021/021.htm): is a useful source of information to use in minimizing difficulties when moving from one word processor package (or platform) to another. 7.5 Text format considerations When documents are intended to be distributed in text format, particular attention should be paid to the following considerations: Preservation of layout may mean that the text should be saved with line breaks to prevent wrapping from destroying the layout Tab characters may not be preserved with fidelity Quote marks and lists should utilize ordinary characters available in the intended character set 8. Page Image Considerations 8.1 Portable Document Format (PDF) specific section 8.2 Acrobat specific section Adobe Acrobat software permits access to documents in their original form, independent of computer platform. With the Acrobat Reader, it is possible to view, navigate, print and present any Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Acrobat Reader is distributed as a no-charge, licensed product and the latest version (3.0 at time of writing), maybe accessed from the Adobe homepage on the World-Wide-Web at http://www.adobe.com It is permissible to re-distribute the Acrobat Reader program provided that the Read-Me file containing the license agreement is also re-distributed. The Read Me file contains installation instructions and product information for the Acrobat Reader program. There is also an On-line Guide (help_r.pdf) which provides essential information to help a user to begin using Acrobat Reader 3.0. If redistributing Acrobat Reader, users should place the Read Me file standalone in the directory with the acroread.exe file to assist the end user with installation of the program. This file contains the following topics: New features in Acrobat Reader 3.0 Installing Acrobat Reader System requirements Using the Weblink tool with Acrobat Reader Known Problems Creating your own PDF documents Technical support Electronic End User License Agreement It should be noted that the ability to create PDF documents (in contrast to viewing and printing) requires the use of other at-a-charge software available from Adobe Systems Inc. More information can be found on the Adobe homepage at http://www.adobe.com 9. Compression and encoding 9.1 General Compression may be used on diskettes in order to reduce the amount of space needed. Both compression and encoding may be employed in on-line transmission and encoding may well have to be utilized when sending documents in a binary format such as Word or WordPerfect documents. These considerations apply to documents allowable as the E form (e-mail) method of transmission as defined in ISO/IEC JTC1 N 4769: JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution, March 1997. 9.2 Recommended Compression/ De-Compression approach The recommended Compression/ De-Compression mechanism is to use PKZIP or PKZIP-compatible software. An uncompressed file or message should state which files are compressed and to indicate if any optional aspects of PKZIP have been used. Note that compression is an optional capability which is used for efficiency reasons and its use should be considered when a file in excess of 500KB. 9.3 Encoding techniques When electronic document transfer takes place using an Internet Protocol Suite software stack, it is necessary to employ a form of encoding for the transfer of documents held in binary form, as in many popular word processor formats. This encoding is performed for functional, rather than performance enhancement reasons, as distinct from compression. Experience has also shown that encoding is highly desirable for the transfer of textual file formats such as RTF for which the presence or absence of space characters can be critical. The JTC1 recommendation is to use UUENCODE/UUDECODE or MIME Base 64 techniques This recommendation is based on the observation that there is no universal method for encoding which will cover the varying computer capabilities of the JTC1 user set, but that the choice of UUENCODE/UUDECODE or MIME Base 64 covers the major operating system platforms. and thus has the greatest reach of potential users. It is important to note that many e-mail products enable easy encoding in UUENCODE/UUDECODE or MIME Base 64 and provide automatic de-coding on receipt (e.g. Eudora by Qualcomm Inc. and Microsoft Mail by Microsoft Inc.). A number of gateways are not capable of associating more than one attachment with a message, so it is desirable to limit the number of attachments to one. Similarly, care should be taken by a document originator to test whether a file is actually sent as an attachment to a message or whether embedding within the message takes place. This avoids the recipient looking for non-existent attachments. 9.4 Useful software for encoding/decoding The following software packages, in addition to those mentioned above, have been found to be of use for encoding/decoding in a Windows environment. 9.4.1 Wincode Wincode encodes and decodes files in the following formats: UUENCODING XXENCODING, which can be of particular value when national characters are used in Latin character sets MIME Base 64 Binhex, USR, BTOA, BOO, or User-defined The latest known version of this freeware package is 2.7.3c. Wincode can also be customized to link to and from PKZIP/UNZIP software and DOS virus check programs. It also has built-in Winsock program support for auto e-mail. An on-line help file is available at a charge. For further information, see the home page at: http://snappy_software.com. or send e-mail to wincode@snappy_software.com. 9.4.2 WinZip WinZip will zip and unzip files in the usual PKZIP form but also in LZH and ARJ formats. The latest version, WinZip 6.2, was released in October of 1996. This version allows the opening and extraction of UUencoded, XXencoded, BinHex, and MIME files. These files can be opened via the File/Open dialog or via drag and drop. WinZip 6.2 includes WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition. Both 32-bit (Windows 95 and Windows NT) and 16-bit (Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups) versions are available. More information, including downline purchase and upgrade availability, is available from the WinZip home page: http://www.winzip.com. The ail address is Nico Mak Computing, Inc., P.O. Box 919, Bristol, CT 06011, U.S.A.. 10. National considerations Editors in countries with national alphabetical extenders should be aware of how this might impact the JTC1 distribution and filing of the documents in electronic form. When using national versions of word processing software in fixed set layouts, etc. text in the national language could be passed on, for instance, in headers or footers. Document originators should also may attention to whether the text preparation software uses any national characters as control characters, etc. as their use can produce unexpected formatting results. 11. Acknowledgements Acrobat is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. Adobe is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. Eudora is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, licensed to Qualcomm Inc. IBM is a trademark of the IBM Corporation Microsoft Word is a trademark of the Microsoft Corp. Macintosh is a trademark of the Apple Corp. PKZIP is a trademark of PKWARE Inc. Portable Document Format (PDF) is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. PostScript is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc. PowerPoint is a trademark of the Microsoft Corp. TrueType is a trademark of the Apple Corp. Unix is a trademark of X/Open Corporation. Wincode is a trademark of Snappy_Inc Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft Corp. WinZip is a trademark of Nico Mak Computing, Inc. WordPerfect is a trademark of Novell Inc Annex A to JTC1 N 4763 Tips & Techniques Version 6 Originating documents: Keep it simple! CEN/CENELEC AGC Project team 1 March 1996 - Edition 2 Version 3 of this document (JTC1 N 4185), included, as Annex A, the then latest available version of a substantial contribution from CEN/CENELEC sources setting out techniques to be used in the preparation of WordPerfect 5.x documents that would increase the likelihood of a document being converted to Word 2 and/or Word 6 without loss of information. The Tips & Techniques Editor expects the final version of this document to be made available to JTC1 in due course. Meanwhile, readers are referred to Annex A to JTC1 N 4185 if they wish to make reference to the previous version. _____________________ end of SC22 N2527 ___________________________