Number: DocSII N01
Date: 2002-09-16
Author: Yushi Komachi
(1) Today we can interchange our documents by using an internet or web service. Those documents can include a variety of languages (multilingual documents) by using internationally approved character codes or character entities.
(2) Structures of those documents can be described by internationally approved description languages, e.g., SGML, XML or HTML.
(3) Human readable documents have to be rendered with an appropriate document style/layout. Even when interchanging the documents, the document style/layout is requested to be preserved.
(4) For document interchange with style/layout, HTML and CSS have been employed. However they restrict formatting objects for simplicity. (See examples.)
(5) Style specification and interchange beyond HTML/CSS capability can be performed by using style languages, e.g., DSSSL or XSL.
(6) However, actual style specification using those languages requires enough knowledge about style/layout rules which are significantly based on the cultural background of region, country, society or group within which the documents are distributed.
(7) Today's document interchange, in particular international interchange, preserving style/layout faces to this difficulty.
DocSII intends to solve the problem with supports of document style/layout experts in Asian countries.
DocSII collects style/layout rules employed in Asian countries and systematically classify the formatting objects.
DocSII creates a style language library. Using the library, style specification can be carried out without particular expertise of style/layout rules and style languages.
DocSII submits the library to the ISO requesting an international approval. The internationally approved library will contribute to much more document users in the world.