JPALME@QZCOM.bitnet (Jacob Palme QZ) (01/08/88)
There is a draft international standard, developed by the International
Standards Organisation, ISO, for interchange of texts between
word processing systems. Thus, instead of writing N**2/2 translation
programs between texts from N different word processors, the
intention is that one need only write N translators, one for
each word processor to ODA/ODIF.
ODA/ODIF supports both a logical text description (chapters,
paragraphs etc.) and a physical description (layout, fonts etc.)
in parallell for the same text.
Has ODA/ODIF been discussed on this mailing list before? Would
it not be nice if ODA/ODIF converters were developed for the
major word processing systems, like Microsoft Word, Word Perfect,
WordStar etc.? Does anyone know of any such efforts?
Another advantage with ODA/ODIF is that it would enable us to
put our word procesing texts into electronic mail, so that we
could in this mailing list put texts in ODA/ODIF format in the
future, and each recipient mailbox software would use an ODA/ODIF
converter to render the text readable on the computer used by
the recipient!
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Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sunmorgan@jessica.Stanford.EDU (01/09/88)
Yes, let's hear more about ODA/ODIF. As with so many convergences in
our modern world, there is one right around the corner involving word
processing, electronic mail, electronic publishing, hypermedia,
desktop publishing, etc. Yet another opportunity for those with
vision and tenacity to take the collective bull by the horns.
Some interesting initial questions are:
* How do we get the ODA/ODIF standards documents?
* How does ODA/ODIF compare with IBM's DCA, etc, which seems to be
becoming a defacto interchange standard in this country?
* How does ODA/ODIF relate to something like PostScript, which
(especially with its soon-to-arrive screen display versions) is an
interchange standard of a different sort?
* Are there implementations of ODA/ODIF?
* Is ODA/ODIF capable of rendering the sorts of hypermedia things we
(well, I at least) expect to do?
* Is there already a mailing list/newsgroup on this topic anywhere?
* And, um, what do the letters stand for?
Expectantly,
- RL "Bob" Morgan
Stanford Networking
morgan@jessica.stanford.edu
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What do you mean 'You don't really want to hurt her?'
I'm a Super-Villian! That's my Schtick!JPALME@QZCOM.bitnet (Jacob Palme QZ) (01/15/88)
> Yes, let's hear more about ODA/ODIF. As with so many convergences in > our modern world, there is one right around the corner involving word > processing, electronic mail, electronic publishing, hypermedia, > desktop publishing, etc. Yet another opportunity for those with > vision and tenacity to take the collective bull by the horns. I am no expert on ODA/ODIF, but will try to answer what I can, and try to find out more and give more answers later on: > Some interesting initial questions are: > > * How do we get the ODA/ODIF standards documents? You get them from the national standards organisation in your country, that is, for the U.S., the National Bureaux of Standards. > * How does ODA/ODIF compare with IBM's DCA, etc, which seems to be > becoming a defacto interchange standard in this country? I do not know, will try to find out. As we all know, there are three sometimes collaborating but too often competing major international standards making organisations: ISO, CCITT and IBM! A third alternative to ODA/ODIF and DCA is SGML. A difference between ODA/ODIF and SGML is that ODA/ODIF is a binary format, while SGML is a textual format, like RUNOFF, TeX, Scribe etc. SGML was initiated by IBM, but has also been accepted as an ISO standard, so ISO has actually two different standards of this kind, both ODA/ODIF and SGML. ODA/ODIF is however regarded as the major, and most advanced of them. > * How does ODA/ODIF relate to something like PostScript, which > (especially with its soon-to-arrive screen display versions) is an > interchange standard of a different sort? ODA/ODIF is on a higher level than PostScript. It allows both a logical and a physical description of a document at the same time. Graphics is in ODA/ODIF done using some ISO standard for Graphics, I belive GKS (Graphical Kernel System), this is not identical to PostScript. But of course it will be possible to write ODA/ODIF to PostScript translators. I am not sure if the reverse is possible, since PostScript is on a lower level. > * Are there implementations of ODA/ODIF? Well, that is what I was asking about. What I know is that in Europe there are several projects going on for developing ODA/ODIF translators. > * Is ODA/ODIF capable of rendering the sorts of hypermedia things we > (well, I at least) expect to do? I am not sure what you want, but I believe ODA/ODIF has most of the things you might want. I am not sure whether voice and animation is included if you want that also! I will try to find out. > * Is there already a mailing list/newsgroup on this topic anywhere? Not to my knowledge. > * And, um, what do the letters stand for? ODA = Office Document Architecture ODIF = Office Document Interchange Format ODA/ODIF is defined in several levels, so that you can implement only the simpler levels if you do not want to include in your implementation more advanced things like for example graphics. Thus, when you buy an ODA/ODIF implementation, carefully check which level of ODA/ODIF is supported. ---------------------------------------- Submissions to: desktop%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop Administrivia to: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop-request Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sun
tombre@crin.crin.fr (Karl Tombre) (01/15/88)
>Yes, let's hear more about ODA/ODIF. As with so many convergences in OK I'll try to give some information... Disclaimer : I personally am no specialist of ODA/ODIF. But I worked on an ESPRIT project (Research founded by the European Community) whose aim was an implementation of ODA/ODIF, and thus worked with several people who were behind the design of ODA/ODIF. As those people are not on the net as far as I know (people from SIEMENS AG in Munich, FRG), I will answer as a representant of this HERODE project, although not the best one for ODA/ODIF matter... >Some interesting initial questions are: I'll begin with answering the last question : >* And, um, what do the letters stand for? ODA means Office Document Architecture. It is a means for describing the double structure of an office document : its logical structure and its layout structure, as well as the relations between those 2 structures. ODIF means Office Document Interchange Format. It is a standardized format for interchanging composite documents, having text, graphics, photographic and maybe even voice parts. >* How do we get the ODA/ODIF standards documents? ODA/ODIF was adopted as standard by ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) in June 1985, under number ECMA standard 101. It is also an ISO draft proposal (don't know if it has been definitively adopted yet). There are 6 documents : ISO DP 8613/1 to 8613/6. For a more global introduction to ODA/ODIF, I recommend Mr. Horak's article in COMPUTER Magazine October 1985 : Wolfgang Horak (Siemens AG) : "Office Document Architecture and Office Document Interchange Formats: Current Status of International Standardization", COMPUTER 10/85, pp. 50-60 Wolfgang Horak happened to be the manager of our ESPRIT project for its first 2 years. >* How does ODA/ODIF relate to something like PostScript, which >(especially with its soon-to-arrive screen display versions) is an >interchange standard of a different sort? Yes, exactly, of a different sort. I don't think it is at the same level. Interchange with ODIF would be closer to interchange of LaTeX documents and styles, with regards to level of abstraction, although it's not at all the same thing. >* Are there implementations of ODA/ODIF? (-; my bit of advertisement ;-) The ESPRIT project HERODE (Handling the Electronic Representation of an Office Document based on ECMA 101 standard), formed by SIEMENS AG (Munich) and TITN (Paris), with cooperation of QMC Research Ltd (London) and CRIN (Nancy), aimed at building a prototype workstation for office automation based on ODA/ODIF. As we (CRIN) were involved in quite another part (automated entry of documents and their coding into ODIF), I can only give superficial info on the real ODA/ODIF work done. The project finished in November 1987, with a first demo of the feasability of such a system. On a SUN workstation, with C and Objective-C as the programming languages, a document handler based on ODA was developped, integrating three editors (WYSIWYG text editor, GKS graphics editor and photographic editor) for the content parts as well as an editor for the logical structure. Online formatting tools manage the coherence between the two structures at any oment. The system is completed by a document archiver for storing ODIF documents on magnetic or optical disk, with a common user interface and with our automated document entry module, which works with a pape document as its input. This was of course a research project, resulting in a prototype but no commercial system at this moment. Another ESPRIT project, PODA, were we are no longer involved, is continuing the work on an ODA office system. SIEMENS, TITN and QMC are also involved there. (As we work on Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, PODA was out of the scope of our interest). Other european manufacturers are also in PODA. I'm not sure which ones, but maybe Olivetti (excuse me if I'm wrong) is along. >* Is ODA/ODIF capable of rendering the sorts of hypermedia things we >(well, I at least) expect to do? (-; As I don't know what you expect to do, I cannot answer ;-) BTW, have a look at all the issue of COMPUTER magazine devoted to Multimedia Communications (Oct. 1985). I'm afraid I'm not clever enough on this field to give more info.l >* Is there already a mailing list/newsgroup on this topic anywhere? As far as I know, no. OK, this has become much longer than expected. But I hope the info can be useful to someone. --- Karl Tombre @ CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy) EMAIL : tombre@crin.crin.fr -- tombre@crin.UUCP POST : Karl Tombre, CRIN, B.P. 239, 54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX, France PHONE : +33 83.91.21.25 ---------------------------------------- Submissions to: desktop%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop Administrivia to: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop-request Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sun
news@sun.uucp (news) (01/15/88)
> Some interesting initial questions are: > * How do we get the ODA/ODIF standards documents? > * How does ODA/ODIF compare with IBM's DCA, etc, which seems to be > becoming a defacto interchange standard in this country? > * How does ODA/ODIF relate to something like PostScript, which > (especially with its soon-to-arrive screen display versions) is an > interchange standard of a different sort? > * Are there implementations of ODA/ODIF? > * Is ODA/ODIF capable of rendering the sorts of hypermedia things we > (well, I at least) expect to do? > * Is there already a mailing list/newsgroup on this topic anywhere? > * And, um, what do the letters stand for? ODA stands fo Office Document Architecture, ODIF for Office Document Interchange Format. ODA is specified in ISO International Standard 8613, Parts 1 to 8. This standard was only recently approved, and the final text will probably not be available until mid-year. I have a copy of the second draft, which is not very different from the final version. It is about two inches of material. I am willing to send this to people who can convince me they have a serious interest in ODA and its capabilities. ODA has the capabilities to fully describe the structure of a document independent of its content. Thus it could accommodate any abitrary type of content, such as character, raster graphics (coded or bit mapped), geometric graphics, audio etc. The ISO 8613 currently standardizes character, raster, and geometric graphic content architectures. ODA can also fully describe the document layout in the layout structure. A document described by ODA is thus fully processable (revisable), but the information can also be conveyed to describe how the originator intended it to appear. The encoding of the ODA document description, which results in a binary data stream or file, is called ODIF when Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) is used. Encoding can also be done using Office Document Language (ODL), which uses SGML. >From the above it is clear that the capabilities of ODA far exceed >those of DCA. PostScript should not be called an interchange standard, since interchange usually takes place between peer systems, rather than between a system and peripheral devices. The layout process of ODA produces a page image (virtual page). Drivers could be written to produce physical image of this. Alternatively, and likely, PostScript may be used as the interface to rendering devices. I am not aware of any products with ODA at the moment, although many manufacturers seem to be working on it, and there are a number of joint projects such as ESPRIT in Europe and EXPRES in the US. ODA was demonstrated by Honeywell-Bull, Siemens, Olivetti, and ICL at the 87 Hanover Fair. I can't comment on the relatioship of ODA to hypemedia. The have been some comments on ODA in comp.protocols.iso, and this subject should probably be cross-posted. Standards work on ODA takes place in the US in ANSI X3V1, Text: Office and Publishing Systems which meets four times a year. It also sends delegates to the international word. Participation is welcomed. Herman Silbiger Chair, X3V1.3&5, Document and Content Architectures ...!homxb!hrs 201 949 3193 ---------------------------------------- Submissions to: desktop%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop Administrivia to: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop-request Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sun
cabo%TUB.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Carsten Bormann) (01/20/88)
In article <38169@sun.uucp> JPALME@QZCOM.bitnet (Jacob Palme QZ) writes: () There is a draft international standard, [called ODA by ISO]. Actually, the DIS 8613 parts 1 to 5 have been promoted to IS status by the pertinent working group ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG3 recently (parts 6 to 8 probably will be promoted by .../WG5 this month), and it is highly likely that CCITT will adopt the same wording as T.411 to T.418. ODA is composed of seven parts: Part 1 (T.411): General overview Part 2 (T.412): Document structures (see below) Part 3: There is no part 3 Part 4 (T.414): Document profile (a header describing a document) Part 5 (T.415): Interchange formats Instead of lumping the document content with the document structures, there are three more parts defining ``content architectures'': Part 6 (T.416): Character content architecture Part 7 (T.417): Raster graphics content architecture Part 8 (T.418): Geometric graphics content architecture T.419: (A funny Videotex compatibility content architecture not adopted by ISO) () ODA/ODIF supports both a logical text description (chapters, () paragraphs etc.) and a physical description (layout, fonts etc.) () in parallell for the same text. In ODA terminology, this is ``processable text'' (text that can be processed such as edited and formatted) vs. ``formatted text'' (text that only can be printed but cannot be subjected to further processing). The interesting part is, of course, the interchange of processable documents (interchange of formatted documents can be had with other ways such as Postscript). ODA goes pretty far in separating the logical structure of a document from its style aspects, very much in the line of current development of text processing systems. In article <38282@sun.uucp> morgan@jessica.Stanford.EDU writes: () Some interesting initial questions are: () () * How do we get the ODA/ODIF standards documents? Buy them from ISO, as soon as the standards have been printed, or buy the CCITT blue books, as soon as these have been printed (by the end of 1988). () * How does ODA/ODIF compare with IBM's DCA, etc, which seems to be () becoming a defacto interchange standard in this country? No comment (how does C compare to IBM 1130 machine language?), however, I would like to take issue with the statement that DCA is going to be something like a standard -- IBM would have to converge at a ``standard'' idea what DCA is going to be, first. This is very similar to the open systems (TCP/IP, X.25) vs. SNA debate; if you want interoperability, you know where to look. The only standard to also keep in consideration is ISO 8879 (SGML). ODA and SGML are sometimes considered to be competing standard, but, to the contrary, they combine in beautiful ways (but I'm not going to open this can of worms in this message, for short, SGML is a syntax to exchange document structures; one of the interchange formats of ODA, the ODL format, uses SGML, while the other one uses ASN.1/X.209). () * How does ODA/ODIF relate to something like PostScript, which () (especially with its soon-to-arrive screen display versions) is an () interchange standard of a different sort? Postscript is an excellent interchange format for ``formatted'' documents (to use ODA terminology). What makes ODA interesting is its potential as an interchange format (as well as system architecture model) for the exchange of ``processable'' (i.e. source form) documents. You can compare this to exchanging the Troff or TeX form of a document instead of its Postscript rendition, which gives you the ability to further edit the document, or format it in other ways than those available to the originator. () * Are there implementations of ODA/ODIF? Certainly not, the WG3/WG5 editors are busy writing together the final text of the standard. However, there are some partial implementations of the DIS versions of 8613. Every year the ESPRIT project ``PODA'' has an interoperability show at the Hanover fair; each time they implement a larger subset of the standard. () * Is ODA/ODIF capable of rendering the sorts of hypermedia things we () (well, I at least) expect to do? How do you render hypermedia? ODA is capable of specifying (and transporting) the semantics of documents. Work is under way in WG3 to extend the ODA model by some form of ``active'' or ``automatic'' document. () * Is there already a mailing list/newsgroup on this topic anywhere? I'm sure interested to start one. () * And, um, what do the letters stand for? Office Document Architecture (for hysterical reasons, a move to change it to Open systems Document Architecture was not accepted due to strong opposition from some national member bodies of WG3). Greetings, Carsten Bormann ---------------------------------------- Submissions to: desktop%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop Administrivia to: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com -OR- sun!plaid!desktop-request Paths: {ihnp4,decwrl,hplabs,seismo,ucbvax}!sun Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ What do you mean 'You don't really want to hurt her?' I'm a Super-Villain! That's my Schtick!