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ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG2 N233

Minimum requirements for specifying document rendering systems

Abstract

When a structured document is interchanged between an originator and a recipient, the recipient refers to the style specifications that the originator provides to reconstruct the presentation. However, when the recipient does not have sufficient rendering functionality, it may fail to reconstruct the presentation output as the originator expected. In order to preserve presentation output in the course of interchange, the originator and recipient need to negotiate over functionalities referring to the specifications of document rendering systems. To satisfy this requirement, this standard provides the minimum requirements for specifying document rendering systems and document formats.

1. Scope

This standard first of all provides the minimum requirements, or, a frame of reference, against which the user, implementor, or software agent may compare the behavior of a document rendering system.

2. Normative references

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3. Definitions

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4. Minimum requirements for specifying document rendering systems

This standard provides the minimum requirements, or, a frame of reference, against which the user, implementer, or software agent may compare the behavior of a document rendering system. According to this framework, the user may express what he or she expects of a document rendering system, the implementer may describe the functionality and capability of the document rendering system that he or she implements, and the software agent may negotiate a minimum set of functionality and capability that are shared across different document rendering system implementations.

The following list provides the minimum requirements, in other words, a frame of reference, to specify formatting functionality and rendering capability that a particular document rendering system may have. It is a prescriptive list to express the functionalities and capabilities of a document rendering system in a descriptive manner. The list does not require or endorse that any of the items in the list shall or should be implemented by a particular document rendering system implementation.

The list should cover functionality and capability of

• DSSSL
• Implementation-dependent extensions to DSSSL
• XSL-FO
• Implementation-dependent extensions to XSL-FO
• CSS 3

1. General
   1. Supported style language
   2. Support for paged media
   3. Color profile
   4. Character support
   1. Multibyte support
   2. Combined character support
   3. Other support level
2. Pagination and layout formatting
1. Page geometry
1. Simple page layout
2. Columnation
3. Region setting and positioning
4. Document title
2. Page sequencing
1. Sequential page ordering
2. Single page ordering
3. Repeatable page ordering
4. Conditional page ordering
3. Page flow
1. Main flow
2. Static content
3. Marker and marker retrieval
3. Layout independent formatting
1. Out-of-line formatting
1. Float
2. Footnote reference and body
3. Absolutely positioned areas
2. Containers
3. Content switching
1. Content alteration by user selection
2. Content alteration by user action
4. Block-level formatting
1. Tables
2. Table geometry
3. Table with caption
4. Table with header
5. Table with footer
6. Collapsing of cells
7. Borders
8. Padding
9. Table background
5. Lists
1. List geometry
2. List semantics
6. Line level formatting
1. Block
2. Padding
3. Margin
4. Indentation
5. Justification
6. Alignment
7. Keeps and breaks
8. Wrapping of widows and orphans
9. Line spacing
10. Hyphenation and breaks
7. Decoration
1. External graphic object
2. Instream foreign object
3. Output device
4. Leader
5. Rule
8. Inline-level Formatting
1. Basic link
2. Inline object
3. Bidi override
4. Page numbering and page number reference
9. Character-level Formatting
1. Character composition
2. Character spacing
3. Drop cap
4. Word spacing
5. Font selection
6. Font substitution
7. Font embedding

Annex A. Guidelines for authoring document formats

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Annex B. Terminology for the specifications of document rendering systems

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