The purpose of this RFC is to inform implementors of multimedia
systems about our experiences using ISO 8613: Office Document
Architecture (ODA). Because ODA is being proposed as an encoding
format for use in multimedia mail and file exchange, implementors
wishing to use ODA in an open systems environment may profit from our
experiences. This memo provides information for the Internet
community. It does not specify any standard. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
ODA is a recently approved ISO (8613) and CCITT (T.410) standard for
representing documents containing multifont text, raster images and
geometric graphics. This encoding has been specified for use in a
number of related standards, such as X.400.
However, ODA is a very abstract standard, defining entities such as
"composite logical object classes" and not common entities, such as
"paragraphs". Therefore, effective use of ODA as an interchange
medium requires the definition of a document application profile
(dap) that defines some common entities and a map between ODA
entities defined in the dap and entities used in the interchanged
systems.
The National Science Foundation funded the EXPRES project, which
consisted of groups at Carnegie Mellon University (Information
Technology Center) and the University of Michigan (Center for
Information Technology Integration). These two groups collaborated
with groups at McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace Information Systems, NIST,
and Interleaf. Together, the five groups investigated the use of ODA
as an interchange medium for submitting research proposals by
electronic mail to the National Science Foundation.
Part of the investigations yielded strategies for using ODA. We based
our strategies on the NIST dap and the features provided by the
Andrew, Diamond, and Interleaf systems. Our experiences been
documented and published in a book [1]. The discussion may be
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RFC 1197 Using ODA December 1990
valuable for others who wish to use ODA as an interchange medium.
The information provided in [1] is the opinion only of the authors
and does not represent the opinions or policies of Carnegie Mellon
University, the University of Michigan, McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace
Information Systems, NIST, Interleaf, or the National Science
Foundation.
[1] Jonathan Rosenberg, Mark Sherman, Ann Marks & Jaap Akkerhuis,
"Multi-media Document Translation: ODA and the EXPRES Project",
Springer-Verlag (New York), 1991, ISBN 0-387-97397-4,
3-540-97397-4.
Security Considerations
Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
Author's Address
Mark Sherman
Information Technology Center
Carnegie Mellon University
4910 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Phone: (412) 268-6727
Fax: (412) 268-6787
EMail: mss+@andrew.cmu.edu
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