2. Overview (DocSII)

This paper is an annual report of FY2003 activities of Asian Document Style Information Interchange project (DocSII) conducted by CICC.  This project is a part of Japanese government initiatives for Industry Technology Promotion by Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, Japan (METI)with Japanese Standard Association (JSA).

Asian countries have a long tradition of their own writing and documentation,and, at the same time, a strong appetite for integrating their cultural　heritage with the emerging information communication technology.  Human readable electronic documents have to be rendered with an appropriate document style/layout. When interchanging the documents, the document　style/layout is often requested to be preserved.  Style specification and　interchange can be performed by using standard style languages, such as DSSSL or XSL.　However, actual style specification using those languages requires enough　knowledge about style/layout rules which are significantly based on the　cultural background.  Today's document creation and interchange, preserving　style/layout face to this difficulty. It is truly experienced when Japanese companies establish their business in the Asian countries.

This project intends to collects style/layout rules employed in Asian　countries and systematically classify the formatting objects.  Then to create a “style language library”. By using the library, style specification can be carried out without particular expertise of style/layout rules and style languages.  The library is to be submitted to ISO for international approval.  The internationally standardized library will contribute to all document users in　the world.

About DocSII:

The Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization (CICC), has launched the Project of Document Style Standardization for Information Interchange (DocSII).  DocSII collects document style/layout rules employed in Asian countries to extract formatting objects from the rules and systematically classify the formatting objects. 　Then create a style language library.   (It will be done by several special experts of style specification languages, who will work in the background of DocSII.) After drafting the library, DocSII will submit the library to the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 requesting an international approval.   The DocSII project has already conducted a series of surveys in some selected Asian countries. It visited Lao PDR and Singapore in 2002, and Thailand and Mongolia in 2003.

Keywords：

Documentation, Document Style, Layout, System, Network, International

Standards, Technology, International, Information, Multilingual, Standard,

Culture, Character, Composition, DTP, Style Specification, Style Specification

Language, DSSSL, XSL, XSLT, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34, W3C