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Network Working Group M. Sherman Request for Comments: 1197 CMU

                                                         December 1990

          Using ODA for Translating Multimedia Information

1. Status of this Memo

 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.

2. Overview

 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.

3. EXPRES Experiences

 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

Sherman [Page 1]  RFC 1197 Using ODA December 1990

 valuable for others who wish to use ODA as an interchange medium.

4. Disclaimer

 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.

5. References

 [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

Sherman [Page 2]