ISO/IEC JTC 1                                                         
Information Technology                                                


ISO/IEC  JTC 1 N 5181                   

DATE:  1998.02.17     

REPLACES                                     

DOC TYPE:
Other document (Open)                                                 

TITLE:
Proposal for a Combined Tips & Techniques Document                    

SOURCE:
JTC 1 Ad Hoc Group on Strategy for Implementing Information Technology

PROJECT:                   

STATUS:
Per San Diego Recommendation 7, this document is forwarded to the     
editor of the Tips & Techniques for JTC 1 Webpages to incorporate the 
Electronic Document Tip & Techniques Guide into one document.                                           

ACTION ID:  ACT 

DUE DATE:            

DISTRIBUTION:  P and L Members                                             
                                                                           


MEDIUM:   

DISKETTE NO.:            

NO. OF PAGES:  2         


Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1, American National Standards Institute, 11 
West 42nd Street, New York, NY  10036; Telephone:  1 212 642 4932;    
Facsimile:  1 212 398 0023; Email:  lrajchel@ansi.org

JTC 1 N 5181

 

TITLE: PROPOSAL FOR A COMBINED TIPS & TECHNIQUES DOCUMENT

 

SOURCE: JTC1 AD-HOC GROUP ON STRATEGY FOR IMPLEMENTING IT

 

DATE: 6 FEBRUARY 1998

 

1. In response to NB comments, the February 1998 meeting of the ad-hoc group on JTC1 strategy for implementing IT decided that there should be a single tips and techniques document which combines the material currently found in the following documents:

 

JTC1 N 4795 Tips and Techniques for JTC1 web pages

JTC1 N 4763 Electronic Document Tips and Techniques for e-mail and diskette distribution

 

2. The proposal is that the combined document should have a title of "Tips and Techniques for JTC1 web-based distribution and that it will be in two main parts. The first part will be the material currently in JTC1 N 4795, updated if necessary. The second part would include the material in JTC1 N 4763 which relates to document content, word processing program and PDF usage, together with information on useful compression programs. Editorial changes will be necessary to make the text suitable for web viewing (e.g. removal of section numbers; cross references replaced by links etc.). Material which related to diskette or e-mail distribution of documents would be omitted.

 

3. It is proposed that new introductory material would be placed at the beginning of the combined document. A starting proposal for the text is as follows:

 

<This paper is provided in two sections:

 

  1. Guidance on how to create and maintain web pages for JTC1 and its subcommittees. The intended audience is people responsible for the implementation of the JTC1 web policies, such as committee secretariats, and their helpers. For this information see Web Pages Tips and Techniques
  2. Guidance on creation, submission and use of documents stored on JTC1 web sites in a variety of non-HTML formats as specified in section 4.1 of JTC1 N 5134 JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution using the World Wide Web. The intended audience is people responsible for the creation and update of committee documents in these formats and those who wish to review, print or create contributions based on them. For this information see Document Tips and Techniques

>

It will be necessary to revise the first paragraph of the existing JTC1 N 4795 to eliminate duplication with the text above.

 

4. The second portion of the document would contain introductory material as follows:

 

<This Tips and Techniques Section is an aid to those involved in the creation submission, distribution and use of electronic documents on web-based JTC1 and SC sites. It contains guidance on documents in many of the formats specified in section 4.1 of JTC1 N 5134 "JTC1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution using the World Wide Web" in order to minimize the impact of problems experienced in the process. Any participant can, and is encouraged to contribute tips and information. Please send such contributions to ?????.

The information contained in this section is furnished on a "best efforts" basis and any errors or omissions are regretted. Where reference is made to a product or name to which copyright or a trade mark applies, the appropriate reference, where known, is made on the first occurrence of that term in the text.

>

 

5. Sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.2, 9.4.2, 10 and 11 would follow. Sections 3 and 4 will be folded into the document on first reference. Section 7.1 should limit the Microsoft Word Versions to 2.0 – 6.0, as agreed at the San Diego meeting. The remainder of the existing material will be deleted. An investigation will have to be made to see if the document "Originating Documents: Keep it simple" is available in an on-line form, otherwise reference to it will have to be deleted.

 

6. A new section on "Word Version considerations" (to be provided by P.A. Gibbon) will address issues related to the use of Word 7 (Word 95) and Word 97 and capture the comments made during the San Diego meeting on this topic. Candidate text is as follows:

 

<WORD VERSION CONSIDERATIONS

  1. If an originator of a document uses Word 7 (Word 95), then the document should be saved in Word 6.0 format before submission so that problems associated with the use of Word 7, particularly in a Macintosh environment, can be minimized.
  2. If an originator of a document uses Word 97, they should save the document in the Word 6.0/95 format before submission. They should pay particular attention to the fact that substantial amounts of formatting are converted to text when this process takes place. Examples include loss of auto paragraph numbering and the conversion of numbered lists to regular text. There are many other examples, for a complete list see www.microsoft.com/office/word/??. Because of this difficulty, originators of documents which contain any significant formatting are not recommended to use Word 97 for distribution within the JTC1 community. Note that this restriction will not apply to the Word 97 version of the template for standards production produced by the ITTF. The formatting in that template is accomplished by Word macros and should not suffer from the drawback described above.
  3. When a user of a document is merely verifying the content of the document (e.g. viewing it prior to the creation of a cover page and further distribution), the use of Word Viewer should be strongly considered. Since the viewer is not capable of changing the source document, difficulties encountered through opening and closing a document in higher levels of Word may well be a voided.

>

 

7. By Recommendation 7 of the San Diego meeting, the editor of JTC 1 N 4795 is requested to produce the combined document. This process will include the updating of document references in both of the source documents.