Folks,
As we discussed in Santa Fe, I am interested in the possibility of defining
standard printer character repertoires for interoperability.
For discussion, a draft charter of a hypothetical working group follows:
<charter>
In traditional printing environments, clients rely on font downloads when
they are not sure a given character is embedded in the printer. As
printing moves to small clients, downloading may not be an option and
clients have a need to know what characters are available in a given
device.
The purpose of this group is to:
1. Survey existing methods for indicating available characters, such as
those used in the Bluetooth BPP
2. Define needs for printing character repertoires, considering such
factors as country locations and wingding-type symbols
3. Using Unicode, select or define a list of useful repertoires for
printing
4. Recommend a basic repertoire for inclusion in any printer that supports
embedded Unicode-accessable characters
5. Propose an extension to the PWG Semantic Model for obtaining the
character repertoires available in a printer
6. Work with UPnP and other groups to add repertoire support as needed
</charter>
Before proceeding, I would like any and all feedback on these questions:
1. Is this a problem worth solving? (vs. vendor-specific solutions)
2. Should it be treated as part of XHTML-Print, UPnP, or some other group?
(as opposed to a separate working group)
3. Who is interested in participarting, as author or reviewer?
If there is sufficient interest I will prepare a more complete proposal.
Thanks,
Elliott
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Elliott Bradshaw
Director, Software Engineering
Oak Technology Imaging Group
781 638-7534