Bill,
On 2013-08-21, at 5:48 PM, William A Wagner <wamwagner at comcast.net> wrote:
> ...
> not expect that the PWG will need to present its position paper, largely
> because we propose an important component of any overall solution to the
> "The Challenge" (namely a set of elements for defining user processing
> intent in printing products) rather than a specific solution itself.
> However, I echo a previously stated suggestion that it would be beneficial
> to create and post a concise statement of the purpose and importance of the
> Semantic Model and of the PWG Job Ticket that emerges from that model.
> Indeed, I suggest that, in this period of realistically considering out
> projects, such a statement would be of interest to much of the membership
> as well.
Indeed, I could see each WG developing an informal white paper that describes how their technology can be applied, what the benefits are, etc. as part of our general marketing efforts. And in fact we could engage our marketing consultant to help shape and polish the white papers.
> 2. Referring to the information on the W3C workshop page:
>> "Designers are finding HTML and CSS incomplete when compared
> to XML and XSL-FO, and that in turn is limiting compared to professional
> interactive page design programs.", questions and comments are:
>> a) Although I understand their publishing-based origin in SGML, one
> thinks of HTML (and XML) being used in web pages. I expect that a
> stand-alone or web-based word processor could provide a document coded in
> HTML with CSS reflecting formatting, or in XML with XSL providing
> formatting, but what is the advantage over PDF or XPS in which many of the
> features they ask for already exist? To what extent is HTML or XML currently
> in use for commercial publishing of printed material?
It is widely used, particularly for things that used to be tied to "variable data printing" and database/catalog type applications. And once upon a time I did a fairly decent side business selling a HTML-based publishing solution (HTMLDOC, now just open source).
Many publishers/self-publishers use HTML and XML based tools to simultaneously generate print and ebook content as well (although Word is still widely used as the primary editing tool... :/)
> b) The PWG has some history with CSS-Print (which was intended to be
> used with XHTML-Print). Presumably XHTML-Print was to describe a document's
> content and structure; CSS-Print was to describe processing and presumably
> could be changed without affecting content. Of course, processing
> instructions often affect formatting, so a clear distinction is not
> possible. It appears that XSL (or XSL-FO) serves a function for XLM coded
> documents similar to what CSS serve for HTML coded documents.
XSL (and XSL-FO and XSLT) can do complex transformations, but often still gets used with CSS. The IPP registry is an example of using XSL to generate XHTML or text from a common XML source, with the XHTML utilizing CSS for presentation.
> c) A reasonable PWG position would not limit the PWG contribution to
> defining a set of print processing elements in CSS, but also for XSL-FO (or
> whatever other content language/formatting pair are proposed. The problem is
> when existing elements in those languages do not align with PWG PJT
> elements. Finding those may not be feasible in available time.
Like I mentioned in our last call, the W3C has already developed page formatting properties (CSS3 Page Media Module). That combined with new properties for output intent (a CSS "job ticket") would allow HTML and XHTML content to be paginated and printed as intended.
> 3. Topics (and presumably panels, sessions, etc) identified that may be of
> interest to PWG for contribution and/or understanding are:
>> . Formatting to print using CSS
>> . Print on demand: color management, ink control [?], specifying
> media, binding, trimming, finishing, and perhaps
>> . Multiple output formats: are CSS media queries enough? What about
> alternate content, image replacement, subsetting?
>> (I am surprised there is no XSL-FO session)
>> 1. Are there any others?
>> 2. What is meant by "subsetting"?
Probably limiting printing to a portion of the document (easy with display: none), but they could also be thinking of splitting up the document to print on multiple output devices.
> 3. Are we interested (perhaps particularly for Print on Demand) in
> proposing something other than XML or HTML as the content language, or an
> alternate system
I think we would be best served by promoting the PWG PJT - for XML/XSL, it can be embedded in the document as-is, and for HTML we can define the mapping to/from properties.
> 4. If, as the page suggests, "Customers want to buy a printed book, or
> to go to a kiosk and get an eBook printed and have the same quality.", how
> do we propose print process control with documents in the various E-book
> formats?
Having some experience in this space, this is 1/3 software and 2/3 content preparation. Existing content will likely print OK, but will need additional markup to make it reflect the quality you are used to for a traditional printed book.
> 5. Do we have any suggestions on 'Rights Tracking"?
I know we skirted the issue in past IDS sessions - at a basic level we can push Dublin Core metadata, but I think there is still a can of worms surrounding rights/DRM that needs to be addressed (although thankfully we can let the W3C take the lead on that...)
_________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair