IPP> New 'pwg_letter-or-a4_choice' special media size for IPPFAX

IPP> New 'pwg_letter-or-a4_choice' special media size for IPPFAX

McDonald, Ira imcdonald at sharplabs.com
Sat May 24 18:00:58 EDT 2003


Hi folks,                                         Saturday (24 May 2003)

Per my action item from our last IPPFAX telecon (21 May), here's the
write-up of our new special media size, for addition to Section 7 'New
Values to Existing Attributes' of the IPP JobX spec:


7.2 New media (type 3 keyword | name(MAX)) Values

This section specifies one new value for the "media" Job Template
attribute:

'pwg_letter-or-a4_choice':  The client has explicitly allowed a choice
of media for the Job.  The Printer MUST choose physical media of size
na_letter_8.5x11in (approximately 216x279mm) or iso_a4_210x297mm.  The
Printer MUST NOT choose physical media of any other size.


ISSUE 1:  What suffix for media size should be used?  Alternatives are:

(a) Adding a 'choice' suffix - this makes clear that this special media
    name does NOT identify a single physical size.

(b) Omitting the physical size field - this seems ambiguous and highly
    dangerous, because the name would APPEAR to be a legacy name.

(c) Appending the UNION size (i.e., 210x279mm) - this is also not
    truth in advertising, because this is never the size that would
    result from isomorphic scaling of na-letter or iso-a4 documents,
    as required by IPPFAX.


ISSUE 2:  This new special media size should eventually be registered in
a (future revision of) the PWG 5101.1 standard in a _new_ table of PWG
standardized choice media sizes.  For example:

            Table 9 'PWG Choice Standard Sheet Media Sizes'

------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PWG Choice Name             | Self-Describing Name Alternatives      |
|-----------------------------|----------------------------------------|
| pwg_letter-or-a4_choice     | na_letter_8.5x11in (~216x279mm)        |
|                             | <or>                                   |
|                             | iso_a4_210x297mm                       |
|-----------------------------|----------------------------------------|
| pwg_legal-or-b4_choice      | na_legal_8.5x14in (~216x356mm)         |
|                             | <or>                                   |
|                             | iso_b4_250x353mm                       |
|-----------------------------|----------------------------------------|


Comments?

Cheers,
- Ira McDonald
  High North Inc


PS - I was tempted to suggest finessing the media size by adding this
new value as a Media Type (like 'envelope').  Tom Hastings talked me out
of this approach, by pointing out that we _were_ restricting explicitly
the Printer choices to satisfy the client media request.



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