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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The following are some comments about the UPDF specification</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">(Universal Printer Description Format, Version 0.83.1) document.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I am new to UPDF, but perhaps this is a positive thing in that it will</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">provide the perspective of someone coming to UPDF "cold" and</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">only having what's written down in the spec to go by.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">* There is no table of contents and no index, making it impossible </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">to use this as a reference document.</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">* Heading levels are not numbered like they were in 0.81.3, making an</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">already difficult-to-follow nesting structure (see the following point) now </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">impossible-to-follow. There are not even page numbers in the current</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">version!</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">* It is very difficult to discern the nesting of the XML elements. You have to</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">either flip back and find the list of sub-elements in the containing element </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">(in 0.81.3 you could count the numbering level in the numeric header, which </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">gets very difficult as the nest level deepens). I would suggest using </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">heading numbers and indenting as well to make the nesting visually obvious.</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">* Many elements merely list the attributes without any explanation. While</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">the purpose of some can be deduced from the names, this is very</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">imprecise in a standards document and opens it up for misunderstandings</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">and incompatibilities between vendors.</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">* "XML-DTD encoding of UPDF" section references a DTD file but the UPDF </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">is actually defined via XML schema (XSD) files.</font>
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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Regards,</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Alan Hlava<br>
IBM Printing Systems Division<br>
hlava@us.ibm.com</font>