Draft Comment Page formats and sizes
Michiel Leenaars, Jeroen Dekkers
DIS29500 has a number of issues related to page formats and sizes. In
its definition tables for page formats nor in its definition of page
dimensions DIS 29500 does not respect ISO/IEC directives, part 2,
section 6.6.9 (Quantities, units, symbols and signs) which normatively
states: "The International System of units (SI) as set out in ISO 31
shall be used".
It incorrectly references ISO 216 names for paper formats that are not
conformant to those ISO names (for instance: it lists 6 different types
of A4 paper with undefined suffixes and 4 completely different
dimensions. There is an "B5 paper" size that correctly measures 176 mm
by 250 mm according to ISO definitions, yet at the same time there is
an "ISO B5 extra paper" which despite its explit referral incorrectly
measures 201 mm by 276 mm. DIS 29500 additionaly fails to cover many
important ISO 216 defined standard paper formats (of which there are
just 27), most significantly in the lower end of the scale (A0, A1 and
A2, B0,B1 and B2) and in the higher end (A7, B7 and beyond). Since A0
and B0 are the basis of the definition of the ISO-A and B-series
respectively, this omission is not acceptable. Additional to that is
the fact that DIS2900 also cannot reproduce in any way the socalled
"(specially derived) long sizes" and "trimmed long sizes" of the ISO-A
and ISO-B series ? such as 4A0 and 2A0 which are among the standard
formats specifically named in ISO 216.
More fundamentally issues within DIS29500 related to page sizes go back
to using an inflexible, fixed yet non-exhaustive list of inadequately
named paper formats - instead of directly using proper dimensions in
millimeters. The unnecessary introduction of a finite and fixed
indirect lookup table for such an elementary twodimensional numerical
compound with real-world meaning does not at all serve interoperability
or backward compatibility with historical formats. The fact that for a
virtually identical issue with print label sizes this setup is not
necessary, is proof enough. Yet it actively hinders users and producers
to work with self-defined formats at the same level of representation.
Additionally such a long list without any proper (normative) references
infers the risk of going against local market conventions, existing
implementations by other vendors and/or historical definitions made
elsewhere. Minor future changes and additions to the spec will break
existing implementations in unforeseeable ways. As such is should be
considered bad design rather than ugly design, and needs to be
repaired.
Additionally the use of a lookup table is likely to raise the cost of
implementation and maintenance for new entrants and will more easily
cause errors (especially when using different measurement units within
the same table, as has been stated before; for instance in the
implementation of functions like 2.15.1.64 printTwoOnOne [Print Two
Pages Per Sheet].
DIS 29500 contains three identical page size lists (3.3.1.61 pageSetup
[Page Setup Settings], 3.3.1.62 pageSetup [Chart Sheet Page Setup],
5.7.2.135 pageSetup [Page Setup], which in itself is errorprone (can
they be different) and maintenance-unfriendly.
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Proposed change:
Removal of par. 3.3.1.61 pageSetup [Page Setup Settings], 3.3.1.62
pageSetup [Chart Sheet Page Setup], 5.7.2.135 pageSetup [Page Setup]
from the spec. Remove section 2.6.13 pgsz (Page Size) and reuse
the equivalent ISO 26300 namespace (which in turn uses industry
standard W3C namespace fo (formatting objects), thus avoiding
introduction of unnecessary new syntax and a measurement system
violating ISO directives as stated elsewhere in the comments.
Additionally, the element paper-tray-name should be used instead
of the underdefined w:code="240".
This rewrites the thus deprecated:
into the equivalent, ISO-216 conformant and already ISO-standardised
element (ISO 26300, 15.2 Page Layout Formatting Properties)
Nota bene: as an extension to both ODF and OOXML to service those
producers that want to carry pre-defined or user-defined names for
paper within documents, paper size name may as a suggestion be included
as an additional text attribute style:paper-format-friendlyname. This
element should carry no relevance to applications but might serve as a
userfriendly metadata element for locally defined or application
specific paper names that are converted from applications that used to
work with such names.