Abstract
Most people who have tried to interchange text between dissimilar word-processors or formatters have given up in despair because incompatibility in media, communications, document structure, and formatting commands make the job impossible. The International Standard Organization set a number of principles to resolve incompatibility in networks and established a number of standards to be followed by manufacturers and carriers in different countries to resolve the problem of incompatibility in media and communications. The Canonical Text Processing Form is an abstract (editable or revisable) document intended to resolve the incompatibility between documents. Abstract documents created by line or screen editors are converted to the CTPF which has a standard structure (the quarter-plane model) and a standard formatting language. Basically, originating ends documents are translated to the CTPF and receiving ends documents are obtained from the CTPF. The above method simplifies tremendously the effort needed to interchange documents between different machines by reducing the number of translators and eliminating duplication of efforts. Long-haul networks are intended for more than 40 nations using more than 35 different languages. Multilanguage machine translation is progressing but is not complete yet. Translation between Arabic and English is expected to give satisfactory practical results if the method of controlled vocabulary and terminological equivalence is used. In accordance with the ISO principles, the CTPF and the MT software need to be located in layer 6, part of the file transformation protocols.
Salamah, Abdullah Ibrahim (1985). A canonical text processing form. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -450227.