Digital Equipment Corp has announced that it plans to implement a revisable compound – text, graphics and images – document interchange format for its VAX computers. The new DDIF Digital Document Interchange Format will conform to the Office Document Architecture guidelines being developed by the International Standards Organisation, and will enable the exchange of documents between DEC office and publishing products, as well as being made available to the third party developers of publishing products that DEC wants to encourage; copies of the specification have already been passed to Interleaf Inc and Datalogics Inc. DDIF is being based on existing CCITT X409 and ASN.1 recommendations, and will enable DEC users to swap compound documents with users of any equipment that conforms to Office Document Architecture standards.
