Re: CSS extensions for printing

Keith M. Corbett writes:

> At the printing workshop we discussed possible extensions to CSS for
> properties required for printing.  In our breakout session we came to some
> consensus on the top priorities.  Does anyone have notes from that session
> they would like to share, or a proposal to put on the table?

The minutes cover this in limited detail, see:

        http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Printing/minutes960425.html

Some of the suggestions listed in the minutes are being worked on:

* Better color support

It looks like sRGB may play a useful role. Further work is needed.

* Pagination, Master page, columns/shape, footnotes, text flow

We have a working draft covering some of this:

        http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-layout.html

I am working on adding support for multiple columns with text flowing
around overlaying frames containing images etc. There seems to be more
interest in using the content: property to give URLs for the content for
frames, rather than the flow: property in the current draft which uses
an indirect binding. The URL mechanism will work well for single page
on-screen use but will be less effective for multipage layouts.

The section of layout for hardcopy use is still at an early stage and
I would appreciiate help with evolving it to a more mature level.
For instance, how to synchronize parallel flows across pages.

At this point I believe that most vendors agree that layout via style
sheets provides a better architecture than requiring layout info to be
directly embedded in HTML documents. For instance, the former allows
the same content to be reused for different output media.

* better font support

We held a follow on meeting on better font support, and drafts are being
written for how to specify font characteristics and metrics in CSS. This
will enable font matching, synthesis and downloading. Chris Lilley
has the lead for this work.

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +1 (617) 258 5741 fax: +1 (617) 258 5999
   World Wide Web Consortium, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139
   url = http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett

Received on Monday, 1 July 1996 12:21:08 UTC