scope:

ISO/IEC 10175 consists of three parts:

Part 1: Abstract service definitions and procedures

Part 2: Protocol specification

Part 3: Management abstract service definition and procedures

This part of ISO/IEC 10175:

- specifies a client-server model of printing in accordance with the Distributed-officeapplications Model (ISO/IEC 1003 l- 1);

- specifies functions and services provided by Document Printing Application servers;

- specifies the Document Printing Application abstract service using the principles establishedb y the Abstract Service Definition Conventions (ISOLIEC 10021-3);

- specifies the usage of other services.

The Document Printing Application is one component of a coordinated set of facilities and standards needed to satisfy the printing requirements of the modern distributed office. Together, the capabilities provided can enable users to create and produce high-quality office documents in a consistent and unambiguous manner within a distributed open systems environment.

Specifically, ISO/IEC 10175a ddressesth ose aspectso f document processingt hat enableu sers in a distributed open systemse nvironmentt o sende lectronic documentst o shared,p ossibly geographically-dispersepdr inters, and to cause the documents to be printed in accordance with the desires of those users. For the purposes of ISO/IEC 10175, it is assumed that such documents have been composed in a form that is compatible with the destination printing system prior to their introduction to the Document Printing Application.

Other Standards deal with related aspects of document processing, such as the creation and formatting of electronic documents, and the underlying protocols used to transport electronic documents to a printing system. ISO/IEC 10175 is aligned with these related Standards as appropriate, and shares some information in common with them. Clause 2 identifies those standardst hat are directly applicablet o this one.

The Document Printing Application defined in ISO/IEC 10175 is consistent with the model, architectural framework and design principles of the Distributed Office Applications Model (ISO/IEC 1003 l-l). This Document Printing Application Standard defines services and specifies access protocols available within the application layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Basic Reference Model (ISO/IEC 7498-l).

In addition, recognition has been given to the potential need for printing systems to be able to operate within and across diverse networking environments. In particular, the Document Printing Application has contributed to, and benefited from, related standardizationa ctivities in other venuess uch as the Internet EngineeringT ask Force (IETF), the Desktop Management Task Force, the POSIX project of the IEEE Computer Society, and X/Open.

The Document Printing Application constitutes the final phase of the document processing cycle, i.e., the queuing, preparation, rendering and finishing of the fully composed form of the document on marking engines and other image generation devices and ancillary equipment. This cycle includes other processes such as document creation and interchange through public and private networks.

ISO/IEC 10175 is oriented toward satisfying the following subset of the overall document processing functional requirements:

an ability for multiple users to share access to distributed printers;

- an ability for users to convey information to a printing system to influence the scheduling and processing requirements of a print-job;

- a capability for users to monitor and manage the progress of their print-job;

- a capability for printing systems, and associated facilities, to protect against unauthorized printing of documents.

Accordingly, the abstract-serviced efined by ISO/IEC 10175e nablesa user to convey documentf iles to a document print-server, along with the parametersn eededt o expresst he user'sd esiresr egarding the schedulinga nd production of the ensuing print-job. In addition, the abstract-servicep ermits a user to inquire about the status,c apabilities and characteristics of a document print-server in order to choose from a variety of printing devices, depending on capabilities, formats, logistic conveniencec, ost, ownershipa nd availability.

The abstract-service also allows users to inquire about jobs, modify the characteristics and progress of jobs, and obtain feedback about a job.

Many different document formats have been developed for printing purposes, and are in wide use. For this reason, the Document Printing Application has been developed with a view toward supporting arbitrary document formats in a transparent manner. That is, the specific content or format of an electronic document is independent of the access protocol defined by ISO/IEC 10175. The only requirement is that the destination printing system be capable of dealing with the format of the transmittedd ocument,a nd possessth e featuresa nd functionality neededt o render the document successfully.

However, in spite of this generality of focus, ISO/IEC 10175 is particularly oriented toward alignment with the Standard Page Description Language (SPDL - ISO/IEC 10180). This will assure that DPA will include the features needed to assist in the transport and faithful rendering of SPDL documents