AFP Consortium publishes Metadata Guide for AFP that provides a consistent metadata definition for all AFP users
BOULDER, Colo., November 30, 2023 – The Advanced Function Presentation Consortium (AFP Consortium), an international consortium of print and presentation industry stakeholders working together to further enhance the Advanced Function Presentation document architecture, is pleased to announce the availability of the first edition of the Metadata Guide for AFP, version AFPC-0018-01.
For many years, the AFP architecture has allowed for a variety of non-AFP objects to be included in AFP jobs, including Metadata Objects (MOs), which are defined in the MOCA (Metadata Object Content Architecture) Reference, version AFPC-0013-01. These MOs are a powerful way to include descriptive metadata in an AFP file, allowing metadata (or extra information and descriptions) to be associated at many levels in an AFP document: at the print file level, at the document level, or at the page level (or group of pages level) within a document. In addition, MOs can be associated with AFP form maps (formdefs), medium maps, and bar code (BCOCA), image (IOCA), graphic (GOCA), text (PTOCA), and container objects (PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, SVG, etc.) within an AFP file.
While MOs are an architected way to associate metadata with various parts of an AFP file, until now there has been no guide on how the metadata in these MOs should be organized, or what data they should contain. The purpose of this Guide is to define a consistent tagging schema in XML format for carrying AFP tagging information within an MO for use in presentation, archiving, and search engines.
Here are some examples of how this metadata can be used:
In addition to defining a consistent tagging schema for metadata, the Guide also includes several real- world examples of how to add metadata to an AFP document, including how to associate Alt Text (alternative text) for use with text objects, text-based hyperlinks, and with images -- and by extension with other object types, such as bar codes, graphics, etc. The examples also show how to tag elements within an AFP document, to be used to identify headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, and text blocks across page boundaries.
For more details on the Metadata Guide for AFP please refer to the AFP Consortium website:
https://www.afpconsortium.org/publications.html
About AFP and the AFP Consortium
Advanced Function Presentation is a document architecture that offers performance, manageability and integrity benefits meeting the needs of large volume, variable data applications. AFP technology has historically been used to produce mission critical documents such as bills, statements and policies and contains methods for job ticketing, effective server-based resource management and the powerful Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS) for total output integrity. In addition to being a rich, self- contained native document language, AFP is also a powerful container architecture capable of bringing full resource and production management capabilities to bear on encapsulated formats such as PDF and TIFF.
The AFP Consortium is an international open standards body consisting of around 30 companies committed to the continued development of the AFP architecture. Since 2004, the AFP Consortium has developed open standards for accurate and consistent ICC-based color management, high-speed complex text, page group recovery within high-volume production, the IS/3 interchange set for compliance, and metadata support for AFP Archive and future applications, such as security and accessibility features. The AFP Consortium will continue in its role to grow and maintain the complete set of AFP architecture.
For more information, visit the AFP Consortium website: https://www.afpconsortium.org
For many years, the AFP architecture has allowed for a variety of non-AFP objects to be included in AFP jobs, including Metadata Objects (MOs), which are defined in the MOCA (Metadata Object Content Architecture) Reference, version AFPC-0013-01. These MOs are a powerful way to include descriptive metadata in an AFP file, allowing metadata (or extra information and descriptions) to be associated at many levels in an AFP document: at the print file level, at the document level, or at the page level (or group of pages level) within a document. In addition, MOs can be associated with AFP form maps (formdefs), medium maps, and bar code (BCOCA), image (IOCA), graphic (GOCA), text (PTOCA), and container objects (PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, SVG, etc.) within an AFP file.
While MOs are an architected way to associate metadata with various parts of an AFP file, until now there has been no guide on how the metadata in these MOs should be organized, or what data they should contain. The purpose of this Guide is to define a consistent tagging schema in XML format for carrying AFP tagging information within an MO for use in presentation, archiving, and search engines.
Here are some examples of how this metadata can be used:
- Universal Accessibility (UA): Enables users with vision impairments or other restrictions to make fuller use of the content provided by an AFP presentation system.
- Automated indexing: Provides extra information to allow the building of a more comprehensive index of the data included in an archived AFP file.
- Web searches: Makes it easier for web search engines and related AI systems to locate meaningful content and associations within AFP documents found on the web.
In addition to defining a consistent tagging schema for metadata, the Guide also includes several real- world examples of how to add metadata to an AFP document, including how to associate Alt Text (alternative text) for use with text objects, text-based hyperlinks, and with images -- and by extension with other object types, such as bar codes, graphics, etc. The examples also show how to tag elements within an AFP document, to be used to identify headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, and text blocks across page boundaries.
For more details on the Metadata Guide for AFP please refer to the AFP Consortium website:
https://www.afpconsortium.org/publications.html
About AFP and the AFP Consortium
Advanced Function Presentation is a document architecture that offers performance, manageability and integrity benefits meeting the needs of large volume, variable data applications. AFP technology has historically been used to produce mission critical documents such as bills, statements and policies and contains methods for job ticketing, effective server-based resource management and the powerful Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS) for total output integrity. In addition to being a rich, self- contained native document language, AFP is also a powerful container architecture capable of bringing full resource and production management capabilities to bear on encapsulated formats such as PDF and TIFF.
The AFP Consortium is an international open standards body consisting of around 30 companies committed to the continued development of the AFP architecture. Since 2004, the AFP Consortium has developed open standards for accurate and consistent ICC-based color management, high-speed complex text, page group recovery within high-volume production, the IS/3 interchange set for compliance, and metadata support for AFP Archive and future applications, such as security and accessibility features. The AFP Consortium will continue in its role to grow and maintain the complete set of AFP architecture.
For more information, visit the AFP Consortium website: https://www.afpconsortium.org
