Subject: Re: PWG> New PMP MIB Draft [and use of MS WORD for MIBs]

From: Tom Hastings <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:08:54 PST

Randy,

I'm using some techniques for editing MIBs that Rick Landau passed on to
me at the last PWG meeting that he attended.

I've used them for the Job Monitoring MIB.

I've documented what I've been doing in Appendix D of that document.

I've also posted the .dot file in the /pub/pwg/jmp/mibs/mib.dot

My plan is to make another template that has only fixed CourierNew fonts,
so that the running text outside the BEGIN END will also be in Courier
in order to produce the .txt file using the generix text driver by printing
to file.

Here is that Appendix D from the Job Monitoring MIB:

16. Appendix D - Use of MS-WORD Version 6.0 to format the MIB

This appendix describes how this MIB specification was created using MS-WORD
to perform the formatting and produce plain text, 72-columns wide, with only
ASCII characters, and running headers and footers as required by the IETF
RFCs and Internet Drafts.

The word template mib.dot was created with the following styles:

1. Fixed - CourierNew 12 point set which gives 10 characters per inch.  Also
set line spacing exactly 12 point.  Have no leading indent.  Have no right
indent.  Depend on the margins to wrap whether on full lines or in tables.

2. Fixed Indent - indents 4 characters (0.4 inches)

3. Fixed Double Indent - indents 8 characters (0.8 inches)

4. Comment Full - full line comments.

5. Quoted Running Text - indented 8 characters

6. Normal - TimesRoman 12 point for text that is outside the BEGIN END
statements while reviewing the document.  To produce the Internet Draft,
change the definition of the Normal style to use the Courier 12 point with
line spacing exactly 12 point.

The following macros are defined in mib.dot with speed keys indicated in parens:

1. CreateFullComment (ALT+C) - creates a full line comment as two column
table with the first column being 3 characters wide for the ASN.1 "--
"comment characters.  The second column is the full line comments with line
wrapping.

2. CreateMIBGroup (ALT+G) - produces a skeleton group to be filled in.

3. CreateMIBObject (ALT+O) - produces a skeleton OBJECT-TYPE to be filled in

4. CreateTC (ALT+T) - produces a skeleton textual-convention to be filled in.

To produce the final plain text, follow the following steps:

1. Accept all revisions

2. Redefine Normal style to be CourierNew 12 point with exactly 12 point
line spacing.

3. Set the left and right margins to 0 and 1.3, so that text comes out
without leading spaces and has exactly 72 characters (8.5-1.3=7.2).

4. Set the top and bottom margins to 0.

5. Select the entire document and type Control Q to get rid of all character
formatting, such as bold, italic, etc.  Since all indents were done with
styles, no indention changes. (be sure not to use the toolbar to indent,
else the Control Q will undo that).

6. Replace the table of contents (since new pagination) and make sure NOT to
have any leader for the table of contents, figure table, or table of issues.
Else the generic text driver will output CR with overstrike which won't meet
IETF requirements for plain text.

7. Select the generic text printer (but do not keep selected, else always
get fixed pitch font, no matter what font selected).

8. Output to file.  This will produce a file with headers and footers that
meet IETF requirements.

At 15:49 03/14/97 PST, Randy Turner wrote:
>I am aware that within the new MIB draft, several lines wrap
>at odd places and I will seek to resolve these prior to 
>draft submission. I still don't seem to have a 'rock-solid'
>way of maintaining an IETF document in Microsoft Word format,
>and having a clean way to produce an IETF-compatible format
>from the Microsoft Word native document format.
>
>At the last IETF plenary in San Jose, other editors mentioned
>that they do not use Microsoft Word, but instead maintain their
>documents in ASCII text, specifically for making sure that
>there documents are easily submitted for review. I also 
>received mail from the RFC editors list stating their 
>reluctance at using Microsoft Word (even in the presence of
>revision marks and other nice features) for maintaining
>standard documents.
>
>I am open to suggestions....
>
>Randy
>
>
>
>-- 
>Randy Turner
>Network Architect
>Sharp Laboratories of America
>[email-masked]
>
>