The days of being unable to swap a document created in one program into another are numbered. China is promoting a new document standard in which software everywhere will possess all the general functions of unstructured documents.

The China Electronics Standardization Association established a "docbase technical standardization working commission" on Wednesday.

An official with commission said many electronic documents cannot be exchanged because they are processed with different software which are monopolized by large companies.

Han Jun, an official with the Ministry of Information Industry said there was no "docbase technical standardization" in international systems. China has proposed the motion for the first time in the world.

He said docbase technology plays a vital role in the software industry. Technical standardization should help promote innovation in the country's software industry.

The aim of the docbase technical standardization process is to provide users with all the general functions of an unstructured document, including page description, RIP, font management, information retrieval, storage, information security, document organization, query and search etc. The software can also realize document exchanges between different software applications. Documents created in certain programs can be further edited using other software.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2007)