MO:DCA (Mixed Object:Document Content Architecture) is an IBM

compound document In computing, a compound document is a document that “combines multiple document formats, either by reference, by inclusion, or both.” Compound documents are often produced using word processing software, and may include text and non-text ele ...

format for text and graphics elements in a document. The 'Mixed Object' refers to the fact that an MO:DCA file can contain multiple types of objects, including text, images, vector graphics, and barcodes.

Overview

MO:DCA supports Revisable Documents, which are editable like

revisable-form text Document Content Architecture, or DCA for short, is a standard developed by IBM for text documents in the early 1980s. DCA was used on mainframe and IBM i systems, and formed the basis of DisplayWrite's file format. DCA was later extended as M ...

, Presentation Documents, which provide specific output formatting similar to final-form text, and Resource Documents, which hold control information such as fonts. An MO:DCA file consists of a sequential, ordered hierarchy of independent objects - documents, pages, data objects, and resource objects such as fonts and ICC profiles. Each object is delimited by begin/end structures, and objects to be rendered specify presentation parameters and resource requirements in structures called "environment groups". Since the pages in MO:DCA documents appear in sequential order, presentation can start as soon as the first page is received. Formats for specific objects are specified in various OCAs (Object Content Architectures): PTOCA for presentation text that has been formatted for output, GOCA for vector graphics objects, IOCA for bitmapped Images, FOCA for fonts, and BCOCA for barcodes. MO:DCA is implemented as IBM's

Advanced Function Presentation Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) is a presentation architecture and family of associated printer software and hardware that provides for document and information presentation independent of specific applications and devices. Using AFP, users c ...

(AFP) page description language. A number of applications use MO:DCA, including MST Viewer, an MO:DCA viewer used by IBM solutions, IBM DisplayWrite, and printers and other devices supporting AFP.

Encoding

MO:DCA-P carries text, image, and graphics data objects, therefore the data is a mixture of binary data and character data. The recommended content-transfer-encoding is base64.

Security

MO:DCA-P is a specification of final-form presentation data of an Image. It is not a programming language, does not contain any file operators, and therefore cannot corrupt a receiver's file system or programming environment. MO:DCA and Mixed Object Document Content Architecture are trademarks of the IBM Corporation.

Interoperability

MO:DCA-P defines interchange sets to support interoperability. Currently defined sets are Interchange Set 1 (IS/1) and Interchange Set 2 (IS/2).

Notes

References

External links

AFP Resources

ChannelWeb

Registration of IBM MO:DCA-P MIME Type
{{Office document file formats Graphics file formats Printing Advanced Function Presentation IBM software