Extensible Forms Description Language (XFDL) is a high-level

computer language A computer language is a formal language used to communicate with a computer. Types of computer languages include: * Software construction#Construction languages, Construction language – all forms of communication by which a human can Comput ...

that facilitates defining a form as a single, stand-alone object using elements and attributes from the Extensible Markup Language (XML). Technically, it is a class of XML originally specified in a

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

(W3C) Note. See Specifications below for links to the current versions of XFDL. XFDL It offers precise control over form layout, permitting replacement of existing business/government forms with electronic documents in a human-readable,

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a common prerequisite that open standards use an open license that provides for extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in their development due to ...

. In addition to precision layout control, XFDL provides multiple page capabilities, step-by-step guided user experiences, and digital signatures. XFDL also provides a syntax for in-line mathematical and conditional expressions and data validation constraints as well as custom items, options, and external code functions. Current versions of XFDL (see Specifications below) are capable of providing these interactive features via open standard markup languages including XForms, XPath, XML Schema and XML Signatures. XFDL not only supports multiple digital signatures, but the signatures can apply to specific sections of a form and prevent changes to signed content. These advantages to XFDL led large organizations such as the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

and

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

to migrate to XFDL from using forms in other formats. Later, though, the lack of portable software capable of creating XFDL led them to investigate moving away from it. The Army migrated to

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

fillable

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

s in 2014.

References

External links

Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)
W3C Recommendation, 26 NOV 2008.
United States Army Publishing DirectorateUSAF webpage with public downloadable XFDL reader: see "items of interest" link on right side of page for viewer download.
* See also XML Paper Specification ( XPS)

Specifications

Extensible Forms Description Language (XFDL) 8.0Extensible Forms Description Language (XFDL) 7.7Extensible Forms Description Language (XFDL) 4.0

Editors

* IBM Forms Designer *''See

XML editor An XML editor is a markup language editor with added functionality to facilitate the editing of XML. This can be done using a plain text editor, with all the code visible, but XML editors have added facilities like tag completion and menus and bu ...

'' for XML editors and other editing tools. {{W3C Standards XML markup languages Markup languages World Wide Web Consortium standards Technical communication Computer file formats Open formats Data modeling languages