William J. Ingram and Evelyn M. Gray

Abstract: Federal telecommunications standards have traditionally been distributed in hard copy, i.e., in book form, with mandated 5-year revisions requiring a new book or new change pages for every updated edition. Distributing Federal telecommunications standards on the World Wide Web (Web) or on CD ROM in electronic form presents possibilities for speeding and enhancing user access to specific subsections of the document, providing wider distribution to the intended audience, and promoting conservation of paper resources at the same time. Federal Standard 1037C on the Web and on CD ROM represents successful applications of HTML. In several ways, a large telecommunications glossary was ideally suited for presentation in hypertext format. The most significant advantage to the hypertext format is the rapidity with which users can jump from definition to definition without having to turn a precise (and often large) number of pages to arrive at the next desired definition. Yet, the very great size of the Glossary introduced one of the biggest hurdles in its hypertext development. The ITS editors of the Glossary surmounted that hurdle by using Perl scripts to generate automatically the many thousands of required hyperlinks in the large glossary. This paper describes those automated techniques. In addition, the paper addresses special considerations (of equipment, software, and image display) for presenting a user-friendly HTML product

Keywords: CD-ROM; Federal telecommunications standards; glossary; HTML; hypertext; Internet; NII

Disclaimer: Certain commercial equipment, components, and software may be identified in this report to specify adequately the technical aspects of the reported results. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, nor does it imply that the equipment or software identified is necessarily the best available for the particular application or uses.

For questions or information on this or any other NTIA scientific publication, contact the ITS Publications Office at ITSinfo@ntia.gov or 303-497-3572.

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