[June 01, 2001] W3C has published several documents defining markup mechanisms for representing 'ruby' text in (X)HTML documents. 'Ruby' refers to "short runs of text alongside the base text, typically used in East Asian documents to indicate pronunciation or to provide a short annotation [for other purposes]."

[June 01, 2001]   W3C Publishes Specifications for Ruby Annotation.    Two new specifications relating to 'Ruby' annotation have been released by the W3C. 'Ruby' are "small character annotations, sometimes added to the characters of an ideographic script like Japanese, to clarify the pronunciation (and/or the meaning) of those characters. They are usually put in a very small font, along the side of the ideogram in vertical text, or at the top in horizontal text... Ruby annotations are used frequently in Japan in many kinds of publications, including books and magazines; a sequence of ideographic characters (kanji) is supplemented with the simpler hiragana which show how the word should be pronounced. Ruby is also used in China, especially in schoolbooks. Ruby text is usually presented alongside the base text, using a smaller typeface. The name 'ruby' in fact originated from the name of the 5.5pt font size in British printing, which is about half the 10pt font size commonly used for normal text. While many international typography needs can be fulfilled through the use of style sheet languages such as CSS or XSL, additional markup is needed [in this case] to define the relationship between the base text and its annotation. Ruby Annotation delivers this functionality to the Web in the form of an XHTML module, thus allowing ruby to be correctly rendered along with the basic text without using special workarounds or graphics. XHTML 1.1 includes the Ruby Annotation module, enhancing XHTML 1.1's power and extensibility." As part of the W3C Internationalization Activity, the Internationalization Working Group has produced a markup specification for ruby which is now a W3C Recommendation, Ruby Annotation. A companion document Implementing the Ruby Module from Masayasu ISHIKAWA has been released as a W3C Note. It describes sample module implementations of the abstract definition of ruby annotation markup using several schema notations: XML DTD, RELAX, TREX, and the W3C XML Schema. This document also illustrates W3C's Amaya browser/editor implementation of ruby as part of XHTML 1.1. [Full context]

References:

• Ruby Annotation. W3C Recommendation 31-May-2001.
• "CSS3 Module: Ruby."
• Announcement: "World Wide Web Consortium Issues XHTML 1.1 and Ruby Annotation as W3C Recommendations. Two New Specifications Deliver Enhanced Modularity and Internationalization Support."
• Testimonials for XHTML 1.1 and Ruby Annotation
• Implementing the Ruby Module. W3C Note 31-May-2001.
• W3C Ruby Annotation reference page
• W3C Internationalization Activity

• [February 16, 2001] "Ruby Annotation." Edited by Marcin Sawicki, Michel Suignard, Masayasu Ishikawa, Martin Dürst, and Tex Texin. W3C Working Draft 16-February-2001. Updates the previous version http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-ruby-19991217. Also available in .ZIP archive format. Abstract: "Ruby are short runs of text alongside the base text, typically used in East Asian documents to indicate pronunciation or to provide a short annotation. This specification defines markup for ruby, in the form of an XHTML module." Details: "Ruby text is used to provide a short annotation of the associated base text. It is most often used to provide a pronunciation guide. Ruby annotations are used frequently in Japan in many kinds of publications, including books and magazines. Ruby is also used in China, especially in schoolbooks. Ruby annotation is usually presented alongside the base text, using a smaller typeface. The name 'ruby' in fact originated from the name of the 5.5pt font size in British printing, which is about half the 10pt font size commonly used for normal text... This document is a W3C Working Draft produced in preparation for moving to Candidate Recommendation. This document has been produced as part of the W3C Internationalization Activity by the Internationalization Working Group with the help of the Internationalization Interest Group (I18N IG). The I18N WG expects to ask the W3C Director to advance this document to Candidate Recommendation in the near future. The I18N WG and the editors will make any adjustments to the notation in case such adjustments should become necessary as a consequence of changes to XHTML 1.1. Comments in languages other than English, in particular Japanese, are also welcome. More general public discussion of Ruby Annotation takes place on the 'www-international' mailing list... The only change in the actual markup since the Last Call publication of this document was to change the content model for simple ruby from (rb, rp?, rt, rp?) to (rb, (rt | (rp, rt, rp))) to allow two or zero rp elements, but not a single one. However, the document was editorially reorganized and rewritten substantially to take into account the many editorial comments received during Last Call. We therefore also invite further comments on presentation, wording, and examples..."

• [February 16, 2001] "CSS3 Module: Ruby." Edited by Michel Suignard (Microsoft). W3C Working Draft 16-February-2001. Also available as a ZIP archive. The document "proposes a set of CSS properties associated with the 'Ruby' elements. It is a working draft of the CSS Working Group which is part of the W3C Style activity. It contains a proposal for features to be included in CSS level 3... Ruby is the commonly used name for a run of text that appears in the immediate vicinity of another run of text, referred to as the 'base', and serves as an annotation or a pronunciation guide associated with that run of text. Ruby, as used in Japanese, is described in JIS X-4051 [Line composition rules for Japanese documents, JIS X 4051-1995, Japanese Standards Association, 1995]. The ruby structure and the HTML markup to represent it is described in the Ruby specification ... This CSS ruby model is based on the XHTML Ruby Annotation module proposal, in which the structure of a ruby closely parallels the visual layout of the ruby element. In this model, a ruby consists of one or more base elements associated with one or more annotation elements. The CSS model does not require that the document language include elements that correspond to each of these components. For document languages (such as XML applications) that do not have pre-defined ruby elements, authors must map document language elements to ruby elements; this is done with the 'display' property..." See "W3C Cascading Style Sheets. Level 3."

• [September 24, 1999]   New Ruby Working Draft Published.    The W3C has released a new working draft specification for Ruby, W3C Working Draft 24-September-1999. The editors include Marcin Sawicki, Michel Suignard, Masayasu Ishikawa, and Martin Dürst. The working draft has been "published by the Internationalization Working Group. In a future version, this work is intended to be submitted to the HTML Working Group for inclusion as a module in the XHTML 1.1." The Ruby working draft "specification extends XHTML to support ruby text typically used in East Asian documents; some familiarity with HTML 4.0, XHTML 1.0 and the XHTML Modularization framework is assumed. XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4.0 as an XML 1.0 application, and the modularization of XHTML provides a means for subsetting and extending XHTML. 'Ruby' is the commonly used name for a run of text that appears in the immediate vicinity of another run of text, referred to as the 'base'. Ruby serve as a pronunciation guide or an annotation associated with the base text. Ruby are used frequently in Japan in most kinds of publications, such a books and magazines, but also in China, especially in schoolbooks. East Asian typography has developed various elements that do not appear in western typography. Most of these can be addressed appropriately with facilities in stylesheet languages such as CSS or XSL. Ruby, however, require markup in order to define the association between base text and ruby text. This document defines such markup, designed to be usable with HTML, in order to make ruby available on the Web without using special workarounds or graphics. Section 1.2 ('Ruby Markup') provides an overview of the markup for ruby defined in this document. A formal definition can be found in Section 2. The markup is in XML notation. Appendix A ('Ruby modules in XHTML') describes the Ruby DTD modules - a DTD driver and a catalog file that can be used with the XHTML 1.1 DTD modules. These modules are conforming to the Module Conformance requirements as defined in the Building XHTML Modules specification. These modules are expected to be included in the XHTML 1.1 and are not intended to define a new markup language as an XHTML-family document type, so names are temporary and slightly different from the Naming Rules in the XHTML Family Document Type Conformance. The WD's changes from previous public Working Draft are presented in a final Appendix.

• [March 29, 1999]   New W3C Working Draft for Ruby.    The W3C Internationalization Working Group has published a revised Working Draft document for Ruby (22-March-1999). The document is edited by Marcin Sawicki (Microsoft) and is also "largely inspired by the work done by Martin Dürst (W3C i18 Coordinator). The Ruby specification "extends HTML to support ruby text typically used in East Asian documents." The extensions are intended to address some requirements from East Asian typography, which "contains structural elements that are not yet exposed in HTML and thus impossible to achieve on the Web without using special workarounds or graphics." Ruby text is a "run of text that appears in the immediate vicinity of another run of text ('ruby base') and serves as an annotation or a pronunciation guide associated with the base. Ruby, as used in Japanese, is described in JIS-X-4051. This working draft supplies a 'DTD' for proposed Ruby elements: "Two DTD versions are given for each tag. The first one is in SGML (HTML4). The second one is in XML-ized HTML (XHTML). Note that in the SGML DTD, elements and attributes are intended to be case-insensitive, however, in the XML DTD, elements and attributes are case-sensitive. And also, start and end tags are always required in XML." The editors of this Ruby specification envision that a future version will be submitted to the HTML Working Group for inclusion into the next version of HTML.

• [March 29, 1999]   W3C Working Draft for International Layout in CSS.    A new W3C Working Draft document on International Layout in CSS specifies a means of extending CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) to support East Asian, bi-directional, and other multilingual text formatting. This WD has been edited by Marcin Sawicki as part of the W3C Internationalization Activity, and is related to the W3C Style Activity. The draft addresses issues like types of layout flow (horizontal, vertical, vertical-ideographic, horizontal-ideographic), bi-directional character content, document grids (for East Asian languages), line breaking in non-Latin scripts, justification behaviors, punctuation-wrap, etc. The WD also touches on 'Ruby', which is addressed more completely in a separate specification (see below). For historical reasons, this Working Draft focuses on CSS, but it is "the intention of all the groups involved for the model presented in this document and the model being developed by the XSL group to converge. The end result of this convergence is expected to form part of the common and XSL syntaxes."