Mark, Thanks for your comments.
Mr. Reynolds' objections to PDF are reasonable but I note he totally evaded the mention of Postscript and Rich Text (RTF) both non-proprietary and both maintain the capabilities desired by the Editorial Committee. The choices we make determine the results we get. Regards, Tim On Mon, 2003-09-08 at 12:22, Mark Musen wrote: > On Monday, September 8, 2003, at 11:30 AM, Tim Cook wrote: > > This seems the appropriate forum within AMIA to address the issue of > > requiring a proprietary document format for submissions. > > http://www.medinfo2004.org/call/index.html > > > > Requires a Microsoft Word document. > > > > Certainly the AMIA document management system can accept RTF or PDF or > > PostScript? > > > > > > I was amused to see your note, and I of course agree with you regarding > the underlying philosophy. Alas, Medinfo is an international meeting > rather than an event organized exclusively under AMIA control. Dennis > Reynolds, executive director of AMIA, offers the comments attached > below. > Mark Musen > > ------------------------------------------ > We in fact have typically accepted pdf for AMIA meetings. > However, unlike an AMIA meeting, the Medinfo Editorial Committee > anticipates needing to reformat a number of the final versions of > authors' documents for purposes of ensuring uniformity of > appearance and editorial practice within the Proceedings. In the > past, Medinfo - as well as AMIA - has found that many authors do > not strictly adhere to formatting requirements as prescribed in the > Call for Participation and elsewhere. We do not have the general > practice of rejecting a manuscript based on minor formatting > concerns, but when manuscripts are received in pdf or some other > unmodifiable format, it does present an obvious problem to > ensuring some degree of rigour in consistent appearances in those > cases where authors have inadvertently not followed all layout > requirements. > > For AMIA meetings when we encounter such an instance, we have > typically either (a) included the papers as is, if the variances from > requested formatting is not too appreciable, or (b) have had to e- > mail PDF versions back and forth to authors - some of whom > respond, some of whom don't - until an author's changes brings it > into conformance, which in some cases takes several attempts. > > The relevant Medinfo committees examined the advantages and > disadvantages of accepting pdf closely, and opted to request > documents in Word. > > Dennis >
