VECTOR ALTERNATIVE TO PGML

Autodesk, Hewlett-Packard, Macromedia, Microsoft and Visio last week said the World Wide Web Consortium has acknowledged their joint submission of a Vector Markup Language (VML) proposal. VML, based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML), lets authors cut and paste vector graphics across applications without any loss of quality or ability to edit. VML will first appear in the next version of Microsoft Office. The move follows a similar effort by a group of vendors led by Adobe Systems Inc., which recently contributed the Precision Graphics Markup Language, an XML-based vector graphics form, to the W3C. Vector graphics are delivered as text instructions, making them smaller than GIF or JPG files.

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