Behaviours of application programs are often described using "shall" or "must". However, application conformance is defined to be purely syntactical in Section 2.4 of Part 1.
From the 6367 occurrences of the word "shall" in Part 4, here we quote some examples of inappropriate use.

- Line 2, Page 27, Part 4, "This background shall be displayed on all 3 pages of the document, behind all other document content".

- The third para in the description for "themeColor", Page 28, Part 4: "its value shall be ignored"

- Line 34, Page 34, Part 4: "This element specifies whether the right indent shall be automatically adjusted".

Use "shall" only for describing constraints on documents or data. Do not use "shall" for describing behaviours of application programs. It might be necessary to use "shall" for describing the behaviours of OPC engines, which should not be confused with application programs.

All parts

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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment JP-0006 (Modified: 2007-12-14) Agreed; some uses of “shall,” “may,” and so on, are inconsistent. Rather than enumerate all places that need changes in this response, general comments on such usage will be addressed in an editorial pass over all parts. This editorial pass will address the comments as follows: The word shall will be used to indicate requirements even if a feature is optional. As a deprecated feature is not optional, the use of shall in such a context makes sense. The word may will be replaced by can or might, as appropriate. The use of may is especially problematic in the negative; does may not mean cannot or might not? These instances will be carefully reviewed and changed. The word must will only be used in informative contexts, never instead of shall. Regarding the use of will and an alternate tense usage, this change will be made. Similar Comments: AU-0007 , DE-0042 , DK-0076 , ECMA-0018 , GB-0014 , JP-0007 , JP-0008