Ecma 376 does not specify a method of storing equations in the document(eg in Part 4, Section 6.1.12.19). This ensures that any document containing an equation cannot be shared with other applications, and thus is not interoperable. This situation is not acceptable as it will lead to undefined document behaviour.

Ecma 376 should be reviewed to specify a standard for storing equations.

Part 4, Section 6.1.12.19

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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment MY-0020 (Modified: 2008-01-04) Agreed; the specification of this element omitted information (specifically, the syntax of the embedded XML) which inhibited interoperability. To correct this, an attribute which defines the format of the embedded XML will be added to the parent element, to ensure this information is available. The following changes will be made: Part 4, §6.1.2.19, page 4,653: Attributes Description equationxml (Storage for Alternate Math Content) Specifies alternate XML markup which may be used to rehydrate an equation using the Office Open XML Math syntax. The actual format of the syntax of the contents of this attribute are application-defined is specified by the contentType attribute , but shall contain Office Open XML Math as well as any application-specific content . [Note: Applications are encouraged to use an open format, such as the Math format defined in Part 4 §7.1 of this standard, or the MathML format, a Working Draft specification of the World Wide Web Consortium, available at http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML/. end note] The XML markup stored in this attribute shall be escaped as needed to contain only those characters legal in an attribute value. The possible values for this attribute are defined by the XML Schema string datatype. equationxmlContentTyp e (Content Type of Alternate Math Content) Specifies the syntax of the markup used for the Alternate Math Content stored in the equationxml attribute. The possible values for this attribute are defined by the ST_AlternateMathContentType simple type. The following XML Schema fragment defines the contents of this element: <complexType name="CT_Shape"> <choice maxOccurs="unbounded"> <group ref="EG_ShapeElements"/> <element ref="o:ink"/> <element ref="p:iscomment"/> </choice> <attributeGroup ref="AG_AllCoreAttributes"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_AllShapeAttributes"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Type"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Adj"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Path"/> <attribute ref="o:gfxdata"/> <attribute name="equationxml" type="xsd:string" use="optional"/> <attribute name="equationxmlContentType" type="ST_AlternateMathContentType" use="optional"/> </complexType> To Part 4, §6.1.3, after the existing §6.1.3.6: 6.1.3.6a ST_AlternateMathContentType (Alternate Math Content Type) This simple type specifies the content type of the XML markup stored within the equationxml attribute. The following values are reserved: Value Meaning officeopenxmlmath Specifies that the data has been stored using the Office Open XML Math syntax defined in §7.1. mathml Specifies that the data has been stored using the MathML syntax. This simple type’s contents are a restriction of the XML Schema string datatype. Referenced By shape@equationxmlContentType (§6.1.2.19); The following XML Schema fragment defines the contents of this element: <simpleType name="ST_AlternateMathContentType"> <restriction base="xsd:string"/> </simpleType> To the normative references: Ausbrooks, Ron, et al. Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 (Second Edition). October 21, 2003. http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML/. To vml.xsd: <complexType name="CT_Shape"> <choice maxOccurs="unbounded"> <group ref="EG_ShapeElements"/> <element ref="o:ink"/> <element ref="p:iscomment"/> </choice> <attributeGroup ref="AG_AllCoreAttributes"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_AllShapeAttributes"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Type"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Adj"/> <attributeGroup ref="AG_Path"/> <attribute ref="o:gfxdata"/> <attribute name="equationxml" type="xsd:string" use="optional"/> <attribute name="equationxmlContentType" type="ST_AlternateMathContentType" use="optional"/> </complexType> <simpleType name="ST_AlternateMathContentType"> <restriction base="xsd:string"/> </simpleType> Similar Comments: BR-0055 , CA-0059 , CL-0207 , CO-0225 , CZ-0035 , DE-0111 , FR-0371 , GB-0483 , GR-0014 , PT-0110 , US-0154