This chapter discusses the concept of standards, why we use them, what benefit do they bring as well as the main difference between de facto and open standards. We will discuss the benefits that open standards bring.

This chapter tells us about the importance that XML has brought to the standards process as well as its strengths and weaknesses.

Here we will define the different types of Localization Industry Standards by role and type.

This chapter discusses the main encoding standards and their relationship with Unicode, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 and the four normalization forms.

This chapter will discuss the work of the W3C ITS committee and the effects this will have on Localization Industry Standards. A detailed status will be provided on the work in progress of this important committee.

This chapter will provide a detailed description of the Localization Industry Exchange Standards: TMX, SRX, TBX, GMX, XLIFF and OLIF. Detailed explanations of the role of each standard will be provided, along with examples.

This chapter will provide a detailed description of the Translation Web Services Standard, destined to become the 'glue' that will bind localization automation over the Internet.

A detailed explanation of two of the most effective ways of reducing localization costs will be provided. Both will have a profound effect on how we author and translate XML based documentation.

Having presented all of the various types of standard we will put together an architecture that shows how the various standards interact and cooperate with one another.