Bryan wrote:

We can validate existence if not content. I should be able to say that all of my descriptions will have <natural history> notes and maybe <medical uses> in regular old natural language. If I set up my project standard correctly under SDD my validator should scream is an author tries to send in a manuscript without that section, even if the computer can not read the text.

I think this is a point that Kevin did not pick up clearly in his initial pass at validation and should really be part of the specs...

I would like to see a "Free Text" character type in the standard and warn authors that they can not use it for characters that they want to process through interactive key programs.

That is more or less what happens in DELTA at the moment, isn't it?

jim