Summary

  • RFC 2223 made ASCII the primary RFC file and treated PostScript as a secondary presentation that had to match it.
  • The RFC Editor controlled that match decision, balancing search, email and screen use against diagrams and print readability.

A PostScript edition could make a diagram easier to read on paper. It could not become a second original just by looking better.

Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds published RFC 2223 in October 1997 as an informational guide for RFC authors. Its opening pages describe a publication problem familiar to anyone who had to read the same memo on a terminal, in an email excerpt and on paper. The public files had to work across many kinds of printers and displays. RFC 2223 named ASCII as the primary version and allowed a more polished PostScript version for drawings and diagrams.

The split came with a ranking. RFC 2223 says many readers searched text with emacs and grep or copied short passages into email. PostScript did not serve those routines well. Its production tools also varied: some systems advertised as PostScript generators produced non-standard results. At the same time, PostScript could look better on paper and carry diagrams the plain text handled awkwardly. The guide did not pretend these goals were identical.

It then set a release sequence. The RFC Editor processed the ASCII text through publication first. An author could submit a PostScript copy afterward, but the editor had to decide whether it was the same document before it could be installed in the RFC repositories and announced. A page could change shape between formats; section-number references were therefore easier to keep stable than page-number references.

That made format part of the publication record. Authors supplied an editable document. The RFC Editor could reformat it and inserted the final RFC number. The editor could ask for changes, return a memo for more work, or decide that a submission was not suitable for the series. For a PostScript copy, the editor also held the final call on whether it represented the primary text.

The rule had an older mechanical base. RFC 1111 in 1989 already required ASCII and set page and line limits for that version. RFC 2223 retained the plain-text foundation while explaining why an optional print-oriented copy could not float free of it.

RFC 7322 replaced RFC 2223 in 2014. It describes the style guide as a stable reference and traces basic formatting conventions to the 1970s and Jon Postel. The tools changed; the publishing question remained recognizable: which file is the record when one document travels in two forms?

Official sources