Conventions for item and category descriptions?

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While I realize that descriptions are free format text and
        the DDL does not restrict their content I am curious as to any
        conventions that have been or might be adopted for the
        descriptions in the official mmCIF dictionary.

           For example, if someone submitted a tag definition in Spanish
        would it be accepted or must mmCIF descriptions be in English?
        If English is required is there a preference in spelling
convention
        (US vrs UK)?

           A similar issue is the (un)desirability of HTML formating
tokens.
        I received a tag definition which contained " "'s.  Clearly
        the person had simply cut the definition out of a web page.  My
        question is; does the mmCIF to HTML converters pass through
these
        tokens or "escape" them out and make them visible to the reader?
        Should they be avoided or used?  While a non-breaking space is
        rather boring, there are other characters, such as a proper
Angstrom
        symbol, that could be incorporated if HTML were allowed in mmCIF
        descriptions.

           My last question has to do with embedded mathematics.  I find
        it rather difficult to read typewriter math.  While I can figure
it
        out, usually, I find a nicely typeset equation much easier.  If
        the mmCIF to HTML converter was to incorporate some of the code
        from LaTeX2HTML one could enter equations into the description
in
        LaTeX and, when viewed in a browser, see a GIF image of a nicely
        formatted equation.  The down side to this is that LaTeX does
require
        some study and practise to write while typewriter math can be
banged
        out pretty easily, and the raw mmCIF dictionary would be less
        accessible because the unprocessed math would be harder to
read.  Is
        there a place for LaTeX in mmCIF?


                                                        Dale Tronrud

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