1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

add-in: Supplemental functionality that is provided by an external application or macro to extend the capabilities of an application.

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) character set: A character set defined by a code page approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The term "ANSI" as used to signify Windows code pages is a historical reference and a misnomer that persists in the Windows community. The source of this misnomer stems from the fact that the Windows code page 1252 was originally based on an ANSI draft, which became International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 8859-1 [ISO/IEC-8859-1]. In Windows, the ANSI character set can be any of the following code pages: 1252, 1250, 1251, 1253, 1254, 1255, 1256, 1257, 1258, 874, 932, 936, 949, or 950. For example, "ANSI application" is usually a reference to a non-Unicode or code-page-based application. Therefore, "ANSI character set" is often misused to refer to one of the character sets defined by a Windows code page that can be used as an active system code page; for example, character sets defined by code page 1252 or character sets defined by code page 950. Windows is now based on Unicode, so the use of ANSI character sets is strongly discouraged unless they are used to interoperate with legacy applications or legacy data.

assembly name: The name of a collection of one or more files that is versioned and deployed as a unit. See also assembly.

Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF): A modified version of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), commonly used by Internet specifications. ABNF notation balances compactness and simplicity with reasonable representational power. ABNF differs from standard BNF in its definitions and uses of naming rules, repetition, alternatives, order-independence, and value ranges. For more information, see [RFC5234].

bitmap (BMP): A representation of characters or graphics by individual pixels. The pixels can be arranged in rows (horizontal) and columns (vertical). Each pixel can be represented by one or more bits.

Boolean: An operation or expression that can be evaluated only as either true or false.

character set: A mapping between the characters of a written language and the values that are used to represent those characters to a computer.

class name: The name that is used to refer to a class module that provides an implementation of a behavior.

color space: A system that describes color numerically by mapping color components to a multidimensional coordinate system. The number of dimensions is typically two, three, or four. For example, if colors are expressed as a combination of the three components red, green, and blue, a three-dimensional space can describe all possible colors. Grayscale colors can be mapped to a two-dimensional color space. If transparency is considered a component, four dimensions are appropriate. Also referred to as color model.

connection string: A series of arguments, delimited by a semicolon, that defines the location of a database and how to connect to it.

culture name: A part of a language identification tagging system, as described in [RFC1766]. Culture names adhere to the format "<languagecode2>-<country/regioncode2>." If a two-letter language code is not available, a three-letter code that is derived from [ISO-639] is used.

data provider: A known data source that is specific to a target type and that provides data to a collector type.

data source: A database, web service, disk, file, or other collection of information from which data is queried or submitted. Supported data sources vary based on application and data provider.

drawing: A collection of drawing objects, such as shapes, curves, or WordArt, that are viewed together as a single image.

embedded image: An image that is stored within a document rather than being linked to a source file that is outside the document.

embedded object: An object that is created by using one application and is hosted in a document that was created by using another application. Embedding an object, rather than inserting or pasting it, ensures that the object retains its original format. Users can double-click an embedded object and edit it with the toolbars and menus from the application that was used to create it. See also Object Linking and Embedding (OLE).

enhanced metafile format (EMF): A file format that supports the device-independent definitions of images.

field: An element or attribute in a data source that can contain data.

floating-point number: A number that is represented by a mantissa and an exponent according to a given base. The mantissa is typically a value between "0" and "1". To find the value of a floating-point number, the base is raised to the power of the exponent, and the mantissa is multiplied by the result.

font: An object that defines the graphic design, or formatting, of a collection of numbers, symbols, and letters. A font specifies the style (such as bold and strikeout), size, family (a typeface such as Times New Roman), and other qualities to describe how the collection is drawn.

gamma correction: In digital imaging, the process of changing the brightness, contrast, or color balance of an image by assigning new values (different colors) to gray or color tones.

globally unique identifier (GUID): A term used interchangeably with universally unique identifier (UUID) in Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the value. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the GUID. See also universally unique identifier (UUID).

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF): A compression format that supports device-independent transmission and interchange of bitmapped image data. The format uses a palette of up to 256 distinct colors from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animation and a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with gradients of color, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics with solid areas of color.

header row: A row in a table, typically the first row, that contains labels for columns in the table.

hue-saturation-luminance (HSL): A color model that defines a color by using three dimensions: hue, the color itself; saturation, the purity of the color; and luminance, the amount of light that is either reflected or absorbed by the color. See also color scheme and color space.

hyperlink location: A portion of a hyperlink that specifies the location of a specific item, such as a bookmark, within a document, object, or other type of resource; for example "#bookmark" in the hyperlink location C:\Documents\Document.docx#bookmark.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): An application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG): A raster graphics file format for displaying high-resolution color graphics. JPEG graphics apply a user-specified compression scheme that can significantly reduce the file sizes of photo-realistic color graphics. A higher level of compression results in lower quality, whereas a lower level of compression results in higher quality. JPEG-format files have a .jpg or .jpeg file name extension.

language code identifier (LCID): A 32-bit number that identifies the user interface human language dialect or variation that is supported by an application or a client computer.

list: An organization of a region of cells into a tabular structure in a workbook.

metafile: A file that stores an image as graphical objects, such as lines, circles, and polygons, instead of pixels. A metafile preserves an image more accurately than pixels when an image is resized.

Office data connection (ODC) file: A file that stores information about a connection to a data source, such as an Access database, worksheet, or text file. This file facilitates data source administration.

OLE DB: A set of interfaces that are based on the Component Object Model (COM) programming model and expose data from a variety of sources. These interfaces support the amount of Database Management System (DBMS) functionality that is appropriate for a data store and they enable a data store to share data.

Open Database Connectivity (ODBC): A standard software API method for accessing data that is stored in a variety of proprietary personal computer, minicomputer, and mainframe databases. It is an implementation of [ISO/IEC9075-3:2008] and provides extensions to that standard.

Portable Network Graphics (PNG): A bitmap graphics file format that uses lossless data compression and supports variable transparency of images (alpha channels) and control of image brightness on different computers (gamma correction). PNG-format files have a .png file name extension.

primary key: A field or set of fields that uniquely identifies each record in a table. A primary key cannot contain a null value.

query: A formalized instruction to a data source to either extract data or perform a specified action. A query can be in the form of a query expression, a method-based query, or a combination of the two. The data source can be in different forms, such as a relational database, XML document, or in-memory object. See also search query.

red-green-blue (RGB): A color model that describes color information in terms of the red (R), green (G), and blue (B) intensities in a color.

row: A single set of data that is displayed horizontally in a worksheet or a table.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF): A high-resolution, tag-based graphics format. TIFF is used for the universal interchange of digital graphics.

text run: A string of characters that represents a discrete span of text with the same formatting properties.

token: A word in an item or a search query that translates into a meaningful word or number in written text. A token is the smallest textual unit that can be matched in a search query. Examples include "cat", "AB14", or "42".

Unicode: A character encoding standard developed by the Unicode Consortium that represents almost all of the written languages of the world. The Unicode standard [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] provides three forms (UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32) and seven schemes (UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16 BE, UTF-16 LE, UTF-32, UTF-32 LE, and UTF-32 BE).

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): A string that identifies a resource. The URI is an addressing mechanism defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax [RFC3986].

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): A string of characters in a standardized format that identifies a document or resource on the World Wide Web. The format is as specified in [RFC1738].

UTF-16: A standard for encoding Unicode characters, defined in the Unicode standard, in which the most commonly used characters are defined as double-byte characters. Unless specified otherwise, this term refers to the UTF-16 encoding form specified in [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] section 3.9.

view: See form view (Microsoft InfoPath), list view (SharePoint Products and Technologies), or View (Microsoft Business Connectivity Services).

whitespace: A character that can be found between words, including a space (" "), a carriage return in combination with a line feed (newline), and a tab character.

workbook: A container for a collection of sheets.

zero-based index: An index in which the first item has an index of "0" (zero).

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.