vCard The Electronic Business Card Version 2.1 A versit Consortium Specification September 18, 1996 Copyrights © 1996, International Business Machines Corp., Lucent Technologies, Inc., and Siemens. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this publication provided that it is reproduced in its entirety without modification and includes the above copyright notice and this permission notice. No licenses, express or implied, are granted with respect to any of the technology described in this publication. International Business Machines Corp., Lucent Technologies, Inc., and Siemens retain all their intellectual property rights in the technology described in this publication. Even though International Business Machines Corp., Lucent Technologies, Inc., and Siemens have reviewed this specification, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC, AND SIEMENS, MAKE NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THIS PUBLICATION, ITS QUALITY OR ACCURACY, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. AS A RESULT, THIS SPECIFICATION IS DELIVERED "AS IS" AND THE READER ASSUMES THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO ITS QUALITY, ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.. IN NO EVENT WILL INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC, AND SIEMENS, BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ANY DEFECT OR INACCURACY IN THIS PUBLICATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. This publication is provided with RESTRICTED RIGHTS. Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government are subject to restrictions set forth in DFARS 252.227-7013 or 48 CFR 52.227-19, as applicable. Trademarks versit, the versit logo, versitcard, vCard, and vCalendar are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., AT&T Corp., International Business Machines Corp., and Siemens. Apple, is a trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the U.S. and other countries. AT&T and ATTMail are registered trademarks of AT&T Corp. IBM, IBM Mail, and OS/2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. America Online is a registered trademark of America Online, Inc. CompuServe, CompuServe Information Services are registered trademarks of Compuserve Incorporated. MCIMail is a registered trademark of MCI Communications Corporation. Microsoft is a registered trademark, and Microsoft Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Prodigy is a registered trademark of Prodigy Services Company. Unicode is a registered trademark of Unicode, Inc. Contributors Roland Alden Greg Ames, Ames & Associates Masanari Arai, Puma Technologies Stephen W. Bartlett Donal Carroll Liang-Jye Chang, Starfish Software Frank Dawson, IBM Corporation Ken Dobson, IntelliLink Inc. Scott Feldstein, Nimble Software, Inc. Anik Ganguly, OnTime/Division of FTP Software. Beijing Goo, Microsoft Arvind K. Goyal, Lotus Development Corporation Gary Hand, IBM Corporation Tim Howes, Netscape Communications Corporation Mark Joseph, Attachmate Corporation Kerry Kelly, Now Software, Inc. Phac Letuan, Apple Computer, Inc. Pat Megowan, Counterpoint Sytems Foundry Inc. Tohri Mori, IBM Japan/Salutation Consortium Ravi Pandya, NetManage, Inc. Geoff Ralston, Four11 Corporation Steven Rummel, Lucent Technologies Michael Santullo, Four11 Corporation Vinod Seraphin, Lotus Development Corporation Dexter Seely, Corex Technologies, Inc. Vlad Shmunis, Ring Zero Systems Inc. Dean Stevens, Now Software, Inc. Michelle Watkins, Netscape Communications Corporation Horst Widlewski, Siemens Reference Information The cited references contain provisions which, through reference in this specification, constitute provisions of this specification. At the time of publication, the indicated versions in the following references were valid. Parties to agreements based on this specification are encouraged to research the possibility of revised standards. * ANSI X3.4-1977, Code for Information Interchange, American National Standards Institute, 1977. * CCITT (ITU) Recommendation E.163, Numbering Plan for The International Telephone Service, CCITT Blue Book, Fascicle II.2, pp. 128-134, November, 1988. * CCITT (ITU) Recommendation G.721, 32 kbit/s Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM), CCITT Red Book, Fascicle III.4, November, 1988. * CCITT (ITU) Recommendation X.121, International Numbering Plan for Public Data Networks, CCITT Blue Book, Fascicle VIII.3, pp. 317-332, November, 1988. * CCITT (ITU) Recommendations X.500-X.521, Data Communication Networks: Directory, CCITT Blue Book, Fascicle VIII.8, November, 1988. * CCITT Recommendation X.520, The Directory-Selected Attribute Types, 1988. * CCITT Recommendation X.521, The Directory-Selected Object Classes, 1988. * IETF RFC 1738, Universal Resource Locator, December 1994. * IETF Network Working Group RFC 1766, Tags for the Identification of Languages, March 1995. * IETF Network Working Group Draft, A MIME Content-Type for Directory Information, January 1996. Available from the University of Michigan, 535 W. William St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103-4943, FTP://ds.internic.net/Internet-Drafts/draft-ietf-asid-mime-direct-01.txt. * IETF Network Working Group Draft, An Application/Directory MIME Content-Type Electronic Business Card Profile, May 1996. Available FTP://ds.internic.net/Internet-Drafts/draft-ietf-asid-mime-vcard-00.txt. * IETF Network Working Group Draft, UTF-8, A Transformation Format of UNICODE and ISO 10646, July 1996. Available from FTP://ds.internic.net/Internet-Drafts/draft-yergeau-utf8-01.txt. * ISO 639, Code for The Representation of names of languages, International Organization for Standardization, April, 1988. * ISO 3166, Codes for The Representation of names of countries, International Organization for Standardization, December, 1993. * ISO 8601, Data elements and interchange formats-Information interchange-Representation of dates and times, International Organization for Standardization, June, 1988. * ISO 8601, Technical Corrigendum 1, Data elements and interchange formats-Information interchange-Representation of dates and times, International Organization for Standardization, May, 1991. * ISO 8859-1, Information Processing-8-Bit single-byte coded graphic character sets-Part 1: Latin Alphabet No. 1, International Organization for Standardization, February, 1987. * ISO 9070, Information Processing-SGML support facilities-Registration Procedures for Public Text Owner Identifiers, 1990-02-01.[DS1] ï ISO/IEC 9070, Information TechnologyóSGML Support FacilitiesóRegistration Procedures for Public Text Owner Identifiers, Second Edition, International Organization for Standardization, April, 1991. ï ISO/IEC 11180, Postal addressing, International Organization for Standardization, 1993. ï Appleís Representation of a Canonical Static DeviceID in The Telephony Suite, version 1.0, Apple Computer, Inc., 1993. * Microsoft TAPI in Microsoft Windows 3.1 Telephony Programmers' Guide, version 1.0, Microsoft Corporation, 1993. * RFC1521, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies, Network Working Group, September, 1993. * The Unicode Standard, Version 1.1: Version 1.0, Volume 1 (ISBN 0-201-56788-1), version 1.0, volume 2 (ISBN 0-20-60845-6) and Unicode Technical Report #4, The Unicode Standard, version 1.1, The Unicode Consortium, October, 1991. Both references to be published by Addison-Wesley. versit Update versit is a multivendor development initiative of the communication and computer industries, founded by Apple, AT&T, IBM and Siemens. The versit parties believe that great potential exists in improving the nature of communications in the business world-permitting companies to better manage their quality, productivity, customer satisfaction and cost of operations, while expanding the market opportunities for a variety of product and service vendors. versit parties will jointly define and support open specifications that facilitate and promote the interoperability of advanced personal information and communication devices, networks and services. The versit vision is to enable diverse communication and computing devices, applications and services from competing vendors to interoperate in all environments. Through developing a series of specifications for interoperability among diverse communications and computing devices, applications, networks and services, versit 's vision will become a reality. versit 's primary development areas are in: * Personal Data Interchange (PDI) * Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) * Conferencing and Messaging (C&M) * Wired and Wireless connectivity versit specifications are directed at both the decision makers and the implementation teams of: * Equipment Manufacturers * Independent Software Vendors * Information Service Providers * Online Service Providers * Software Houses * Users versit specifications are made available to any interested party. In turn, versit encourages the support of our goals by soliciting feedback on versit specifications. All comments relating to versit or the material within this specification should be submitted to: versit (800) 803-6240 +1 (201) 327-2803 (Outside USA) pdi@versit.com http://www.versit.com/pdi Contents Section 1 : Introduction 1.1 Overview 1.2 Scope 1.3 Contents 1.4 Definitions and Abbreviations Section 2 : vCard Specificiation 2.1 Encoding Characteristics 2.1.1 vCard Object 2.1.2 Property 2.1.3 Delimiters 2.1.4 Grouping 2.1.4.1 vCard Grouping 2.1.4.2 Property Grouping 2.1.5 Encodings 2.1.6 Character Set 2.1.7 Language 2.1.8 Value Location 2.1.9 Binary Values 2.2 Identification Properties 2.2.1 Formatted Name 2.2.2 Name 2.2.3 Photograph 2.2.3.1 Photo Format Type 2.2.4 Birthdate 2.3 Delivery Addressing Properties 2.3.1 Delivery Address 2.3.1.1 Delivery Address Type 2.3.2 Delivery Label 2.3.2.1 Delivery Label Type 2.4 Telecommunications Addressing Properties 2.4.1 Telephone Number 2.4.1.1 Telephone Type 2.4.2 Electronic Mail 2.4.2.1 Electronic Mail Type 2.4.3 Mailer 2.4.4 Geographical Properties 2.4.5 Time Zone 2.4.6 Geographic Position 2.5 Organizational Properties 2.5.1 Title 2.5.2 Business Category 2.5.3 Logo 2.5.3.1 Logo Format Type 2.5.4 Agent 2.5.5 Organization Name and Organizational Unit 2.6 Explanatory Properties 2.6.1 Comment 2.6.2 Last Revision 2.6.3 Sound 2.6.3.1 Sound Digital Audio Type 2.6.4 Uniform Resource Locator 2.6.5 Unique Identifier 2.6.6 Version 2.7 Security Properties 2.7.1 Public Key 2.7.2 Key Type 2.8 Miscellaneous Properties 2.8.1 Extensions 2.9 Formal Definition Section 3 : Internet Recommendations 3.1 Recommended Practice with SMTP/MIME 3.1.1 Text/Plain Content Type 3.1.2 Text/X-vCard Content Type 3.1.3 Application/Directory Content Type 3.2 Recommended Practice with HTTP/HTML 3.2.1 Form Element Usage 3.2.2 Mapping To INPUT Element Attribute Names 3.2.3 Example HTML Code Section 4 : UI Support Recommendations 4.1 File System 4.2 Clipboard 4.3 Drag/Drop Section 5 : Conformance Section 1 : Introduction [DS2] Personal Data Interchange (PDI) occurs every time two or more individuals communicate, in either a business or personal context, face-to-face, or across space and time. Such interchanges frequently include the exchange of informal information, such as business cards, telephone numbers, addresses, dates and times of appointments, etc. Augmenting PDI with electronics and telecommunications can help ensure that information is quickly and reliably communicated, stored, organized and easily located when needed. Personal information, by nature, is complex and diverse. Currently, proprietary standards exist to structure some types of PDI information, but no single, open specification comprehensively addresses the needs of collecting and communicating PDI information across many common communication channels such as telephones, voice-mail, e-mail, and face-to-face meetings. versit is developing a comprehensive family of PDI technologies based on open specifications and interoperability agreements to help meet this technology need. Overview This specification defines a format for an electronic business card, or vCard. The format is suitable as an interchange format between applications or systems. The format is defined independent of the particular method used to transport it. The transport for this exchange might be a file system, point-to-point asynchronous communication, wired-network transport, or some form of unwired transport. A vCard is a data stream consisting of one or more vCard objects. The individual vCard definitions can be identified and parsed within the datastream. The vCard data stream may exist as a persistent form in a file system, document management system, network connection between two network endpoints, or in any other digital transport that has an abstraction of a stream of bytes. Conceptually, a vCard Writer creates vCard data streams and a vCard Reader interprets vCard data streams. The vCard Reader and Writer may be implemented as a single application or as separate applications. It is not the intent of this specification to define the implementation of these processes beyond some fundamental capabilities related to the format of the vCard data stream and a common set of conformance requirements . This specification provides for a clear-text encoding that is intended to be based on the syntax used by the MIME specification (RFC 1521). The encoding of this specification can be used in environments which are constrained to 7-bit transfer encodings, short line lengths, and low bandwidth. In addition, the encoding is simple in order to facilitate the implementation of reader and writer applications on small platforms, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), cellular telephones, or alphanumeric pagers. Scope The vCard is intended to be used for exchanging information about people and resources. In today's business environment, this information is typically exchanged on business cards. It is appropriate, then that this specification define this information in terms of a paradigm based on an electronic business card object. The ultimate destination for this information is often a collection of business cards, Rolodex® file, or electronic contact manager. Prior to the introduction of the vCard specification, users of such applications typically had to re-key the original information, often transcribing it from paper business cards. With the advent of the vCard specification, this information can be exchanged in an automated fashion. The basis for the data types supported by this specification have their origin in openly defined, international standards and in additional capabilities based on enhancements suggested by the demonstration of the exchange of prototypical vCards using the Internet based World-Wide-Web, Infra-red data transport, and simultaneous voice and data (SVD) modems. The "person" object defined by the CCITT X.500 Series Recommendation for Directory Services was the primary reference for the properties that are defined by this specification. Every attempt was made to make it possible to map the X.520/X.521 attributes and objects into and out of an instance of a vCard. The vCard specification has extended the capabilities that have been defined within the CCITT X.500 Series Recommendation to allow the exchange of additional information often recorded on business cards and electronic contact managers. For example, this specification provides support for exchanging graphic images representing company logos, photographs of individuals, geo-positioning information, and other extensions to properties defined by the X.500 Recommendation. The specification of all date and time values are defined in terms of the ISO 8601 standard for representation of dates and times. ISO 8601 supersedes all other international standards defined at the time this specification was drafted. The paradigm of an electronic business card is related to the concepts of an entry in a LAN/WAN directory or an electronic mail address book or distribution list. However, the requirements of the electronic business card go beyond the definitions of a "person" object found in either the CCITT X.500 Series Recommendation, network directory services, or electronic mail address book products. The vCard specification is needed to address the requirements for an interchange format for the "person" personal data type or object. Personal data applications such as Personal Information Managers (PIM) often provide an import/export capability using Comma Separated Value (CSV) or Tab Delimited Files (TDF) formats. However, these solutions do not preserve the intent of the originating application. When a CSV and TDF format is used by a PIM, the meta-data or semantics of the originating object are only apparent to a similar version of the originating application. Exchange of data between such applications is another important application of an industry-standard specification for an electronic business card interchange format, such as the vCard specification. Contents This specification is separated into eight sections: * "Section 1 : Introduction" introduces PDI and the vCard specification with an overview, scope statement and section on definitions and abbreviations. * "Section 2 : vCard Specification" defines the semantics and syntax for the vCard. * "Section 3 : Internet Recommendations" specifies a set of guidelines to facilitate the exchange of vCard objects over Internet protocols such as HTTP using HTML and SMTP using MIME. * "Section 4 : UI Support Recommendations" specifies a set of guidelines to facilitate the exchange of vCard objects at the desktop user interface using the file system, clipboard and drag/drop capabilities of the operating system. * "Section 5 : Conformance" defines minimum conformance requirements to consider while developing support for this vCard specification. Definitions and Abbreviations Definitions and abbreviations used within this specification follow. Electronic Business Card: Also known as vCard. FPI: Formal Public Identifier. A string expression that represents a public identifier for an object. FPI syntax is defined by ISO 9070. GUID: Globally Unique IDentifier Internet: A WAN connecting thousands of disparate networks in industry, education, government, and research. The Internet uses TCP/IP as the standard for transmitting information. ISO: Organization for International Standardization; a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO Member bodies). MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, as defined in RFC1521. PDA: Personal Digital Assistant computing device PDI: Personal Data Interchange, a collaborative application area which involves the communication of data between people who have a business or personal relationship, but do not necessarily share a common computing infrastructure. PIM: Personal Information Manager RFC#### documents: Internet "Request For Comment" documents (i.e., RFC822, RFC1521, etc.). URL: Uniform Resource Locator; a string expression that can represent any resource on the Internet or local system. RFC 1738 defines the syntax for an URL. UTC: Universal Time Coordinated; also known as UCT, for Universal Coordinated Time. vCard: The generic term for an electronic, virtual information card that can be transferred between computers, PDAs, or other electronic devices through telephone lines, or e-mail networks, or infrared links. How, when, why, and where vCard are used depends on the applications developed utilizing a vCard. versitcard: a vCard. WAN: Wide-Area Network Section 2 : vCard Specificiation [DS3] This section defines the semantics and syntax for the vCard. A vCard is a collection of one or more properties. A property is a uniquely named value. A set of properties can be grouped within a vCard. For example, the properties for a telephone number and comment can be grouped in order to preserve the coupling of the annotation with the telephone number. In addition to property groupings, a vC. versit is developing a comprehensive family of PDI technologies based on open specifications and interoperability agreements to help meet this technology need. Overview This specification defines a format for an electronic business card, or vCard. The format is suitable as an interchange format between applications or systems. The format is defined independent of the particular method used to transport it. The transport for this exchange might be a file system, point-to-point asynchronous communication, wired-network transport, or some form of unwired transport. A vCard is a data stream consisting of one or more vCard objects. The individual vCard definitions can be identified and parsed within the datastream. The vCard data stream may exist as a persistent form in a file system, document management system, network connection between two network endpoints, or in any other digital transport that has an abstraction of a stream of bytes. Conceptually, a vCard Writer creates vCard data streams and a vCard Reader interprets vCard data streams. The vCard Reader and Writer may be implemented as a single application or as separate applications. It is not the intent of this specification to define the implementation of these processes beyond some fundamental capabilities related to the format of the vCard data stream and a common set of conformance requirements . This specification provides for a clear-text encoding that is intended to be based on the syntax used by the MIME specification (RFC 1521). The encoding of this specification can be used in environments which are constrained to 7-bit transfer encodings, short line lengths, and low bandwidth. In addition, the encoding is simple in order to facilitate the implementation of reader and writer applications on small platforms, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), cellular telephones, or alphanumeric pagers. Scope The vCard is intended to be used for exchanging information about people and resources. In today's business environment, this information is typically exchanged on business cards. It is appropriate, then that this specification define this information in terms of a paradigm based on an electronic business card object. The ultimate destination for this information is often a collection of business cards, Rolodex® file, or electronic contact manager. Prior to the introduction of the vCard specification, users of such applications typically had to re-key the original information, often transcribing it from paper business cards. With the advent of the vCard specification, this information can be exchanged in an automated fashion. The basis for the data types supported by this specification have their origin in openly defined, international standards and in additional capabilities based on enhancements suggested by the demonstration of the exchange of prototypical vCards using the Internet based World-Wide-Web, Infra-red data transport, and simultaneous voice and data (SVD) modems. The "person" object defined by the CCITT X.500 Series Recommendation for Directory Services was the primary reference for the properties that are defined by this specification. Every attempt was made to make it possible to map the X.520/X.521 attributes and objects into and out of an instance of a vCard. The vCard specification has extended the capabilities that have been defined within the CCITT X.500 Series Recommendation to allow the exchange of additional information often recorded on business cards and electronic contact managers. For example, this specification provides support for exchanging graphic images representing company logos, photographs of individuals, geo-positioning information, and other extensions to properties defined by the X.500 Recommendation. The specification of all date and time values are defined in terms of the ISO 8601 standard for representation of dates and times. ISO 8601 supersedes all other international standards defined at the time this specification was drafted. The paradigm of an electronic business card is related to the concepts of aQuoted-Printable lines of text must also be limited to less than 76 characters. The 76 characters does not include the CRLF (RFC 822) line break sequence. For example a multiple line LABEL property value of: 123 Winding Way Any Town, CA 12345 USA Would be represented in a Quoted-Printable encoding as: LABEL;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:123 Winding Way=0D=0A= Any Town, CA 12345=0D=0A= USA Property parameter substrings are delimited by a field delimiter, specified by the Semi-colon character (ASCII decimal 59). A Semi-colon in a property parameter value must be escaped with a Backslash character (ASCII 92). Compound property values are property values that also make use of the Semi-colon, field delimiter to separate positional components of the value. For example, the Name property is made up of the Family Name, Given Name, etc. components. A Semi-colon in a component of a compound property value must be escaped with a Backslash character (ASCII 92). Grouping There are two forms of grouping or collections supported within the vCard. A collection of vCard objects can be grouped and a collection of properties within an individual vCard can be grouped. vCard Grouping The vCard data stream can consist of multiple vCard objects. The vCard data stream can, sequentially, contain one or more vCard objects., In addition, the vCard data stream can contain a property whose value is a nested vCard. In both of these cases, each vCard object will be delimited by the vCard Delimiters. The vCard Reader conforming to this specification must be able to parse and process any of these combinations of vCard Groupings. The support for vCard Grouping is optional for a vCard Writer conforming to this specification. Property Grouping A Property Grouping is the definition of a method for specifying a collection of related properties within a vCard object. There is no requirement on a vCard reader that it preserve the property group name. However, the vCard reader is required to preserve the grouping of the properties. The Property Grouping is identified by a character string prefix to the property name; separated by the Period character (ASCII decimal 46). The grouping of a comment property with a telephone property is shown in the following example: A.TEL;HOME:+1-213-555-1234 A.NOTE:This is my vacation home. The vCard Reader conforming to this specification must be able to parse and process the property grouping. The support for Property Grouping is optional for a vCard Writer conforming to this specification. Encodings The default encoding for the vCard object is 7-Bit. The default encoding can be overridden for an individual property value by using the "ENCODING" property parameter. This parameter value can be either "BASE64", "QUOTED-PRINTABLE", or "8BIT". This parameter may be used on any property. Some transports (e.g., MIME based electronic mail) may also provide an encoding property at the transport wrapper level. This property can be used in these cases for transporting a vCard data stream that has been defined using a default encoding other than 7-bit (e.g., 8-bit). Character Set The default character set is ASCII. The default character set can be overridden for an individual property value by using the "CHARSET" property parameter. This property parameter may be used on any property. However, the use of this parameter on some properties may not make sense. Any character set registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) can be specified by this property parameter. For example, ISO 8859-8 or the Latin/Hebrew character set is specified by: ADR;CHARSET=ISO-8859-8:... Some transports (e.g., MIME based electronic mail) may also provide a character set property at the transport wrapper level. This property can be used in these cases for transporting a vCard data stream that has been defined using a default character set other than ASCII (e.g., UTF-8). Language The default language is "en-US" (US English). The default language can be overridden for an individual property value by using the "LANGUAGE" property parameter. The values for this property are a string consistent with RFC 1766, Tags for the Identification of Languages. This property parameter may be used on any property. However, the use of this parameter on some properties, such as PHOTO, LOGO, SOUND, TEL, may not make sense. Canadian French would be specified by this parameter by the following: ADR;LANGUAGE=fr-CA:... Value Location The default location of the property value is inline with the property. However, for some properties, such as those that specify multimedia values, it is efficient to organize the property value as a separate entity (e.g., a file out on the network). The property parameter "VALUE" can be specified to override the "INLINE" location of the property value. In the case of the vCard being transported within a MIME email message, the property value can be specified as being located in a separate MIME entity with the "Content-ID" value, or "CID" for short. In this case, the property value is the Content-ID for the MIME entity containing the property value. In addition, the property value can be specified as being located out on the network within some Internet resource with the "URL" value. In this case, the property value is the Uniform Resource Locator for the Internet resource containing the property value. This property parameter may be used on any property. However, the use of this parameter on some properties may not make sense; for example the Version, Time Zone, Comment, Unique Identifier, properties . The following specifies a value not located inline with the vCard but out in the Internet: PHOTO;VALUE=URL;TYPE=GIF:http://www.abc.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif SOUND;VALUE=CONTENT-ID: ; ( 15, 13.) LF = ; ( 12, 10.) CRLF = CR LF SPACE = ; ( 40, 32.) HTAB = ; ( 11, 9.) All literal property names are valid as upper, lower, or mixed case. ws = 1*(SPACE / HTAB) ; "whitespace," one or more spaces or tabs wsls = 1*(SPACE / HTAB / CRLF) ; whitespace with line separators word = groups = groups "." word / word vcard_file = [wsls] vcard [wsls] vcard = "BEGIN" [ws] ":" [ws] "VCARD" [ws] 1*CRLF items *CRLF "END" [ws] ":" [ws] "VCARD" items = items *CRLF item / item ; these may be "folded" item = [groups "."] name [params] ":" value CRLF / [groups "."] "ADR" [params] ":" addressparts CRLF / [groups "."] "ORG" [params] ":" orgparts CRLF / [groups "."] "N" [params] ":" nameparts CRLF / [groups "."] "AGENT" [params] ":" vcard CRLF ; these may be "folded" name = "LOGO" / "PHOTO" / "LABEL" / "FN" / "TITLE" / "SOUND" / "VERSION" / "TEL" / "EMAIL" / "TZ" / "GEO" / "NOTE" / "URL" / "BDAY" / "ROLE" / "REV" / "UID" / "KEY" / "MAILER" / "X-" word ; these may be "folded" value = 7bit / quoted-printable / base64 7bit = <7bit us-ascii printable chars, excluding CR LF> 8bit = quoted-printable = base64 = ; the end of the text is marked with two CRLF sequences ; this results in one blank line before the start of the next property params = ";" [ws] paramlist paramlist = paramlist [ws] ";" [ws] param / param param = "TYPE" [ws] "=" [ws] ptypeval / "VALUE" [ws] "=" [ws] pvalueval / "ENCODING" [ws] "=" [ws] pencodingval / "CHARSET" [ws] "=" [ws] charsetval / "LANGUAGE" [ws] "=" [ws] langval / "X-" word [ws] "=" [ws] word / knowntype ptypeval = knowntype / "X-" word pvalueval = "INLINE" / "URL" / "CONTENT-ID" / "CID" / "X-" word pencodingval = "7BIT" / "8BIT" / "QUOTED-PRINTABLE" / "BASE64" / "X-" word charsetval = langval = addressparts = 0*6(strnosemi ";") strnosemi ; PO Box, Extended Addr, Street, Locality, Region, Postal Code, Country Name orgparts = *(strnosemi ";") strnosemi ; First is Organization Name, remainder are Organization Units. nameparts = 0*4(strnosemi ";") strnosemi ; Family, Given, Middle, Prefix, Suffix. ; Example:Public;John;Q.;Reverend Dr.;III, Esq. strnosemi = *(*nonsemi ("\;" / "\" CRLF)) *nonsemi ; To include a semicolon in this string, it must be escaped ; with a "\" character. nonsemi = knowntype = "DOM" / "INTL" / "POSTAL" / "PARCEL" / "HOME" / "WORK" / "PREF" / "VOICE" / "FAX" / "MSG" / "CELL" / "PAGER" / "BBS" / "MODEM" / "CAR" / "ISDN" / "VIDEO" / "AOL" / "APPLELINK" / "ATTMAIL" / "CIS" / "EWORLD" / "INTERNET" / "IBMMAIL" / "MCIMAIL" / "POWERSHARE" / "PRODIGY" / "TLX" / "X400" / "GIF" / "CGM" / "WMF" / "BMP" / "MET" / "PMB" / "DIB" / "PICT" / "TIFF" / "PDF" / "PS" / "JPEG" / "QTIME" / "MPEG" / "MPEG2" / "AVI" / "WAVE" / "AIFF" / "PCM" / "X509" / "PGP" Section 3 : Internet Recommendations [DS4] 1 Recommended Practice with SMTP/MIME The vCard information can be transported through SMTP/MIME based electronic mail services. Interoperability of vCard information over SMTP/MIME transports can be better assured by following a common set of recommended practices for encapsulation of the vCard. Text/Plain Content Type Without any change to existing SMTP or MIME compliant user agents, a vCard can be included within Internet email messages. This might be the case for an existing, simple user agent such as a legacy SMTP mail system. While this approach provides for transport of vCards over SMTP services, it does not allow for the end user to take advantage of the full capabilities of either the vCard or Internet email (i.e., MIME) functionality. The following demonstrates how a vCard can be included as an epilog to a SMTP message made up of a RFC 822 message. This may be an initial method for incorporating vCard objects into SMTP messages. Date: Thr, 25 Jan 96 0932 EDT From: john.smith@host.com Subject: Re: RFC822 vCard Example Sender: john.smith@host.com To: smartin@host2.com Message-ID: Steve: Thanks for the call earlier today. I am unable to use your material at this time. Please feel free to contact me in the future. BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Smith;John;M.;Mr.;Esq. TEL;WORK;VOICE;MSG:+1 (919) 555-1234 TEL;WORK;FAX:+1 (919) 555-9876 ADR;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL;DOM:Suite 101;1 Central St.;Any Town;NC;27654 END:VCARD The following example demonstrates how a vCard can be included as a separate text/plain content portion within current MIME user agents. Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 07:53:00 -0500 From: smartin@host2.com Subject: RE: Text/Plain MIME vCard Example To: fdawson@VNET.IBM.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=vcard Message-ID: --vcard Content-Type:text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John: I have looked over my material and feel that you may have over looked a couple of appropriate pieces. Please give me a call so that we can discuss further. --vcard Content-Type:text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="MARTIN.VCF" BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Martin;Stephen TEL;HOME;VOICE:+1 (210) 555-1357 TEL;HOME;FAX:+1 (210) 555-0864 ADR;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL;DOM:123 Cliff Ave.;Big Town;CA;97531 END:VCARD --vcard-- Text/X-vCard Content Type A vCard object may also be transferred in a (RFC 1521) MIME entity as a non-standard "text/x-vCard" content-type. This (RFC 1521) MIME type maybe useful in those cases where the MIME compliant messaging service does not yet support the "application/directory" and "multipart/related" MIME content-types and yet the specificity of a calendaring and scheduling media type is required. The following example demonstrates how a vCard can be included as a separate non-standard text/x-vCard content portion within current MIME user agents. Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 07:53:00 +0000 From: smartin@host2.com Subject: RE: Text/x-vCard MIME vCard Example To: fdawson@VNET.IBM.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=vcard Message-ID: --vcard Content-Type:text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John: I have looked over my material and feel that you may have over looked a couple of appropriate pieces. Please give me a call so that we can discuss further. --vcard Content-Type:text/x-vCard; charset=us-ascii; name="MARTIN.VCF" BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1N:Martin;Stephen TEL;HOME;VOICE:+1 (210) 555-1357 TEL;HOME;FAX:+1 (210) 555-0864 ADR;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL;DOM:123 Cliff Ave.;Big Town;CA;97531 END:VCARD --vcard-- Application/Directory Content Type The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Access and Searching of Internet Directories (ASID) working group has produced an Internet Draft defining the "application/directory" MIME content type. The current draft name is draft-ietf-asid-mime-direct-01.txt. This specification is intended to be aligned with this work. Internet Drafts are working documents of an IETF working group, valid for at most six months, and should be considered "works in progress". This MIME content type was designed to be used to transport directory information across MIME based electronic mail services. The internet draft is directly applicable to the exchange of business card data, such as that defined by the vCard specification. The versit PDI Team has worked within the IETF ASID Working Group to draft an application/directory profile that registers the method for transporting a vCard as an application/directory Content-Type. The current draft name is draft-ietf-asid-mime-vcard-00.txt. This work is expected to be progressed to a Request For Comment after the publication of this version of the vCard specification. In the interim, the following guidelines are provided to describe how a vCard might be conveyed using the application/directory draft specification. A vCard should be included in a MIME message that has a Content-Type header field value of "multipart/related". The vCard is included in the message as the primary body part. The position of the body part entity can also be specified with the "start=" parameter. This MIME body part entity has a Content-Type body part header field value of "application/directory" with a "profile" parameter value of "vcard". Any vCard binary information, such as a logo, picture, or digital audio pronunciation can be included inline within the vCard, as is specified by the vCard specification. Preferably, the binary information should be extracted from the vCard object and contained in the MIME message as secondary body part entities. The binary content in the secondary body part entities can be referenced from within the vCard object through the use of the "VALUE=" property parameter. In this latter case, the binary information should be transformed into a content type nominally supported by MIME user agents. For image content, this would be the Graphics Image Format (GIF) or Joint Picture Encoding Group (JPEG) formats. For audio content, this would be the 8-bit mu-law (PCM) format specified by the MIME specification. The following example defines how this might be specified: Date: Mon, 29 Jan 96 0830 EDT From: john.smith@host.com Subject: Re: MIME application/directory vCard Example Sender: john.smith@host.com To: smartin@host2.com Message-ID: Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="vcard"; type=application/directory; start= --vcard Content-Type: application/directory; charset=us-ascii; source="file://versit.or2"; profile="vcard" Content-ID: < BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Smith;John;M.;Mr.;Esq. TEL;WORK;VOICE;MSG:+1 (919) 555-1234 TEL;CELL:+1 (919) 554-6758 TEL;WORK;FAX:+1 (919) 555-9876 PHOTO;GIF;MIME:< ADR;WORK;PARCEL;POSTAL;DOM:Suite 101;1 Central St.;Any Town;NC;27654 END:VCARD --vcard Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-ID: < Steve: I am not in the office today. You may want to try reaching me either on my cellular telephone or fax your new ideas to my office. Let's setup a face-to-face meeting later this week, after I review your updated material. I am including a picture in my business card data, since we have not met yet. -- John --vcard Content-Type: image/gif Content-ID: < ...image data would go here... --vcard-- Recommended Practice with HTTP/HTML A vCard object should be transferred over HTTP with the non-standard MIME type/subtype value of "text/x-vCard". The non-standard subtype should be used because the vCard has not been registered as a MIME media type with the IANA. The vCard information can be captured with a FORM type of HTML document. Interoperability of of vCard information can be better assured by following a common set of recommended practices for mapping vCard information into and out of HTML documents. Form Element Usage The HTML FORM element is a useful method for capturing data intended for input into individual vCard property values. The following recommended practices are provided for such use. Mapping To INPUT Element Attribute Names An HTML form data set is a useful mechanism for capturing vCard data within the Internet WWW. The use of a consistent naming scheme for the name attributes within a form element will permit implementations to support automatic fill-in of forms with existing vCard data. In addition, such a consistent naming scheme will provide a greater assurance of interoperability between HTML based applications that use vCard data. The following table provides a recommended mapping of vCard properties and name attributes within a form element. Identification Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Formatted Name FN Name N Individual components of name property are captured as separate input elements with the names N.Family, N.First, N.Middle, N.Prefix, N.Suffix. Photograph PHOTO Only the URL based specification is supported by this mapping. Value is the URL for the graphic. Photograph Format Type PHOTO.Type Where the value is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Birthdate BDAY Delivery Addressing Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Delivery Address ADR TYPE=TEXTAREA Address Type ADR.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible delivery types. The elements are named ADR.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Delivery Label LABEL Label Type LABEL.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible delivery types. The elements are named LABEL.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Telecommunications Addressing Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Telephone Number TEL Telephone Type TEL.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible telephone types. The elements are named TEL.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Electronic Mail Address EMAIL Electronic Mail Address Type EMAIL.Type Selection option from a list of alternatives. Mailer MAILER Geographical Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Time Zone TZ Geographic Position GEO Organizational Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Title TITLE Business Category ROLE Logo LOGO Only the URL based specification is supported by this mapping. Value is the URL for the graphic. Logo Format Type LOGO.Type Where the value is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Agent Captured through a separate form element using the mapping defined in these tables. Organization ORG TYPE=TEXT. Separate input elements for the organizational name and unit. The name ORG.Name is used to capture the organizational name. The name ORG.UNIT is used to capture the organizational unit. If there are multiple organizational units, it is captured in a form with name attributes ORG.UNIT1, ORG.UNIT2, etc. Explanatory Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Comment NOTE TYPE=TEXT Last Revision REV A hidden field. Version VERSION A hidden field with the value set to the string ì2.1î. Language LANG A hidden field with the value set to the string associated with the default language used in the form (e.g., US-eng). Sound SOUND TYPE=TEXT Sound Type N/A Uniform Resource Locator URL TYPE=TEXT Unique Identifier UID TYPE=TEXT Binary Encoding BE.x Where x is one of the enumerated encoding types defined by the vCard specification. Security Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Public Key KEY Key Type KEY.Type.x Where x is one of the enumerated encoding types defined by the vCard specification. MISCELLANEOUS PROPERTIES Extensions X-x Where x is a string defined by the extension author. Where multiple properties (e.g., telephone numbers) appear, a label prefix should be used. For example, telephone #1 might have a name attribute of ìA.TELî, telephone #2 might have a name attribute of ìB.TELî, etc. Example HTML Code The following HTML code is an example of the use of the mapping of INPUT element attributes names to vCard property names. The code can be used to capture input data for creating a vCard on a Web homepage. Create Your Own Versitcard

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Formatted Name:
Phoenetic Pronunciation:
Company Name:
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Family Name:
Given Name:
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Name Prefix:
Name Suffix:
Delivery Label:

Post Office Address:
Extended Address:
Street Address:
City: Region: Postal Code:
Country Name: Work Home Parcel Postal
TimeZone: Location:
Telephone #1:
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Telephone #2:
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Telephone #3:
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Section 4 : UI Support Recommendations [DS5] When integrating vCard support into an application, an implementor needs to consider a number of user interface (UI) implications. Most appliss Type ADR.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible delivery types. The elements are named ADR.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Delivery Label LABEL Label Type LABEL.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible delivery types. The elements are named LABEL.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Telecommunications Addressing Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Telephone Number TEL Telephone Type TEL.x TYPE=CHECKBOX. Separate input elements are used to capture the possible telephone types. The elements are named TEL.x, where x is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Electronic Mail Address EMAIL Electronic Mail Address Type EMAIL.Type Selection option from a list of alternatives. Mailer MAILER Geographical Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Time Zone TZ Geographic Position GEO Organizational Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Title TITLE Business Category ROLE Logo LOGO Only the URL based specification is supported by this mapping. Value is the URL for the graphic. Logo Format Type LOGO.Type Where the value is one of the enumerated strings defined by the vCard specification. Agent Captured through a separate form element using the mapping defined in these tables. Organization ORG TYPE=TEXT. Separate input elements for the organizational name and unit. The name ORG.Name is used to capture the organizational name. The name ORG.UNIT is used to capture the organizational unit. If there are multiple organizational units, it is captured in a form with name attributes ORG.UNIT1, ORG.UNIT2, etc. Explanatory Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Comment NOTE TYPE=TEXT Last Revision REV A hidden field. Version VERSION A hidden field with the value set to the string ì2.1î. Language LANG A hidden field with the value set to the string associated with the default language used in the form (e.g., US-eng). Sound SOUND TYPE=TEXT Sound Type N/A Uniform Resource Locator URL TYPE=TEXT Unique Identifier UID TYPE=TEXT Binary Encoding BE.x Where x is one of the enumerated encoding types defined by the vCard specification. Security Properties Description Attribute Name Comment Public Key KEY Key Type KEY.Type.x Where x is one of the enumerated encoding types defined by the vCard specification. MISCELLANEOUS PROPERTIES Extensions X-x Where x is a string defined by the extension author. Where multiple properties (e.g., telephone numbers) appear, a label prefix should be used. For example, telephone #1 might have a name attribute of ìA.TELî, telephone #2 might have a name attribute of ìB.TELî, etc. Example HTML Code The following HTML code is an example of the use of the mapping of INPUT element attributes names to vCard property names. The code can be used to capture input data for creating a vCard on a Web homepage. Create Your Own Versitcard

Create Your Own Versitcard

Fill out this form and we'll create a Versitcard for you and send it to the email address of your choice, along with more information on the Versitcard format.

Formatted Name:
Phoenetic Pronunciation:
Company Name:
Company Unit:
Title:
Family Name: