Cara Branigan, Associate Editor, eSchool News wrote in August 12, 2004:
"At least 26 states have passed accessible textbook legislation, and these states have asked the textbook publishers to provide electronic versions...Microsoft Word..., ASCII or QuarkXpress files..." NIMAS "will give organizations a single, consistent file format so they can streamline their entire transformation operations and get books out to students faster." Publishers are asked to produce one file format only: NIMAS
NIMAS is comprised of a Baseline Element Set and an Optional Element Set. The Baseline Element Set details the minimum requirement that must be delivered to fulfill the NIMAS standard. It is the responsibility of the publishers to provide this NIMAS-compliant XML file along with a separate PDF file with embedded images for reference in creating descriptions, and a NIMAS-compliant package file.