About Metanorma
Metanorma is an open-source toolchain for authoring, validating, and publishing standards documents. It is developed by Ribose and the Metanorma community.
The Name & Logo
The name Metanorma combines the Greek prefix meta- (meaning “beyond” or “encompassing”) with norma, the Latin word for a carpenter’s square — the instrument from which we get the word standard. Together, the name speaks to the ambition of going beyond individual standards to encompass the entire ecosystem of standards authoring.
The Metanorma logo brings together four layers of meaning:
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The Lighthouse — The logo echoes the Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse that guided sailors safely to harbor through treacherous waters. Metanorma serves the same purpose for the standards world: it shines a guiding light, helping authors navigate the complex, often turbulent sea of formats, requirements, and publication workflows that surround each standards body.
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The Library — Alexandria was also home to the Great Library, a universal repository that sought to collect all human knowledge. Metanorma aspires to a similar ideal: a single, organized framework where standards from every organization — ISO, IEC, IEEE, ITU, IETF, and dozens more — converge into one coherent system. Amidst the sea of turbulence that is the standards publishing landscape, Metanorma provides a library of order.
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The Pen — The vertical silhouette of the logo resembles a pen nib. This is no accident: Metanorma’s purpose is to help you put your requirements from pen to proverbial paper. Every standard begins as an idea, a requirement written down. Metanorma is the instrument that carries that writing through to a polished, published document.
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The Foundation — At the base of the logo sits a pattern of Ribose hexagons. The hexagon is nature’s building block — the most efficient tessellation in the natural world, found in honeycombs, molecular structures, and the carbon rings of organic chemistry. These hexagonal foundation blocks represent the solid, modular architecture upon which Metanorma is built, and they connect the logo to its creator, Ribose.
In light mode, the logo’s lighthouse form stands clear against a bright canvas — the way a real lighthouse is most visible by day, a landmark you can orient by at a glance.
In dark mode, the logo takes on the quality of a lighthouse at night: the beacon itself becomes the focal point, glowing against the darkness, guiding the way when the surroundings are hardest to see.
What is Metanorma?
Metanorma is a standards authoring platform that lets you write technical documents — including international standards — in AsciiDoc, then compile them to multiple output formats (Word, PDF, HTML) through a single pipeline.
How does it work?
The Metanorma pipeline has four stages:
- Author — Write documents in AsciiDoc using Metanorma-flavored syntax
- Validate — Ensure compliance with the target organization’s rules
- Compile — Generate output in multiple formats (HTML, PDF, DOC, etc.)
- Publish — Distribute documents through automated channels
Flavors
Metanorma supports standards organizations including ISO, IEC, ITU, IEEE, IETF, OGC, BSI, and many others. Each organization has its own “flavor” that enforces the correct formatting and structural rules.
See the flavors page for the full list.
Open source
All Metanorma code is open source and hosted on the Metanorma GitHub organization.