Introduction

MECA (Manuscript Exchange Common Approach) is a NISO-standardized package format for exchanging manuscripts and related files (figures, supplementary data, metadata) between scholarly publishing systems. A MECA package bundles a JATS XML article with its associated assets into a single archive.

Usage

Use the .meca file extension, or the --from meca option, when importing from a MECA package e.g.

stencila convert article.meca doc.smd

Info

MECA is currently supported for import (decoding) only.

Implementation

MECA decoding is implemented in the Rust crate codec-meca. The codec extracts the primary article content (typically JATS XML) from the package and decodes it using the JATS codec.

Limitations

Export (encoding) to MECA is not supported.

Only the primary article content is extracted; supplementary materials and review metadata may not be fully imported.

The MECA manifest must follow the standard structure for the codec to locate the article file.