XBRL Glossary

The biggest hurdle for a lot of people (myself included) when they first start looking at XBRL is the vocabulary used in the specification. There is, of course, some overlap with terminology from the XML and business reporting worlds – handy for the handful of you with a background in both – but some of the terms are entirely new and sometimes even a little cryptic (if you don’t believe me, try looking up hypercube on Wolfram for a bit of fun). Altova has published a comprehensive XBRL glossary (many thanks to Neal Hannon and Eric Cohen for their comments/suggestions) that we hope will clear some of the fog. So hopefully the next time you run headlong into a hypercube, you will feel safe knowing that has, at least in the context of XBRL, nothing to do with it.