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What is a telltale sign that a subject has arrived? One is the availability of a "For Dummies" book, those ubiquitous tomes with the black and yellow cover. Apparently, that time has come for extensible business reporting language, or XBRL. While you won't find it in bookstores just yet, the XBRL business unit of Hitachi America Ltd. of Santa Clara, Calif., has teamed up with Wiley Publishing Inc. of Indianapolis to produce a free, limited-edition "XBRL for Dummies" release. "We're certainly not the first book on XBRL out there, but so many books focus on technical aspects, and they just don't appeal to a broader audience," said Wilson S. So, co-author of the book with Peter Weverka and director of Hitachi's XBRL business unit. Mr. Weverka is a freelance writer based in San Francisco who has written 37 computer books, many of them as part of the Dummies series. Mr. So has been involved in the development of XBRL since 2002 and said that the book makes the topic approachable. "You don't need any sophistication in terms of your understanding of XBRL to understand the book. It is really written in terms a layman can understand," Mr. So said. The book is just 84 pages and is at times an entertaining read. Its short chapters range from the opening, "What is XBRL?" to a chapter dedicated to its benefits and another to the challenges of the technology. There is also a chapter titled "Ten (or So) Metaphors for Understanding XBRL." A sampling of the latter includes descriptions of XBRL as "the Napster of investing" and as "information bar-coding." The book's popularity has caught its publishers by surprise. "It has come as a bit of a surprise for us, especially [the] interest from those outside the United States. We've given out 2,500 books so far," Mr. So said. For more information and to get a copy, go to xbrlfordummies.com.