Data processing: presentation processing of document – operator i – Presentation processing of document – Layout
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-24
2004-11-30
Feild, Joseph H. (Department: 2178)
Data processing: presentation processing of document, operator i
Presentation processing of document
Layout
C382S180000, C715S252000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06826727
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to apparatuses, methods, and programming for automatically laying out documents. Many of the invention's aspects relate to such automatic document layout in the context of variable data publishing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Programs have been created in the prior art for laying out documents, such as the pages of books, magazines, brochures, or even individual pages created in a word processor document. Most such programs are also capable of laying out an image of a page, interactively, on a computer screen. Some such programs define a document as a collection of text and shape elements. Such text elements each have text attributes, such as font, size, indentation, etc. Such shape elements include image elements, graphic shapes, and text containers, and can have shape attributes, such as position, size, color, border characteristics, fill color, etc. In many such systems, a user can define a template which includes various text and shape elements, such as the template of a newsletter, a set of related brochures, or a given type of letter, and then users can insert individual content into all, or some of, the template's elements as desired. When the system lays out the document, each element will be displayed with its associated attributes.
In such systems, as the content placed into various elements of a template changes, those elements often change in size. Such size changes can make the template look inappropriate. In systems where the user is entering the variable content manually with a mouse or keyboard, or in which a user has time to review each document for proper layout, it is often acceptable to have a user change the layout to account for such size changes. Nevertheless, even in such applications it would be desirable to have a layout system which can more appropriately automatically adjust to changes in the size of content placed into template elements.
Furthermore, there are many automatic layout applications in which it is quite impractical to have a user individually change the layout of each document. This is particularly true in variable data publishing, in which many different versions of a document are created automatically in response to different data records.
FIG. 1
provides graphic representation of variable data publishing. In its highly simplified example, a document
2
is created from a document template
3
. The template has variable elements
4
,
5
,
6
, and
7
into which variable values
8
,
9
,
10
, and
11
can be automatically mapped, depending upon the individual record
12
in the Profile Data Source
14
for which the document
2
is being produced. In the example of
FIG. 1
, the variable values
8
,
9
, and
10
are simple text (i.e., character string) values taken directly from the values of fields
15
,
16
, and
17
of a record
12
A in the profile data source
14
. The variable value
11
is an image contained in an image file
18
selected as a function of the “Sport” field
17
in the profile data source.
Because variable data publishing often maps values which differ in size into variable elements, the appearance of a variable document can vary greatly. Furthermore, for some records, data may be missing for certain variable elements. But since variable data publishing often creates hundreds, or thousands, of different versions of a given document, it would be very costly to have each version's layout individually reviewed and adjusted by a person to compensate for changes in the size of its variable values.
Also, although the relatively simple form of variable data illustrated in
FIG. 1
can be very useful, it would be desirable to create a variable data publishing system which provides much greater flexibility in terms of possible content, and yet still tends to do a good job of automatically laying out the resulting documents in a way which is attractive to the eye. For example, it would be desirable to allow a given template to be used to communicate about a greater number of topics, using a greater range of possible variable content, and still have a high likelihood that the automatic layout of the document will look appropriate.
A few prior art systems have allowed the variable values which can be mapped into a template to be comprised of a sub-tree of text and/or shape elements. This greatly increases the flexibility of individual templates, but, if such sub-templates are allowed to vary in size, their use can increase the difficulty of achieving desirable layout. Similarly, it would be desirable to have a system which allows content data, including variable sub-templates, to be used in different templates and still look appropriate given the different size and shape available for it in such different locations.
Another issue in variable data publishing is that it often takes a lot of effort to define the rules used for mapping variable content into the variable elements of a template. In many prior art systems, defining rules to map variable values into a template often requires knowledge of data bases, programming scripts, and data base query languages. These are often different skill sets than those had by many of the graphic artists who are best at designing document templates.
Also it would be desirable in layout systems, including variable data publishing ones, to be able to have a system which makes it easier to create shape elements Which have a matching or coordinated appearance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system for laying out documents that can automatically adjust the layout process in a flexible and often appropriate manner to changes in the size of the contents placed inside document shape elements.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a system for laying out documents which makes it easy to create flexible document templates for use with such a system.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a variable data publishing system which provides flexible automatic adjustment in response to changes in the availability, nature, and/or size of variable data which is placed into variable elements of a document template.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a variable data publishing system which allows more than just the contents of a variable element in a document template to change in response to the mapping of different variable values into those variable elements.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide greater flexibility in the way in which a variable data publishing system allows document templates and content-mapping rules to be used together.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide greater flexibility in the way in which variable data can be selected for use in variable data publishing.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a layout system which allows greater ease and uniformity in the way in which the attributes of both text and shape elements can be defined.
The invention is most accurately described in the claims at the end of this specification, and those claims should be considered part of this Summary Of The Invention. However, to prevent lengthy repetition, the wording of the claims has not been repeated nor closely paraphrased in this section. Instead the following brief summary has been provided here to give a quick overview of the major different aspects of the invention and some of their uses. Since it is impossible to make such a brief overview as accurate as the detailed description contained in the claims, the following summary should not be used to limit the claims in any way. Furthermore, in the interest of brevity, many significant aspects of the invention recited in the claims are not mentioned in this summary, and the failure to mention such aspects here should not in any way be construed as an indication of their lack of importance. Finally, the brief description of the use of each aspect of the invention provided in this section is n
Caruso Jeffrey L.
Hollingsworth David E.
Houde Stephanie L.
Kitsos Costas
Mohr Eric
Bitstream Inc.
Feild Joseph H.
Ludwig Matthew
Porter Edward W.
LandOfFree
Apparatus, methods, programming for automatically laying out... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Apparatus, methods, programming for automatically laying out..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Apparatus, methods, programming for automatically laying out... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3313477