Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-12
2003-05-20
Hong, Stephen S. (Department: 2178)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06567830
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for receiving user inputted text to add to a text document and displaying the added text in the document.
2. Description of the Related Art
In current document editing systems, users typically enter markings and modifications to a document and store such markings and modifications with the document. A marking can be any highlighting, strikeout, line, font change, handwritten indication added to text, underlining, double underline, redline, bold, italics, etc. A highlighting is a thin color film through which the underlying text is visible. For group editing projects, a group member may edit and markup the document and transmit the revised and edited document to another group member for review and further editing. In such group editing environments, groups of users can edit a document on-line by entering textual notes into the document being edited. Such notes are typically entered into pop-up windows which appear in the document. The user may enter textual memos into the pop-up window.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,552, entitled “Method for Associating Annotation with Electronically Published Material,” which is assigned to International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”), the assignee of the subject patent application and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a program which allows a user to review and display annotations or notes created by the user or shared and exchanged between users with access to a copy of the same published electronic document. The annotations may be associated with a particular context within the document. Users can review and merge notes from other users, and display such notes with the electronic document.
Many of the current systems for editing and marking-up documents are intended for documents which are read/write capable, thereby allowing the user to make changes directly into the document. However, in many cases, a user may be viewing a document in a read-only format. For instance, a user may be reviewing a Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML) document with an HTML browser, e.g., NETSCAPE Communicator, the MICROSOFT Internet Explorer, Spry Mosaic, NCSA Mosaic, Lynx, Opera, GNUscape Navigator et. With such HTML browsers and other viewers for viewing read-only documents, such as the ADOBE Acrobat Reader, users typically cannot directly edit the HTML document while in viewing mode.*
Text editors, such as WORDPERFECT and MICROSOFT WORD, allow users to mark-up and edit a document.* However, with such text editors, the user must save the modified and marked-up file over the original document or save the original and edited document in separate files. If many users are group editing a document, then difficulties may arise tracking the different versions reflecting the mark-ups and edits from different users in the network system.
There is thus a need in the art for an improved system, method, and program for adding text to an electronic media file.
SUMMARY OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, preferred embodiments disclose a method, system, and program for receiving text to add to a displayed text document. The program displays lines of text from the document and receives user inputted text. The program generates a graphical element to include the user inputted text and generates the user inputted text having a size capable of fitting between two lines of the text from the document. The program then displays the graphical element in the document. The user inputted text within the graphical element is displayed between two lines of text from the document.
In further embodiments, a marking file includes information indicating a graphical element including insert text and an addressable location indicating a position of the graphical element in the document. The program processes the marking file to generate the graphical element to superimpose with respect to the addressable location in the document. The program then displays the insert text in the graphical element such that the displayed insert text is displayed between two lines of text in the document.
In preferred embodiments, information on the graphical element is stored in a file separate from the text document. This separate file includes an addressable location of where to position the graphical element, user inputted text, and the generated size of the graphical element and user inputted text.
With preferred embodiments, users may use an enhanced viewer to insert text into a document. This preferred enhanced viewer would generate a graphical element or graphical text box to store the user inputted text. The viewer program would then superimpose the graphical text box or element in the text such that the user inputted text would appear between two lines and the underlying text from the document would appear through another portion of the graphical text box. This allows a user to enter insert text which is then automatically processed and generated to display as inserted between lines within a document.
In further embodiments, information on the generated graphical element, including the user inputted text, is stored in a separate file. In this way, the displayed overlay of the graphical element including the user inserted text onto the underlying document text does not alter the formatting, spacing or content of the electronic media file because information on the inserted text is stored separately from the text document.
Preferred embodiments are particularly applicable to network environments where multiple users may edit a document. Each user may insert text into a document using the viewer program of the preferred embodiments. Later, the file storing the user inserted text may be selected and the viewer program would then superimpose the inserted text onto the displayed document. This allows users in a network to share marking files including insert text to a document without altering the document. A user need only receive the marking file transmitted over a network if the user otherwise has a copy of the associated document to which the markings apply. Further, users may selectively display insert text stored in graphical elements from other people without altering the underlying text document. This allows multiple users to insert text and edit the document without generating multiple versions of the electronic media file throughout the network.
In still further embodiments, users may retrieve marking files from different human editors and associate colors with the different marking files to identify the editor of the markings. In this way, when the user displays graphical elements including insert text and other markings from different marking files, the user can readily identify the source of the marking or insert text based on the color in which the marking or insert text is displayed.
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Hong Stephen S.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Konrad Raynes & Victor & Mann LLP
Victor David W.
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