Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-23
2001-06-19
Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06249794
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to computer file formats capable of enhancing cross-application interoperability.
Computer content authoring application programs, such as word processing applications and spreadsheet applications, produce content having varying levels of structure. Furthermore, different authoring applications store content and structural information using different file formats. Typically, the file format used by one authoring application is not understood by other authoring applications. As a result, the content and structural information stored in a file is typically accessible only to the authoring application that produced the file and to other authoring applications which have been specifically designed to understand the file format of the file. Authoring applications which have not been specifically designed to understand the file format of the file may be able to retrieve the content stored in the file, but typically will not be able to retrieve the structural information stored in the file.
In networked environments where there is a large amount of communication among applications and among computers, requiring each application to understand the file formats used by other applications is becoming increasingly unwieldy and inefficient. One method which has been used to address this problem is the use of a “universal” file format which attempts to encapsulate all possible content and structural information that can be generated by any application program. Files stored in such a format, however, tend to be large, and cannot be guaranteed to be capable of encapsulating information generated by future versions of application programs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In one aspect, the invention features a method executed on a computer for generating a first document description file for describing a document stored on a computer-readable medium. The method generates a description of an application which produced the document, generates a description of a location from which the document can be obtained, and generates a description of an operation that can be performed on the document to produce a second document description file. The description of the location may be a uniform resource locator. The uniform resource locator may identify a server configured to produce the document upon request. The uniform resource locator may identify a location at which the document is stored. The content of the first document description file and the content of the second document description file may be represented in XML syntax.
The operation may be a transformation of the document from a file stored in a first storage format to a file stored in a second storage format, and the second document description file describes the file stored in the second storage format. The second document may describe the first document description file. The operation may extract information from the document, and the second document description file describes the information extracted from the document. The second document description file may describe the first document description file. The information extracted from the document may describe a range of pages of the document. The document may represent a multi-layered graphical object, and the information extracted from the document describes a subset of the layers of the multi-layered graphical object.
The method may generate application-specific data describing the document. The application-specific data may be a name of an application that produced the document. The application-specific data may be a version number of an application that produced the document.
The method may generate a field containing information describing the document. The field may be an HTTP header. The field may describe a date on which the document was produced. The field may describe a date on which the document was modified. The field may describe a size of the document. The field may describe content contained in the document.
In another aspect, the invention features a method for processing a request document description file stored on a computer-readable medium, the request document description file describing a source document and an operation to be performed on the source document. The request document description file is received from a client, the source document is retrieved, the operation is applied to the source document to produce information derived from the source document, and a response document description file is generated containing a description of the information derived from the source document.
The information derived from the source document may be a result document. The response document description file may be a pointer to the result document. The description of the information derived from the source document may be the result document. The description of the information derived from the source document may be a pointer to the result document. The pointer may be a uniform resource locator. The response document description file may be generated by generating a description of the source document. The description of the source document may be the source document. The description of the source document may be a pointer to the source document. The pointer may be a uniform resource locator. The response document may be transmitted to the client. The information derived from the source document may be transmitted to the client.
In another aspect, the invention features a document description file, stored on a computer-readable medium, for describing a document stored on a computer-readable medium, the document description file containing a description of an application program which produced the document, a description of a location from which the document can be obtained, and a description of an operation that can be performed on the document to produce a second document description file. The operation that can be performed on the document may be a transformation of the document from a file stored in a first storage format to a file stored in a second storage format, and the second document description file describes the file stored in the second storage format. The operation that can be performed on the document may be extraction of information from the document, and the second document description file describes the information extracted from the document. The document description file may contain a description of an operation to be performed on the document.
A document description format (DDF) file encapsulates the location of a document along with useful descriptive information about the document. This enables authoring applications to capture and export information about content without requiring changes to current authoring application file formats. A DDF can be used as a virtual document to capture as much or as little information about data contained in a native authoring application file as is desired by the application and/or user.
Among the advantages of the invention are one or more of the following.
One advantage of the invention is that the content of a document description format (DDF) file is independent of the authoring application used to produce the file described by the DDF. Different authoring applications can therefore use DDF files to cooperatively manipulate, synthesize, and exchange document data. Although DDFs are independent of application-specific data, application-specific data can optionally be encapsulated within a DDF in order to optimize certain operations.
Another advantage of the invention is that the size of a DDF file is typically much smaller than the document which it describes. A typical DDF file is a few hundred bytes long. This aspect of the invention is particularly advantageous when used in conjunction with files, such as multimedia files, which are typically very large. Because the size of a DDF file is independent of the size of the file described by the DDF, the size of a DDF file will typically not increase if the size of the document described by the DDF increases. Local
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Alam Hosain T.
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Kindred Alford W.
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