Bookmarking and placemarking a displayed document in a computer system

• US 20040236774A1
• Filed: 06/21/2004
• Published: 11/25/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cluts, Jonathan C., Woolf, Susan D., Beezer, John L., Baird, Andrew C., Rubin, Daryl E.
• Granted Patent: US 7,594,187 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

While viewing an electronically displayed document, a user creates a bookmark by selecting a desired part of a document to be marked. In response, a visual indicator is displayed and a bookmark object is created preferably separate from the document. The bookmark object comprises information linking the bookmark object to the desired part of the document as well as user-modifiable properties. If another part of the document is subsequently displayed, at least a portion of the visual indicator is still displayed. Later selection of the portion of the visual indicator causes the desired portion of the document to be re-displayed. Because the object is separate from the document, it may be viewed and sorted by its properties apart from its display with the document. A placemark is created whenever the display of a current document is discontinued. In response to a discontinuation signal, a placemark object comprising information linking the placemark object to a last-viewed part of the document is created. Subsequent selection of the document for re-display causes the last-viewed part of the document to be displayed.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure comprising:

a first data field comprising information linking the data structure to a document;

a second data field comprising information identifying a user-defined part of the document being marked by the data structure; and

a third data field comprising information regarding user-defined properties of a visual indicator corresponding to the data structure,

wherein the visual indicator is configured to be displayed partially outside of the document and with the user-defined part of the document.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the data structure is representative of a bookmark, and the user-defined part of the document being marked comprises a desired part of the document.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first data field comprises a hyperlink.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the information regarding user-defined properties comprises information defining at least one of:

a color of the visual indicator, a shape of the visual indicator, a font of the visual indicator, a title of the visual indicator and textual content of the visual indicator or links to other locations.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the document is stored on the computer-readable medium.

6. A computer comprising the computer-readable medium of claim 1 and another computer-readable medium, wherein the document is stored on the other computer-readable medium.

7. A computer comprising the computer-readable medium of claim 1 and coupled to a remote computer-readable medium, wherein the document is stored on the remote computer-readable medium.