Collaborative editing with automatic layout

• US 20050039116A1
• Filed: 07/29/2004
• Published: 02/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Slack-Smith, David Geoffrey
• Granted Patent: US 7,594,163 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/255
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A method (100), apparatus (200) and computer program product for editing an electronic document is disclosed. Editorial modifications that a first collaborator has made to the document are published. Receipt of the modifications is acknowledged by one or more other collaborators and the published modifications are merged with any local modifications to produce a merged version of said modifications. The merged modifications are applied to the document to produce an edited version of the document including the editorial modifications. The edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more of the collaborators.

Claims

1. A method of editing an electronic document, said method comprising the steps of:

publishing editorial modifications that a first collaborator has made to the document;

acknowledging receipt of modifications by one or more other collaborators;

merging the published modifications with any local modifications to produce a merged version of the modifications; and

applying the merged modifications to the document to produce an edited version of the document including the editorial modifications, the edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more of the collaborators.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of updating the data incorporated within the edited version of the document to indicate acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by the other collaborators.

3. A method according to any one of claims 1 and 2, wherein the data identifies the version of the document.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the data comprises a universally-unique identifier.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein said merging step is performed depending on whether an author of the editorial modifications was active when the document was last modified by any one of the collaborators.

6. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a component of the merged modifications using a weighted arithmetic mean.

7. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a component of the merged modifications using a weighted arithmetic mean.

8. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of electing a value for one or more components of the merged modifications.

9. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of acknowledging receipt of the published document.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein any one or more of the steps of said method are performed independently by two or more computers connected over a network.

11. A method according to claim 1, wherein the modified version of the document is transmitted over a network.

12. A method of editing a document over a network, said method comprising the steps of:

transmitting editorial modifications to the document over the network from a first location to a second location upon the editorial modifications being made to the document at the first location by a first collaborator; and

applying the editorial modifications to a version of the document stored at the second location, to produce an edited version of the document, the edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of editorial modifications by one or more other collaborators.

13. A method of synchronizing versions of a document modified collaboratively over a network, said method comprising the steps of:

determining a most recent version of the document that is stored locally on the network by analyzing data incorporated within one or more locally stored versions of the document, the data indicating acknowledgment of a particular version of the document by one or more collaborators;

requesting editorial modifications made to the most recent version of the document by any one or more of the collaborators at one or more remote locations of the network; and

applying the editorial modifications to the most recent version of the document to produce synchronized version of the document.

14. A method according to claim 13, further comprising the step of acknowledging receipt of the editorial modifications.

15. A method according to claim 13, further comprising the step of merging the editorial modifications with any local modifications to produce a merged version of the modifications.

16. A method according to claim 15, further comprising the step of applying the merged modifications to the document to produce an edited version of the document.

17. A method according to claim 16, further comprising the step of updating data incorporated within the edited version of the document to indicate acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by any one or more of the collaborators.

18. A method according to any one of claims 13 to 17, wherein the data identifies the version of a particular document.

19. A method according to claim 13, wherein the data comprises a universally-unique identifier.

20. An apparatus for editing an electronic document, said apparatus comprising:

publishing means for publishing editorial modifications that a first collaborator has made to the document;

acknowledgment means for acknowledging receipt of modifications by one or more other collaborators;

merging means for merging the published modifications with any local modifications to produce a merged version of the modifications; and

modification application means for applying the merged modifications to the document to produce an edited version of the document including the editorial modifications, the edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more of the collaborators.

21. An apparatus for editing a document over a network, said apparatus comprising:

transmission means for transmitting editorial modifications to the document over the network from a first location to a second location upon the editorial modifications being made to the document at the first location by a first collaborator; and

modification application means for applying the editorial modifications to a version of the document stored at the second location, to produce an edited version of the document, the edited version comprising data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of editorial modifications by one or more other collaborators.

22. An apparatus for synchronizing versions of a document modified collaboratively over a network, said apparatus comprising:

version determining means for determining a most recent version of the document that is stored locally on the network by analyzing data incorporated within one or more locally stored versions of the document, the data indicating acknowledgment of a particular version of the document by one or more collaborators;

modification requesting means for requesting editorial modifications made to the most recent version of the document by any one or more of the collaborators at one or more remote locations of the network; and

modification application means for applying the editorial modifications to the most recent version of the document to produce synchroised synchronized version of said document.

23. A program for editing an electronic document, said program comprising:

code for publishing editorial modifications that a first collaborator has made to the document;

code for acknowledging receipt of the modifications by one or more other collaborators;

code for merging the published modifications with any local modifications to produce a merged version of the modifications; and

code for applying the merged modifications to the document to produce an edited version of the document including the editorial modifications, the edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more of the collaborators.

24. A program for editing a document over a network, said program comprising:

code for transmitting editorial modifications to the document over the network from a first location to a second location upon the editorial modifications being made to the document at the first location by a first collaborator; and

code for applying the editorial modifications to a version of the document stored at the second location, to produce an edited version of the document, the edited version comprising data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more other collaborators.

25. A program for synchronized versions of a document modified collaboratively over a network, said program comprising:

code for determining a most recent version of the document that is stored locally on the network by analyzing data incorporated within one or more locally stored versions of the document, the data indicating acknowledgment of a particular version of the document by one or more collaborators;

code for requesting editorial modifications made to the most recent version of the document by any one or more of the collaborators at one or more remote locations of the network; and

code for applying the editorial modifications to the most recent version of the document to produce synchronized version of the document.

26. A computer program product including a computer readable medium having recorded thereon a computer program for editing an electronic document, said program comprising:

code for publishing editorial modifications that a first collaborator has made to the document;

code for acknowledging receipt of modifications by one or more other collaborators;

code for merging the published modifications with any local modifications to produce a merged version of the modifications; and

code for applying the merged modifications to the document to produce an edited version of the document including the editorial modifications, the edited version containing data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of the editorial modifications by one or more of the collaborators.

27. A computer program product including a computer readable medium having recorded thereon a computer program for editing a document over a network, said program comprising:

code for transmitting editorial modifications to the document over the network from a first location to a second location upon the editorial modifications being made to the document at the first location by a first collaborator; and

code for applying the editorial modifications to a version of the document stored at the second location, to produce an edited version of the document, the edited version comprising data incorporated therein indicating acknowledgment of veditorial modifications by one or more other collaborators.

28. A computer program product including a computer readable medium having recorded thereon a computer program for synchronizing versions of a document modified collaboratively over a network, said program comprising:

code for determining a most recent version of the document that is stored locally on the network by analyzing data incorporated within one or more locally stored versions of the document, the data indicating acknowledgment of a particular version of the document by one or more collaborators;

code for requesting editorial modifications made to the most recent version of the document by any one or more of the collaborators at one or more remote locations of the network; and

code for applying the editorial modifications to the most recent version of the document to produce synchronized version of the document.