Document display system and method

• US 20050097458A1
• Filed: 12/19/2002
• Published: 05/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Redbank Manor Pty Limited
• Original Assignee: Redbank Manor Pty Limited
• Inventors: Wilson, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 7,581,176 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/252
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

A document display system comprising a rendering unit, a formatting unit, a display unit and a cache unit. The rendering unit analyses preference to determine content layout and navigation. Based on the analysis, the formatting unit resizes and rearranges the content for display by the display unit. The reformatted content is cached before display. A method of reformatting content for display unit includes retrieving the content, reformatting the content according to characteristics determined for the display unit and rendering the content and associated control structures for display.

Claims

1. A document presentation system comprising:

a rendering unit that analyses user or publisher preferences to determine content layout and navigation;

a formatting unit that resizes and rearranges content according to the content layout and navigation determined by the rendering unit;

a display unit that presents content to a user and responds to user interaction; and

a cache unit that stores reformatted content for display by the display unit.

2. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the rendering unit examines the dimensions of the available viewing area to determine a suitable document layout and navigation system.

3. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the rendering unit determines content layout and navigation according to set increments of size or magnification.

4. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the rendering unit establishes device characteristics such as the presence or absence of external buttons, joysticks or speech recognition, altering the on-screen navigational features accordingly.

5. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the formatting unit performs content manipulation including one or more of blank space reduction, blank space insertion, text condensing, margin adjustment, and tab stop adjustment.

6. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the formatting unit divides content into sections for easier on-screen viewing.

9. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the formatting unit creates progress reports published to multiple end-user displays.

10. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the formatting unit performs document splitting understood by the display unit to handle long documents.

11. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the display unit incorporates processes for detecting system misuse, such as attempted unauthorized access or denial of service through repeated use.

12. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the display unit is optimized for viewing or control via remote display protocols with filtering of end-user commands or requests likely to have been made in error due to network delays.

18. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the formatting unit converts content to a frame structure.

20. The document presentation system of claim 1 wherein the display unit is responsive to pre-defined copy-zones, wherein users are otherwise prohibited from selecting and copying content to their clipboard.

22. The document presentation system of claim 1 further comprising means for locating and loading a printable version of displayed content for printing or for sending a printable version to a printer or for instructing an other application to do so on behalf of an end user.

7. (canceled)

8. (canceled)

13. (canceled)

14. (canceled)

15. (canceled)

16. (canceled)

17. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

21. (canceled)

23. A method of reformatting content for display on a display device including the steps of:

retrieving content from a repository;

determining characteristics of a display device that is to display the content including the area available for display of the content and any associated control structures on the display;

rendering the content and any associated control structures to suit the display characteristics; and

reformatting content for display of the content in the available content areas, said reformatting including resizing and rearranging.

24. The method of claim 23 further including the steps of:

identifying wrapping graphic elements and repositioning said graphic elements to avoid wrapping;

identifying section breaks and inserting blank space to push content to a next column or screen page; and

identifying bleeding graphic elements and repositioning said graphic elements to avoid bleeding.

25. The method of claim 23 further including the step of encrypting information pertaining to end-user interactions.

26. The method of claim 23 further including the step of checking content for graphical elements that bleed off the bottom of a display area of the display device and:

a. If element is marked-up as ‘

un-movable’

then do nothing, or

b. If text above element is of the same attributes as the text next to and below it, move element up the page to fit it on the screen if possible, or

c. Move the element to the next screen page or column, inserting blank space or moving any text after the shape into the preceding column if appropriate.

27. The method of claim 23 further including the step of selecting a navigation system for display of content according to the following order of priority:

a. Display area restrictions;

b. Publisher compulsory preferences C. End-user preferences d. Publisher'"'"'s default display preferences

28. The method of claim 23 further including the step of document splitting to handle long documents.

29. The method of claim 23 further including the step of outputting content to a repository storing information according to the specific display dimensions or magnification levels to which the content has been formatted.

30. (canceled)