Document processing method, recording medium, and document processing system

• US 20070130176A1
• Filed: 09/21/2006
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Kunitake, Setsu, Kawabe, Shigehisa, Suzuki, Akira, Tanaka, Katsuhide
• Granted Patent: US 7,912,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

There is provided a document processing method in which a document is created by applying one or more templates to multiple structured documents stored in a folder among a group of folders having a hierarchical structure in a document database, the method including acquiring a first structured document including multiple document elements forming a structure, acquiring information of a hierarchical structure of the folders in the document database, creating integrated structure information by merging the structure of the document elements of the first structured document into a position of a folder, in the hierarchical structure formed by the folders, in which the first structured document is stored, and applying a template to the integrated structure information.

Claims

1. A document processing method comprising:

acquiring a first structured document including a plurality of document elements forming a structure from a folder among a group of folders having a hierarchical structure in a document database;

acquiring information of the hierarchical structure of the folders in the document database;

creating integrated structure information by merging the structure of the document elements of the first structured document into a position of a folder, in the hierarchical structure formed by the folders, in which the first structured document is stored; and

applying a template to the integrated structure information.

2. The document processing method according to claim 1, wherein

in the process of creating the integrated structure information, attribute information of each folder in the document database and attribute information of each document element of the first structured document are stored in correspondence to each folder and each document element in the integrated structure information, and

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, the attribute information stored in correspondence to each folder or each document element is assigned into a corresponding position in the template.

3. The document processing method according to claim 1, wherein

in the process of creating the integrated structure information, a structure formed by document elements of a second structured document referred to by a document element of the first structured document is merged to a position of a folder, in the integrated structure information, in which the second structured document is stored.

4. The document processing method according to claim 1, wherein

in the process of creating the integrated structure information, a structure which conforms with a chaptering rule is extracted from among the structures of the first structured document as a document skeleton, and an individual structure which is not included in the document skeleton is expressed as an offspring of a document element corresponding to a root of the individual structure in the document skeleton.

5. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising

adding to the folder or the document element, as an access information attribute, access information created on the basis of an ID attribute of each folder or each document element in the integrated structure information.

6. The document processing method according to claim 5, wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, data obtained by applying the template to a folder or a document element in the integrated structure information are stored in a manner to allow access through the access information.

7. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring mapping information indicating a correspondence relationship between a type of a folder or a document element and a template to be applied to the type of folder or document element;

wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, a template corresponding to the type of the folder or the document element indicated in the mapping information is applied to each folder or document element in the integrated structure information.

8. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring mapping information indicating a correspondence relationship between a type of a folder or a document element and a plurality of templates to be applied to the type of folder or document element; and

adding, as an access information attribute and for each template in the mapping information to be applied to each folder or each document element in the integrated structure information, access information created on the basis of an ID attribute of the folder or the document element and information for specifying the template to each folder or document element, wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, each template corresponding to the type of the folder or the document element indicated in the mapping information is applied to each folder or each document element in the integrated structure information and data obtained by applying the template to the folder or the document element in the integrated structure information are stored in a manner to allow access through the access information.

9. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising:

adding, as an access information attribute, access information created based on an ID attribute of a folder or a document element in the integrated structure information and information for specifying a template, for each template when application of a plurality of templates are instructed for the folder or the document element, wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, each template is applied to the folder or the document element in the integrated structure information and data obtained by applying the templates to the folder or the document element in the integrated structure information are stored in a manner to allow access through the access information.

10. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring mapping information indicating a correspondence relationship between a type of a folder or a document element and a plurality of templates to be applied to the type of the folder or the document element; and

adding, to each folder or document element in the integrated structure information, as an access information attribute, and for each template in the mapping information to be applied to the folder or the document element, access information created on the basis of an ID attribute of the folder or the document element and information for specifying the template, and adding, as an access information attribute and for each folder or each document element for which no template to be applied is indicated in the mapping information, access information created on the basis of an ID attribute of the folder or the document element and access information of an ancestor folder or an ancestor document element, of the folder or the document element in the integrated structure information, for which the template to be applied is indicated in the mapping information, wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, each template corresponding to the folder or the document element indicated in the mapping information is applied to each folder or each document element in the integrated structure information, and data obtained by applying the template to the folder or the document element in the integrated structure information is stored in a manner to allow access through the access information.

11. The document processing method according to claim 1, further comprising:

acquiring mapping information indicating a correspondence relationship between a type of a folder or a document element and a template to be applied to the type of the folder or the document element;

wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, a folder or a document element which corresponds to the type to which the template is to be applied is selected from among the folders or document elements in the integrated structure information, the selected folder or document element is set as a current element, and the template is applied with the current element as a base point.

12. The document processing method according to claim 11, wherein

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, a parse tree is determined by parsing a structure formed by elements of the template, a folder or a document element in the integrated structure information that matches the element in the template is determined through a matching process of the structure around the current element in the integrated structure information and the parse tree, and information of the matching folder or the matching document element in the integrated structure information is supplied to each element of the template.

13. The document processing method according to claim 11, wherein

a directory element can be incorporated into the template, and

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, when a directory element in the template is detected, a folder or a document element, among the folders and document elements of the integrated structure information, which satisfies a condition described in the directory element is set as a current element and the template in the directory element is applied.

14. The document processing method according to claim 1, wherein

an encode element can be incorporated into the template, and

in the process of applying the template to the integrated structure information, an encoding process indicated by an encode element is applied to a text string to which the template in the encode element is applied.

15. A storage medium readable by a computer, the storage medium storing a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform a function for template processing, the function comprising:

acquiring a first structured document including a plurality of document elements forming a structure;

acquiring information of a hierarchical structure of folders in a document database;

creating integrated structure information by merging the structure of the document elements of the first structured document into a position of a folder, in the hierarchical structure formed by the folders, in which the first structured document is stored; and

applying a template to the integrated structure information.

16. A document processing system which creates a document by applying one or more templates to a plurality of structured documents stored in a folder in a group of folders having a hierarchical structure in a document database, the system comprising:

a document acquisition section that acquires a first structured document including a plurality of document elements forming a structure;

a folder structure acquisition section that acquires information of a hierarchical structure of the folders in the document database;

an integrated structure information creating section that creates integrated structure information by merging the structure of the document elements of the first structured document into a position of a folder, in the hierarchical structure formed by the folders, in which the first structured document is stored; and

a template processing section that applies a template to the integrated structure information.