Content Profiling to Dynamically Configure Content Processing

• US 20100174732A1
• Filed: 06/07/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Levy, Michael Robert, Mansfield, Philip Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 8,473,467 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/768
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/126 Character encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/163 Handling of whitespace
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method that receives an unstructured document including a number of primitive elements. The method identifies a default set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the unstructured document to define a structured document the method performs at least one of the document reconstruction operations from the default set. Based on results of the performed document reconstruction operations, the method identifies a profile for the unstructured document. The method modifies the set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the unstructured document according to the identified profile.

Claims

1. A method for defining a program for reconstructing a document, the method comprising:

defining a default set of document reconstruction operations for defining a structured document from a document that comprises a plurality of primitive elements;

defining a hierarchical set of profiles, each profile comprising (i) a set of potential document reconstruction results and (ii) instructions for modifying the document reconstruction operations when intermediate document reconstruction results match the potential document reconstruction results for the profile, wherein instructions from a profile at a lower level in the hierarchy override instructions from a profile at a higher level;

defining a module for matching intermediate document reconstruction results to a profile.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is an unstructured document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is a vector graphics document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is a portable document format (PDF) document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the structured document comprises a hierarchical model of the document.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical set of profiles comprises profiles for at least two of documents, sections, pages, and zones.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein each document profile specifies a particular set of possible page profiles and each page profile specifies a particular set of possible zone profiles.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the set of page profiles for a first document profile comprises a particular page profile and the set of page profiles for a second document profile also comprises the particular page profile.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise a subset of profiles at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles that should be tested when the intermediate document reconstruction results match the potential document reconstruction results for the particular profile.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions to not perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the particular profile is a profile for a page and the set of potential document reconstruction results for the particular profile comprises results that the page has only one column of text, wherein the instructions for the particular profile comprise instructions to not perform operations for splitting lines of text.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions regarding how to perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions specifying a particular reconstruction process the results of which should be removed from the intermediate reconstruction results.

14. A computer readable medium storing a computer program for execution by at least one processor, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a document comprising a plurality of primitive elements;

identifying a default set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the document to define a structured document;

performing one or more of the document reconstruction operations from the default set;

based on results of the performed document reconstruction operations, identifying a profile for the unstructured document; and

modifying the set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the unstructured document according to the identified profile.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for performing at least one of the document reconstruction operations from the modified set after modifying the set.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations comprises a set of instructions for removing a particular reconstruction operation from the set of reconstruction operations to be performed.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations comprises a set of instructions for adding a particular reconstruction operation to the set of reconstruction operations to be performed.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the default set of reconstruction operations specifies an order in which the reconstruction operations are to be performed.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the set of instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations comprises a set of instructions for modifying the order in which the reconstruction operations are to be performed.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the profile is a document profile that identifies a type of document for the unstructured document based on results of the performed document reconstruction operations.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the computer program further comprises sets of instructions for:

performing at least one of the document reconstruction operations from the modified set after modifying the set;

based on results of the performed document reconstruction operations, identifying a section profile for a particular section of the unstructured document; and

modifying the set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the particular section of the unstructured document according to the identified section profile.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein the particular section is a particular page.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein instructions in the section profile override conflicting instructions in the document profile for reconstructing the particular section.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 21, wherein instructions in the document profile that are not contradicted by instructions in the section profile are still in operation after the identification of the section profile.