Method of Compound Document Comparison

• US 20100318530A1
• Filed: 08/23/2010
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Litera Technology LLC
• Original Assignee: Litera Technology LLC
• Inventors: Massand, Deepak
• Granted Patent: US 8,527,864 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/33 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/194 Calculation of difference between files

Abstract

A method and system for comparing compound documents. An original compound document and a modified compound document are analyzed to determine and mark the location of embedded objects. A comparison is performed between an original primary document and the modified primary document, ignoring the embedded objects, the output of which is a comparison output document. The embedded objects are compared by copying the contents of the embedded objects to compatible documents, comparing the embedded object from the original compound document and the embedded object from the modified compound document, the output of which is inserted into the comparison output document using the location markers of the embedded objects.

Claims

1-16. -16. (canceled)

17. A computer system for comparing compound documents, wherein a compound document comprises a primary document and an OLE object, the system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the operations of;

extracting a first OLE object from a first compound document to a first object comparison file and a second OLE object from a second compound document to a second object comparison file,

comparing a first primary document of the first compound document and a second primary document of the second compound document and to output a result of the comparison of the first primary document and the second primary document, and

comparing the first object comparison file and the second object comparison file and to output a result of the comparison of the first object comparison file and the second object comparison file.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the operation of extracting further includes marking a location of the first OLE object in the first compound document.

19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the location of the first OLE object is marked by storing the location in a database file.

20. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the first primary document is one of a word processing document, a spreadsheet document, a PDF document, a flowchart document, a computer aided design document, an image document, and a presentation document.

21. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising outputting the result of the comparison of the first primary document and the second primary document to a primary comparison output document.

22. The computer system of claim 21, further comprising outputting the result of the comparison between the first object comparison file and the second object comparison file to a comparison output object file.

23. The computer system of claim 22, further comprising the operation of inserting the comparison output object file into the primary comparison output document.

24. The computer system of claim 23, wherein inserting the comparison output object file into the primary comparison output document is based on an OLE object location retrieved from the first compound document or the second compound document.

25. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the processor excludes from extraction and comparison the first OLE object embedded in the first compound document or the second OLE object embedded in the second compound document.

26. The computer system of claim 25, further comprising receiving data reflecting a request from a user and, in response to the request, excluding from extraction and comparison the first OLE object or the second OLE object.

27. The computer system of claim 25, wherein the exclusion from extraction and comparison occurs based on the document type of the first OLE object or the second OLE object.

28. The computer system of claim 17, wherein when the processor detects a difference between the first object comparison file and the second object comparison file, the output of the result of the object comparison shows the first OLE object as deleted and the second OLE object as inserted.

29. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the first object comparison file is of a type compatible with an application that created the first OLE object.

30. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the extraction converts the first OLE object to the first object comparison file, such that the first object comparison file'"'"'s file type is different from a file type created by the application that created the first OLE object.

31. A method of comparing documents comprising performing, by a processor, the operations of:

determining that a first document comprising a first primary document contains an OLE object;

marking a first location of the OLE object, and copying the OLE object to a first discovered object comparison file;

determining that a second document comprising a second primary document contains a corresponding OLE object having a document type of the first OLE object;

marking a second location of the corresponding OLE object, and copying the corresponding OLE object to a second discovered object comparison file;

comparing the first primary document with the second primary document, generating a comparison output document from the results of the comparing;

comparing the first discovered object comparison file with the second discovered object comparison file;

inserting a result of the comparing of the first discovered object comparison file and the second discovered object comparison file in the comparison output document according to at least one of the first location and the second location; and

displaying the comparison output document.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein marking the first location includes marking the first location in the first primary document and marking the second location includes marking the second location in the second primary document.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the result of the comparing of the first discovered object comparison file and the second discovered object comparison file contains data that reflects discrete differences between the first discovered object comparison file and the second discovered object comparison file.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein the discrete differences are displayed using a color format, an underline format, a bold format, or an italics format.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein the result of comparing of the first discovered object comparison file and the second discovered object comparison file contains data used to display the first OLE object as deleted and the corresponding OLE object as inserted.

36. The method of claim 31, wherein the first discovered object comparison file is of a type compatible with an application that created the first OLE object.