INDICATORS OF TEXT CONTINUITY

• US 20110202832A1
• Filed: 01/27/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicholas Lum
• Original Assignee: Nicholas Lum
• Inventors: Lum, Nicholas
• Granted Patent: US 9,026,907 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/249
• 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 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media for graphically indicating text continuity. One method includes receiving text including a first line of text followed by a second line of text followed by a third line of text and selecting a distinct line beginning and line end of each of the first, second, and third lines of text. The method further includes formatting the text, including setting respective first attribute values for a first appearance attribute, so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to the second line beginning, and so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, no continuity of visual appearance exists from the first line end to either the first line beginning or to the third line beginning, and presenting the formatted text on the output device.

Claims

1. A system for formatting text for display on an output device to assist a user in reading from an end of a line of text to a beginning of an immediately subsequent line of text, the system comprising:

one or more computers configured to perform operations comprising;

receiving text to be displayed on an output device as successive of lines of text, wherein the successive lines of text include a first line of text immediately followed by a second line of text immediately followed by a third line of text;

selecting a distinct first line beginning and first line end of the first line of text, a distinct second line beginning and second line end of the second line of text, and a distinct third line beginning and third line end of the third line of text, wherein each beginning and each end is a portion of the respective line of text;

formatting the text, including setting respective first attribute values for a first appearance attribute, so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to the second line beginning, and so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, no continuity of visual appearance exists from the first line end to either the first line beginning or to the third line beginning; and

presenting the formatted text on the output device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the text comprises receiving the text represented as pixels in an image, and wherein formatting the text comprises setting first attribute values for a first appearance attribute of at least some of the pixels in the image.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the first appearance attribute is one of color or background.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the text comprises receiving the text represented as pixels in an image, wherein the first attribute is size of the text, and wherein formatting the text comprises scaling regions of the image to modify the size of portions of the text.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving the text comprises receiving the text represented as characters having modifiable attributes, and formatting the text comprises setting respective first attribute values for a first appearance attribute of characters of the text.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the first appearance attribute is one of color, size, weight, shape, background, or serif prominence.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein when the first line of text, the second line of text, and the third line of text are received, characters in the text have respective initial attribute values for each of a plurality of appearance attributes including the first appearance attribute, and formatting the text further comprises not modifying attribute values for any appearance attributes in the plurality of appearance attributes other than the first appearance attribute.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein formatting the text further comprises setting respective second attribute values for a second appearance attribute, so that, with respect to the second appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to the second line beginning, and the text does not have a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to either the first line beginning or the third line beginning.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the first, second, and third lines of text each have a line middle that extends between the line beginning and the line end; and

formatting the text further comprises setting respective first attribute values for the first appearance attribute for the line middle of each of the first, second, and third lines of text so that each line middle has first attribute values that transition from the first attribute value for the respective line beginning to the first attribute value for the respective line end.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the first attribute values in each line middle are chosen according to a non-uniform transition rate.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the first, second, and third lines of text have varying lengths, and wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a respective transition rate for each of the first, second, and third lines of text from the length of the line of text; and

determining the first attribute value for each character in the line middle of each of the first, second, and third lines of text from the respective transition rate for the line.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the first line of text has a first line middle that is between the first line beginning and the first line end, wherein the first line middle has a fixed first attribute value for the first appearance attribute, wherein the first line middle is visually different from the first line beginning and the first line end, with respect to the first appearance attribute.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

detecting a change in an aspect of the physical environment of the output device; and

reformatting the first, second, and third lines of text in response to detecting the change.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein detecting a change in the aspect of the physical environment of the output device comprises detecting a change in vibrational motion of the output device, and wherein reformatting the first, second, and third lines of text in response to detecting the change comprises modifying a size of each of the first, second, and third lines of text.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein detecting a change in the aspect of the physical environment of the output device comprises detecting that an amount of illumination of the output device has changed.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the text has a continuity of visual appearance with respect to the first appearance attribute from the second line end to the third line beginning, and wherein the text does not have a continuity of visual appearance with respect to the first appearance attribute from the second line beginning to either the second line end or the third line beginning.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein when the first line of text, the second line of text, and the third line of text are received, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line beginning to the first line end and the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line beginning to the second line end.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the text that is received is unformatted and is not divided into lines; and

selecting a distinct line beginning and line end of each of the first, second, and third lines of text comprises delimiting the first line, the second line and the third line.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein formatting text so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from a line end to a line beginning comprises setting the first appearance attribute to respective values that are selected to be within a predetermined threshold distance of each other.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein formatting text so, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from a line end to a line beginning comprises setting the first appearance attribute for the line end and the line beginning to respective preselected values that were previously selected to achieve visual similarity when applied to text output by the output device.

21. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving text to be displayed on an output device as successive of lines of text, wherein the successive lines of text include a first line of text immediately followed by a second line of text immediately followed by a third line of text;

selecting a distinct first line beginning and first line end of the first line of text, a distinct second line beginning and second line end of the second line of text, and a distinct third line beginning and third line end of the third line of text, wherein each beginning and each end is a portion of the respective line of text;

formatting the text, including setting respective first attribute values for a first appearance attribute, so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to the second line beginning, and so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, no continuity of visual appearance exists from the first line end to either the first line beginning or to the third line beginning; and

presenting the formatted text on the output device.

22. A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the computer program comprising instructions that, when executed by data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving text to be displayed on an output device as successive of lines of text, wherein the successive lines of text include a first line of text immediately followed by a second line of text immediately followed by a third line of text;

selecting a distinct first line beginning and first line end of the first line of text, a distinct second line beginning and second line end of the second line of text, and a distinct third line beginning and third line end of the third line of text, wherein each beginning and each end is a portion of the respective line of text;

formatting the text, including setting respective first attribute values for a first appearance attribute, so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, the text has a continuity of visual appearance from the first line end to the second line beginning, and so that, with respect to the first appearance attribute, no continuity of visual appearance exists from the first line end to either the first line beginning or to the third line beginning; and

presenting the formatted text on the output device.