ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT THINNING

• US 20140111516A1
• Filed: 10/22/2012
• Published: 04/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Hall, David M., Murrett, Martin J., Rudolph, Christopher E.
• Granted Patent: US 9,710,944 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/428
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

A system for authoring, publishing, and distribution of electronic documents is provided. The system includes a content authoring and publishing application to author and publish electronic documents, a content distribution system to distribute electronic documents, and a set of user devices that include digital content viewing applications that are used to read the electronic documents. The content authoring and publishing application is used to author and publish high-resolution versions of electronic documents. The high-resolution version of each document is associated with a set of annotations for each high-resolution image in the document. The annotations allow an electronic document thinning tool in the content distribution system to create a low-resolution version of each image and generate a low-resolution version of the electronic document without receiving low-resolution images from the author of the document.

Claims

1. A method of generating a low-resolution version of an electronic document, the method comprising:

receiving a high-resolution version of the electronic document comprising a set of high-resolution images;

receiving a set of annotations associated with each high-resolution image identifying a maximum resolution for a low-resolution version of the image;

creating a low-resolution of each high-resolution image from the high-resolution image based on the annotations associated with each high-resolution image; and

generating the low-resolution version of the electronic document using the created low-resolution images.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the low-resolution version of the electronic document is generated at a content distribution system after the high-resolution of the electronic document is received from a device that is utilized to author the document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of annotations are included in a markup language file describing a list of content included in the document, a reading order, and metadata associated with the content included in the document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of annotations comprise a maximum number of pixels for a width of the low-resolution version of the image and a maximum number of pixels for a height of the low-resolution version of the image.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing the high-resolution and the low-resolution versions of the document for distribution to a set of electronic devices.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

receiving a request from an electronic device to access the electronic document;

receiving the display capabilities of the electronic device, the display capabilities indicating whether the device is capable of displaying high-resolution images; and

sending the high-resolution version of the document or the low-resolution version of the document to the electronic device based on the display capabilities of the electronic device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein sending the high-resolution version of the document or the low-resolution version of the document to the electronic device based on the display capabilities comprises:

sending the high-resolution version of the electronic document when the electronic device can display high-resolution images; and

sending the low-resolution version of the electronic document when the electronic device can only display low-resolution images.

8. A method of authoring a high-resolution electronic document, the method comprising:

receiving a set of high-resolution images to include in the electronic document;

including a high-resolution version of each image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document;

determining a maximum resolution needed to display each image on a low-resolution display screen, the maximum resolution needed to display at least one image in the set of images on a low-resolution display screen lower than a resolution of the high-resolution version of the image;

associating a set of annotations with each high-resolution image, the set of annotations specifying the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a low-resolution display screen; and

sending the high-resolution version of the document and the set of annotations associated with each high-resolution image to a content distribution system to create a low-resolution version of the electronic document.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the electronic document is one of an electronic book, an electronic magazine, and an electronic newspaper.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the low-resolution version of the electronic document is generated by the content distribution system without receiving a low-resolution version of the high-resolution images.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the set of annotations are included in a markup language file describing a list of content included in the document, a reading order of the document, and metadata associated with the content included in the document.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the set of annotations comprise a maximum number of pixels for a width of the low-resolution version of the image and a maximum number of pixels for a height of the low-resolution version of the image.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein including a high-resolution version of each image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document comprises:

determining a maximum resolution needed to display each image on a high-resolution device;

when an image has more resolution than the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a high-resolution device;

creating a version of the image at the maximum resolution needed to display each image on a high-resolution device; and

including the created version of the image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising including the image in the high-resolution version of the document when the image does not have more resolution than the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a high-resolution device.

15. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a program for generating a low-resolution version of an electronic document, the program executable by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a high-resolution version of the electronic document comprising a set of high-resolution images;

receiving a set of annotations associated with each high-resolution image identifying a maximum resolution for a low-resolution version of the image;

creating a low-resolution of each high-resolution image from the high-resolution image based on the annotations associated with each high-resolution image; and

generating the low-resolution version of the electronic document using the created low-resolution images.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the low-resolution version of the electronic document is generated at a content distribution system after the high-resolution of the electronic document is received from a device that is utilized to author the document.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the set of annotations are included in a markup language file describing a list of content included in the document, a reading order, and metadata associated with the content included in the document.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the set of annotations comprise a maximum number of pixels for a width of the low-resolution version of the image and a maximum number of pixels for a height of the low-resolution version of the image.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the electronic document is one of an electronic book, an electronic magazine, and an electronic newspaper.

20. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a program for authoring a high-resolution electronic document, the program executable by at least one processing unit, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a set of high-resolution images to include in the electronic document;

including a high-resolution version of each image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document;

determining a maximum resolution needed to display each image on a low-resolution display screen, the maximum resolution needed to display at least one image in the set of images on a low-resolution display screen lower than a resolution of the high-resolution version of the image;

associating a set of annotations with each high-resolution image, the set of annotations specifying the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a low-resolution display screen; and

sending the high-resolution version of the document and the set of annotations associated with each high-resolution image to a content distribution system to create a low-resolution version of the electronic document.

21. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the electronic document is one of an electronic book, an electronic magazine, and an electronic newspaper.

22. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the low-resolution version of the electronic document is generated by the content distribution system without receiving a low-resolution version of the high-resolution images.

23. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the set of annotations are included in a markup language file describing a list of content included in the document, a reading order of the document, and metadata associated with the content included in the document.

24. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the set of annotations comprise a maximum number of pixels for a width of the low-resolution version of the image and a maximum number of pixels for a height of the low-resolution version of the image.

25. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the set of instructions for including a high-resolution version of each image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document comprises sets of instructions for:

determining a maximum resolution needed to display each image on a high-resolution device;

creating, when an image has more resolution than the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a high-resolution device, a version of the image at the maximum resolution needed to display each image on a high-resolution device; and

including the created version of the image in the high-resolution version of the electronic document.

26. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 25, the program further comprising a set of instructions for including the image in the high-resolution version of the document when the image does not have more resolution than the maximum resolution needed to display the image on a high-resolution device.