Collaborative document processing system with version and comment management

• US 5,671,428 A
• Filed: 08/28/1992
• Issued: 09/23/1997
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/1991
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Moriyasu, Takashi, Muranaga, Tetsuro
• Primary Examiner(s): Herndon, Heather R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Burwell, Joseph R.
• Application Number:
  US07/936,844
• Time in Patent Office: 1,852 Days
• Field of Search: 395/144-146, 395/148, 395/772, 395/773, 395/329, 364/419.1, 364/419.19
• US Class Current: 715/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A document processing system capable of providing an environment for a smooth and efficient collaborative document processing work. In the system, the document in the new and old versions, the comment attached to the document, and version data indicating a modification made in the document between the new version and the old version are managed by being linked together.

Claims

1. A document processing system, comprising:

editor means for writing, editing and displaying a document to be revised from an old version to a new version, version data indicating a modification made in the document between the new version and the old version and including an explanation of the modification, and a comment on the document; and

data managing means for retrieving and storing document data by linking the document in the new version, the document in the old version, the comment on the document, and the version data;

wherein when the editor means is activated to create a new comment while displaying the document, the data managing means automatically links the new comment created at the editor means with the document currently displayed at the editor means as an attached comment, and when the editor means is activated to revise the document from the old version to the new version while displaying the old version of the document along with at least one attached comment, the data managing means automatically links the at least one attached comment with the document in the new version as one or more influencing comments corresponding respectively to said at least one attached comment.

2. The document processing system of claim 1, wherein the editor means further comprises:

document editor means for writing, editing, and displaying the document;

comment editor means for creating, editing, and displaying the comment; and

version data display means for displaying the version data.

3. The document processing system of claim 2, wherein when the comment editor means is activated to create a new comment while the document editor means displays the document, the data managing means automatically links the new comment produced at the comment editor means with the document currently displayed at the document editor means.

4. The document processing system of claim 2, wherein when the comment editor means is activated to display the comment attached to the document while the document editor means displays the document, the comment editor means displays the comment which is linked with the document currently displayed at the document editor means in the data managing means.

5. The document processing system of claim 2, wherein, when the document editor means is activated to edit the document, the data managing means automatically creates a new version of the edited document, produces the version data for the new version indicating a modification made in the edited document by the document editor means, and links the produced version data for the new version with the edited document in the new version.

6. The document processing system of claim 5, wherein the data managing means produces the version data by recording a sequence of editing operations applied to the document by the document editor means as an indication of the modification made in the edited document.

7. The document processing system of claim 2, wherein when the document editor means is activated to edit the document while the comment editor means displays the comment attached to the document, the data managing means automatically links the comment currently displayed at the comment editor means with the edited document so as to set the comment currently displayed at the comment editor means as a influencing comment.

8. The document processing system of claim 7, wherein, when the comment editor means is activated to display a comment which is related to the modification made in the document while the document editor means displays the document, the comment editor means displays the influencing comment which is linked with the document currently displayed at the document editor means in the data managing means.

9. The document processing system of claim 2, wherein when the version data display means is activated to display the version data while the document editor means is displaying the document in a present version, the version data display means displays the version data for the present version which is linked with the document in the present version in the data managing means.

10. The document processing system of claim 1, wherein the editor means can be controlled to simultaneously display all the document data including the document in the new and old versions, the comment attached to the document, and version data indicating a modification made in the document between the new version and the old version.

11. The document processing system of claim 1, wherein the editor means includes a plurality of independent editor elements in correspondence to a plurality of versions of the document.

12. The document processing system of claim 11, wherein said plurality of independent editor elements can be controlled to simultaneously display a plurality of document data for the document in different versions.

13. The document processing system of claim 1, wherein when the editor means specifies a specific version of the document, the data managing means retrieves the document data in the specified version by tracing a plurality of versions of the document up to the specified version in the document data.

14. A method of document processing, comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying a document in an old version which is to be revised into a new version;

(b) automatically linking a comment created in relation to the document displayed at the step (a), as an attached comment;

(c) displaying the document in the old version along with the comment linked as the attached comment at the step (b);

(d) revising the old version of the document displayed at step (c) by making a modification to the old version of the document according to the comment displayed at the step (c), to produce the new version;

(e) producing version data including information about the revised document and indicating the modification made in the document between the new version and the old version at the step (d) and including an explanation of the modification entered by the user; and

(f) managing the document, modifications thereto, and version data by automatically linking the comment displayed at the step (c) with the document in the new version as an influencing comment for the document in the new version, and automatically linking version data produced in step (e) with the document in the new version.