Style sheets for publishing system

• US 5,860,073 A
• Filed: 07/17/1995
• Issued: 01/12/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Schofield, Kevin M., Gertz, Matthew W., Shewchuk, John P., Millet, Stephen J., Meyer, Robert F., Smith, Walter W., Ferrel, Patrick J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Burwell, Joseph R.
• Application Number:
  US08/503,452
• Time in Patent Office: 1,275 Days
• Field of Search: 395/774, 395/776-778, 395/779, 395/784, 395/788, 707/522, 707/526, 707/513, 707/516
• US Class Current: 715/255
• 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

Abstract

The use of style sheets in an electronic publishing system is described. A style sheet is a collection of formatting information, such as font and tabs in a textual document. The style sheets described herein are applied to individual display regions (controls) on a page. Unlike previous systems, the display regions in this system do not contain any text at the time the style sheet is applied. Rather, the text, or other media such as graphics, is poured into the display region when the title is rendered on the customer'"'"'s computer.

Claims

1. A method of styling document content, comprising the steps of:

creating a title including page layouts representing the appearance of pages of the title;

creating a first style sheet container storing a first plurality of styles;

creating a second style sheet container storing a second plurality of styles;

creating at least one content container for storing document content;

providing a first control on a first one of the page layouts for delineating a first page layout area where content is to be rendered;

providing a second control on a second one of the page layouts for delineating a second page layout area where content is to be rendered;

linking the content container with the first and second controls;

linking the first control to the first style sheet container;

linking the second control to the second style sheet container;

rendering content in the first page layout area according to at least one of the first plurality of styles; and

rendering content in the second page area according to at least one of the second plurality of styles.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the styles is selected from the group consisting of paragraph styles, character styles and wrap styles.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first and second style sheet containers comprise styles for image and textual content.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of providing each control with a setting corresponding to the location of content to be displayed by the control.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the steps of linking the first control to the first style sheet and linking the second control to the second style sheet further comprises the step of loading the respective style sheet from a cache object store.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of linking the first control to the first style sheet and the step of linking the second control to the second style sheet comprise the step of associating with the respective control with a globally unique identifier associated with the respective style sheet.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating a first and second control further comprises the step of creating a static story control.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating a first and second control further comprises the step of creating a dynamic story control.

9. A viewer for rendering a title, the title including at least one page layout representing a desired appearance of a respective page of the title, the title having at least one content object associated therewith representing content of at least one document, the viewer comprising:

a computer, including a storage;

a display operatively associated with the computer;

the content object being stored in the storage;

at least one style sheet stored in the storage separately from the content object; and

a control stored in the storage, the control delineating an area of the page layout and being linked to at least one of the content objects and at least one of the style sheets such that content rendered in the delineated page layout area is formatted according to the linked style sheet.

10. The viewer of claim 9, wherein the content object comprises text content.

11. The viewer of claim 9, wherein the content object comprises image content.

12. The viewer of claim 9, further comprising a second control stored in the storage, the second control delineating a second area of the page layout and being linked to at least a second one of the content objects and a second one of the style sheets.

13. The viewer of claim 9, further comprising a second control stored in the storage, the second control delineating a second area of the page layout, the first and second controls being linked to the same content object.

14. The viewer of claim 9, wherein the style sheet includes styles from the group consisting of character styles, wrap styles or paragraph styles.

15. The viewer of claim 9, wherein the content object contains tagged content.

16. In an electronic publication system including a storage, a method of publishing and viewing a title, the method comprising the steps of:

creating a content object representing content of a document associated with the title;

creating at least one page layout representing a desired layout of a page of the title;

creating a control object delineating an area of the page layout where the content is to be rendered;

creating a style sheet object including at least one style sheet representing a desired format for the content;

linking the style sheet object to the control object;

linking the content object to the control object;

storing with a publishing workstation the page layout, content object, the style sheet object and the control object in the storage;

retrieving with a customer workstation the page layout, content object, style sheet object and control object from the storage; and

rendering the content on a display of the customer workstation, the content being rendered in the delineated page layout area according to the format represented in the linked style sheet.

17. In a publishing and distribution system including at least one publishing workstation for creating a title and at least one customer workstation for rendering the title, a publishing method comprising the steps of:

creating a content folder containing at least one content object, the content object representing the information associated with the title;

creating a title folder for containing the title;

creating at least one layout object on the publishing workstation, the layout object representing the layout of at least one page of the title, the layout object including a control object containing at least one control delineating a respective area of the layout page in which content is to be rendered;

creating a style object containing at least one style sheet representing a desired format for the content;

linking the control object with a respective content object;

linking the style object with the control object;

storing the layout object in the title folder; and

rendering the page of the title on a display of the customer workstation by;

selecting the page; and

rendering the linked content in the respective page layout area delineated by the control in the format represented by the style sheet in the linked style object.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the step of creating a content folder further comprises the step of creating tagged content.

19. The method according to claim 17, wherein the step of creating a layout object further comprises the step of creating search objects for drawing content from the content object.

20. The method according to claim 17, wherein the step of creating a control object includes the step of creating a static story control.

21. The method according to claim 17, wherein the step of creating a control object includes the step of creating a dynamic story control.

22. The method according to claim 17, further comprising the step of modifying the style sheet on the publisher workstation after the step of rendering the title on a display of the customer workstation.

23. The method according to claim 17, wherein the step of rendering the title on the customer workstation further comprises the steps of:

parsing content represented in the content object to determine a tag identifier; and

determining a style property from the style sheet based on the tag identifier.

24. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of providing each control with a setting representing the location of content to be displayed by that control.

25. The method of claim 17, wherein the step of rendering the title on the customer workstation comprises the step of loading the style sheet from a cache object store.

26. The method of claim 17, wherein the step of rendering the title on the customer workstation comprises the step of associating with the control with a globally unique identifier identifying the style sheet.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein the control object comprises two controls and wherein the step of rendering the title on the customer workstation comprises the step of rendering the same content with both controls.

28. In a publishing system including at least one publishing workstation for creating a title, a publishing method comprising the steps of:

creating a content folder containing at least one content object, the content object representing the information associated with the title;

creating a title folder for containing the title;

creating at least one layout object on the publishing workstation, the layout object representing the layout of at least one page of the title, the layout object including a control object containing at least one control delineating a respective area of the layout page in which content is to be rendered;

creating a style object containing at least one style sheet representing a desired format for the content;

linking the control object with a respective content object;

linking the style object with the control object; and

storing the layout object in the title folder.

29. The method according to claim 28, wherein the content object represents tagged content.

30. The method according to claim 28, wherein the layout object comprises search objects for drawing content from the content object.

31. The method according to claim 28, wherein the control object includes a static story control.

32. The method according to claim 28, wherein the control object includes a dynamic story control.

33. The method according to claim 28, further comprising the step of modifying the style sheet after the step of storing the layout object.

34. The method of claim 28, wherein the style sheet is provided with a globally unique identifier.

35. The method of claim 28, wherein the step of creating a layout object comprises the step of creating a control object representing two controls and wherein the step of linking the control object to the content object comprises linking both controls to the same content.