Creating and editing documents

• US 6,134,563 A
• Filed: 09/19/1997
• Issued: 10/17/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Modernsoft Incorporated
• Inventors: Wu, John, Helfert, Erich A., Hecht, Lee, Clancey, William J., Canty, Edgar P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Feild, Joseph H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kindred, Alford W.
• Application Number:
  US08/933,584
• Time in Patent Office: 1,124 Days
• Field of Search: 707/500-508, 707/102, 707/7, 707/526, 705/26-35, 705/36-40, 364/468.1, 706/45-56
• US Class Current: 715/210
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/183 Tabulation, i.e. one-dimensional positioning

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of creating and editing a document containing one or more terms. A knowledge base containing a set of terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating terms to each other is provided. The one or more predefined properties associated with a user-selected term are identified. Constraints are imposed on user manipulation of the document with respect to the user-selected term in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the user-selected term. In a particular implementation, a method of creating and editing a financial document containing one or more financial terms is described. The tasks of creating and editing documents are simplified by the separation of the presentation of information contained in a document from underlying representation of calculations and interrelationships. A user may readily manipulate the content and appearance of domain-specific (e.g., financial) analyses, without having repeatedly to define and verify calculations. A user may define and customize standard reports with a simple palette of powerful editing tools that implement and maintain the semantics of the items in a document. This frees the user from having to handle the underlying references directly, allowing the user to focus instead upon concepts and contexts contained within the document.

Claims

1. A method of processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, comprising:

opening an electronic spreadsheet;

providing a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

receiving a user selection of a financial term contained in the financial knowledge base, the user-selected financial term having one or more predefined properties defined in the financial knowledge base; and

receiving a user request to insert the user-selected financial term into the spreadsheet and, in response, automatically inserting into the spreadsheet the user-selected financial term and one or more financial terms defined by the financial knowledge base as being related to the user-selected financial term.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing one or more tools for manipulating terms contained in the electronic spreadsheet; and

maintaining consistency of the manipulated terms in accordance with the properties associated with the manipulated terms and in accordance with relevant interrelationships defined in the knowledge base, the relevant interrelationships being between the terms in the electronic spreadsheet including the manipulated terms.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising changing the electronic spreadsheet in accordance with the one or more properties of a second user-selected financial term in response to a user action calling for a change in the electronic spreadsheet relating to the second user-selected financial term.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising substituting a user-defined alias for a predefined financial term name defined in the financial knowledge base, and further comprising recording an alias for the inserted financial term in response to user action.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein changing the spreadsheet comprises duplicating the second user-selected financial term in response to a user action, wherein a user-defined duplicate financial term is inserted into the spreadsheet and the sum of the duplicated financial term and the user-defined duplicate financial term is substituted in spreadsheet equations where the duplicated financial term appeared before being duplicated.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein changing the spreadsheet comprises itemizing the second user-selected financial term in response to a user action, wherein the second user-selected financial term is converted into a total expression associated with a value derived from one or more user-defined financial terms.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising inserting into the spreadsheet the one or more user-defined inputs from which the value associated with the itemized financial term is derived.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the user-selected financial term is a financial section header and the related financial terms are defined by the financial knowledge base as being part of a financial section labeled with the financial section header.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the user-selected financial term is a calculated term defined by the financial knowledge base as being associated with a value derived from values associated with the related financial terms.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising converting the user-selected calculated term into an input term that is associated with a value obtained from an input sheet.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising re-converting the input term back into the calculated term defined by the financial knowledge base as being associated with a value derived from values associated with the related financial terms.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the user-selected financial term is a total expression and the related financial terms are defined by the knowledge base as being inputs to a spreadsheet formula associated with the user-selected financial term for deriving a value for the total expression.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein imposing constraints comprises preventing a user from deleting certain financial terms from the spreadsheet.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising preventing a user from deleting from the spreadsheet a calculated financial term used in a spreadsheet formula associated with another financial term in the spreadsheet.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising preventing a user from deleting from the spreadsheet an itemized financial term associated with a spreadsheet formula summing together one or more user-defined itemization financial terms in the spreadsheet.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising maintaining a stored representation of the spreadsheet including a record of user actions changing one or more predefined properties of terms inserted into the spreadsheet for the definitions of the terms contained in the knowledge base.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising updating the stored representation of the spreadsheet in response to a user action deleting a term from the spreadsheet.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein updating the stored representation comprises updating an itemization count associated with an itemized financial term in response to a deletion of an itemization of the itemized financial term.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein updating the stored representation comprises updating duplicate count associated with a duplicated financial term in response to a deletion of a duplicate of the duplicated financial term.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising deleting from the spreadsheet a calculated financial term which has no direct dependents on the spreadsheet in response to a user action, and deleting from the spreadsheet financial terms referenced in a spreadsheet formula for the deleted calculated term.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein a calculated term, which has no direct dependents on the spreadsheet, is referenced in the spreadsheet formula for the deleted calculated term, and further comprising deleting from the spreadsheet the referenced calculated term and deleting from the spreadsheet financial terms referenced in a spreadsheet formula for the referenced calculated term.

22. The method of claim 1 further comprising characterizing a financial term as either an input term or a calculated term, and further comprising recording a user-requested change in the predefined status property from an input term to a calculated term or from a calculated term to an input term.

23. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

opening a second electronic spreadsheet; and

inserting into the second spreadsheet all of the financial terms needed to populate the first spreadsheet with values.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising deleting from the second spreadsheet financial terms not needed to populate the first spreadsheet as a result of user changes to the first spreadsheet.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising populating the second spreadsheet with values obtained from a database.

26. The method of claim 1 further comprising populating the spreadsheet with formulas for deriving values for financial terms contained in the spreadsheet.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein populating the spreadsheet with formulas comprises obtaining predefined formulas for calculated terms from the financial knowledge base.

28. The method of claim 27 further comprising substituting into the predefined formulas obtained from the financial knowledge base user-defined aliases for one or more terms appearing in the spreadsheet.

29. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying the properties associated with one or more terms contained within the electronic spreadsheet.

30. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

imposing constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the user-selected financial term in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties of the user-selected financial term.

31. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

changing the spreadsheet in accordance with the one or more properties of the user-selected financial term in response to a user action calling for a change in the spreadsheet relating to the user-selected financial term.

32. A method of processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, comprising:

opening an electronic spreadsheet;

providing a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

imposing constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

receiving a user action substituting a user-defined alias for a predefined financial term name defined in the financial knowledge base and recording an alias for the inserted financial term in response to user action.

33. A method of processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, comprising:

opening an electronic spreadsheet;

providing a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

imposing constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

changing the spreadsheet in response to a user action, the changing comprising duplicating a user-selected financial term in response to the user action, wherein a user-defined duplicate financial term is inserted into the spreadsheet and the sum of the duplicated financial term and the user-defined duplicate financial term is substituted in spreadsheet equations where the duplicated financial term appeared before being duplicated.

34. A method of processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, comprising:

opening an electronic spreadsheet;

providing a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

imposing constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

changing the spreadsheet in response to a user action, the changing comprising itemizing a user-selected financial term in response to a user action, wherein the user-selected financial term is converted into a total expression associated with a value derived from one or more user-defined financial terms.

35. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, for processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

open an electronic spreadsheet;

open a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

receive a user selection of a financial term contained in the financial knowledge base, the user-selected financial term having one or more predefined properties defined in the financial knowledge base; and

receive a user request to insert the user-selected financial term into the spreadsheet and, in response, automatically insert into the spreadsheet the user-selected financial term and one or more financial terms defined by the financial knowledge base as being related to the user-selected financial term.

36. The product of claim 35, further comprising instructions to:

impose constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the user-selected financial term in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties of the user-selected financial term.

37. The product of claim 35, further comprising instructions to:

change the spreadsheet in accordance with the one or more properties of the user-selected financial term in response to a user action calling for a change in the spreadsheet relating to the user-selected financial term.

38. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, for processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

open an electronic spreadsheet;

open a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

impose constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

receive a user action substituting a user-defined alias for a predefined financial term name defined in the financial knowledge base and record an alias for the inserted financial term in response to user action.

39. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, for processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

open an electronic spreadsheet;

open a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

impose constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

change the spreadsheet in response to a user action, the change comprising duplicating a user-selected financial term in response to the user action, wherein a user-defined duplicate financial term is inserted into the spreadsheet and the sum of the duplicated financial term and the user-defined duplicate financial term is substituted in spreadsheet equations where the duplicated financial term appeared before being duplicated.

40. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable medium, for processing a financial spreadsheet containing one or more financial terms, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

open an electronic spreadsheet;

open a financial knowledge base containing a set of financial terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating financial terms to each other;

impose constraints on user manipulation of the spreadsheet with respect to the financial terms in the set in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the financial terms; and

change the spreadsheet in response to a user action, the change comprising itemizing a user-selected financial term in response to a user action, wherein the user-selected financial term is converted into a total expression associated with a value derived from one or more user-defined financial terms.