Creating summaries along with indicators, and automatically positioned tabs

• US 6,533,822 B2
• Filed: 01/30/1998
• Issued: 03/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Majandro LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Kupiec, Julian M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Paula, Cesar B
• Application Number:
  US09/016,224
• Publication Number:
  US 20020010719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,873 Days
• Field of Search: 707/500, 707/501, 707/530, 707/531, 345/775-777
• US Class Current: 715/253
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/345 Summarisation for human users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/258 Heading extraction; Automatic titling; Numbering

Abstract

A method and a system for generating a document summary. The method and the system extract text along with corresponding position information from a document, provide the extracted text to a document summarizer and generates a summary with indicators that indicate the corresponding locations in the document from which the summary portions were extracted.

Claims

1. A method for summarizing a document using a document summarizer, the method comprising:

extracting text from the document along with corresponding location information;

identifying portions of the extracted text that reflect the content of the document;

generating a presentation file that includes the identified portions, and a first set of unique indicators and corresponding unique tabs that are automatically positioned within the presentation file, each unique indicator corresponding to one of the identified portions and indicating the location of a corresponding extracted text in the document, and each unique tab indicating a vertical position of the extracted text in the presentation file; and

presenting the presentation file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the location information comprises page and line numbers.

3. The method of claim 1, where the location information comprises structural information.

4. The method of claim 3, where the structural information comprises one of a volume number, a section number, a chapter number, a paragraph number, a sentence number, a phrase number, and a word number.

5. The method of claim 1, where the location information comprises layout information.

6. The method of claim 1, where the location information comprises vertical and horizontal position information.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the document as being of a predetermined type, wherein the extracting and identifying correspond to the predetermined type.

8. The method of claim 7, where the document is identified as being of a predetermined type by a user input.

9. The method of claim 1, where the generating comprises placing the first set of indicators adjacent to the corresponding identified portions on the summary.

10. The method of claim 9, where the generating further comprises placing a second set of indicators on the margin of a summary page at the vertical positions that correspond to the vertical positions of the corresponding extracted text portions of the document and where the second set of indicators correspond to the first set of indicators.

11. The method of claim 10, where the to generating further comprises generating leaders from each of the first set of indicators to each of the corresponding second set of indicators.

12. The method of claim 1, where the to generating comprises:

generating a second set of indicators that correspond to the first set of indicators; and

placing the second set of indicators in the layout of the document adjacent to the corresponding extracted text.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first set of indicators comprise presenting each corresponding portion of summary in a presentation attribute that corresponds to the second set of indicators that comprise the presentation of the corresponding extracted text of the document in the same corresponding presentation attribute.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the presentation attribute is one of bold, italics, capitals, underline, character size, font, font color, background color, contrast, intensity, brightness, flashing, scrolling, motion, volume, reverberation, tone and balance.

15. An automatic document summarizer system, comprising:

a processor that comprises;

a text extractor that extracts text from a document along with corresponding extracted text location information;

a document summarizer that identifies portions of the extracted text that reflect the content of the document; and

a presentation file formatter that formats the layout of a presentation file that includes the identified portions, and a first set of unique indicators and corresponding unique tabs that are automatically positioned within the presentation file, each unique indicator corresponding to one of the identified portions and indicating the location of a corresponding extracted text in the document, and each unique tab indicating a vertical position of the extracted text in the presentation file; and

a presentation system that presents the presentation file.

16. The summarizer of claim 15, where the location information comprises page and line numbers.

17. The summarizer of claim 15, where the location information comprises structural information.

18. The summarizer of claim 15, where the structural information comprises one of a volume number, a section number, a chapter number, a paragraph number, a sentence number, a phrase number, and a word number.

19. The summarizer of claim 15, where the location information comprises layout information.

20. The summarizer of claim 15, where the location information comprises vertical and horizontal position information.

21. The summarizer of claim 15, wherein the processor further comprises a document type identifier that identifies the document as being of a predetermined type, wherein the text extractor extracts the text using a method corresponding to the identified predetermined type and the document summarizer identifies portions using a method corresponding to the identified predetermined type.

22. The summarizer of claim 21, wherein the document type identifier comprises a type identifying user interface.

23. The summarizer of claim 15, where the presentation file formatter places the first set of indicators adjacent to the corresponding identified portions in the layout.

24. The summarizer of claim 23, where the presentation file formatter also places a second set of indicators in the margin of a summary page at vertical positions that correspond to the vertical positions of the corresponding extracted text portions of the document and where the second set of indicators correspond to the first set of indicators.

25. The summarizer of claim 24, where the presentation file formatter also generates leaders from each of the first set of indicators to each of the corresponding second set of indicators.

26. The summarizer of claim 15, where the presentation file formatter generates a second set of indicators that correspond to the first set of indicators and places the second set of indicators in the layout of the document adjacent to the corresponding extracted text.

27. The summarizer of claim 26, wherein the first set of indicators comprise presenting each corresponding portion of summary in a presentation attribute that corresponds to the second set of indicators that comprise the presentation of the corresponding extracted text of the document in the same corresponding presentation attribute.

28. The summarizer of claim 27, wherein the presentation attribute is one of bold, italics, capitals, underline, character size, font, font color, background color, contrast, intensity, brightness, flashing, scrolling, motion, volume, reverberation, tone and balance.