Describing documents and expressing document structure

• US 6,993,527 B1
• Filed: 12/21/1998
• Issued: 01/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Caro, Perry A., Raman, T. V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kindred, Alford W.
• Application Number:
  US09/582,355
• Time in Patent Office: 2,598 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 3, 707/4, 707/7, 707/10, 707100-103, 707/103.C, 707/200, 707/205, 715500-516, 709200-201
• US Class Current: 715/237
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/322 Trees
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

Apparatus and methods of revealing the hierarchical structure of a document having content of a characteristic type of content are described (100). The hierarchical structure may be expressed, independently of document content type, as a tree structure of one or more nodes (126) A semantic representation for interpreting the tree structure may also be provided, document description files are used to encapsulate structural and meta information associated with a document stored on a computer-readable medium (156). Document description files are external to native application files and have a set of required fields. Document description files point to the referenced document data using uniform resource locators (URLS) and serve as virtual documents. In addition to the required fields, applications can choose to encode additional structural information in the document description files.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating a first document description file for describing a document stored on a computer-readable medium, comprising;

generating a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application program, that produced the document, and including the generated description of the application in the first document description file;

generating a description of a location from which the document can be obtained, and including the generated description of the location in the first document description file; and

generating a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the document, and including the generated description specifying the computer-program-implemented operation in the first document description file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the description of the location comprises a uniform resource locator.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the uniform resource locator identifies a server configured to produce the document upon request.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the uniform resource locator identifies a location at which the document is stored.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the operation comprises a transformation of the document from a file stored in a first storage format to a file stored in a second storage format; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the file stored in the second storage format.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the second document description file describes the first document description file.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the operation comprises extraction of information from the document; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the information extracted from the document.

8. The method of claim 7, further wherein the second document description file describes the first document description file.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the information extracted from the document describes a range of pages of the document.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the document represents a multi-layered graphical object, and the information extracted from the document describes a subset of the layers of the multi-layered graphical object.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating application-specific data describing the document.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein application-specific data comprises a name of an application that produced the document.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein application-specific data comprises a version number of an application that produced the document.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a field containing information describing the document.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the field is an HTTP header.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the field describes a date on which the document was produced.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the field describes a date on which the document was modified.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the field describes a size of the document.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the field describes content contained in the document.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the content of the first document description file is represented in XML syntax.

21. A method comprising:

receiving from a client (i) a request for information derived from a first document and (ii) a first document description file, the first document being stored on a first computer-readable medium, the first document being described by the first document description file, the first document description file comprising;

a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application program, that produced the first document;

a description of a location from which the first document can be obtained;

a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the first document;

retrieving the information derived from the first document; and

generating a second document description file describing the information derived from the first document, the second document description file comprising;

a description of an application for the derived information, the application being a content authoring application program;

a description of a location from which the derived information can be obtained;

a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the derived information.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein retrieving the information derived from the first document comprises retrieving a second document, stored on a computer readable medium, containing the information derived from the first document.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein retrieving the information derived from the first document comprises performing the operation on the first document to produce the information derived from the first document.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises a second document.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the second document description file comprises a pointer to the second document.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the pointer comprises a uniform resource locator.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising transmitting the second document to the client.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises the first document.

29. The method of claim 21, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises a pointer to the first document.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the pointer comprises a uniform resource locator.

31. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

transmitting the second document description file to the client.

32. The method of claim 21, wherein the first document description file contains the request.

33. A document description file, stored on a computer-readable medium, for describing a document stored on a computer-readable medium, the document description file comprising:

a description of an application program that produced the document, the application being a content authoring application program;

a description of a location from which the document can be obtained; and

a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the document.

34. The document description file of claim 33, wherein:

the operation that can be performed on the document comprises a transformation of the document from a file stored in a first storage format to a file stored in a second storage format; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the file stored in the second storage format.

35. The document description file of claim 33, wherein:

the operation that can be performed on the document comprises extraction of information from the document; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the information extracted from the document.

36. The document description file of claim 33, further comprising a description of an operation to be performed on the document.

37. A method executed on a computer for retrieving information derived from a first document, the first document being stored on a computer-readable medium, the method comprising:

retrieving by a first client a first document description file, stored on a computer-readable medium, in response to a request from a second client, the first document description file describing (i) an application, the application being a content authoring application program, that produced the first document, (ii) a location from which the first document can be obtained, and (iii) a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the first document;

using the first document description file to retrieve the information derived from the first document; and

transmitting the information derived from the first document to the second client.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein using the first document description file to retrieve the information derived from the first document comprises retrieving a second document, stored on a computer readable medium, containing the information derived from the first document.

39. The method of claim 37, wherein using the first document description file to retrieve the information derived from the first document comprises performing the operation on the first document to produce the information derived from the first document.

40. The method of claim 37, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises a second document.

41. The method of claim 37, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises the first document.

42. A system comprising:

a first computer-readable medium having a first document produced by a first application;

a second computer-readable medium having a first document description file describing (i) the first application, the first application being a content authoring application program, (ii) a location on the first computer-readable medium from which the first document can be obtained, and (iii) a description of a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the first document; and

a server configured to produce information derived from the first document.

43. The system of claim 42, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises a second document.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the information derived from the first document comprises a second document description file describing the second document.

45. The system of claim 44, wherein the second document description file further describes the first document description file.

46. The system of claim 42, wherein the first and second computer-readable media are the same computer-readable media.

47. The system of claim 42, wherein the first and second computer-readable media are different computer-readable media.

48. A method executed on a computer, comprising:

generating a composite document description file for describing a combination of a first document description file and a second document description file, the method comprising;

generating a description of the combination;

generating a description of the first document description file that includes (i) a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application, that produced a first document, (ii) a description of a location from which the first document can be obtained, and (iii) a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the first document; and

generating a description of the second document description file that includes (i) a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application, that produced a second document, (ii) a description of a location from which the second document can be obtained, and (iii) a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the second document.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein the combination is an aggregation of the first document description file and the second document description file.

50. The method of claim 48, wherein the combination is an alternation of the first document description file and the second document description file.

51. The method of claim 48, further comprising:

generating a description of an operation that can be performed on the first document description file and the second document description file.

52. A composite document description file, stored on a computer-readable medium, the composite document description file comprising:

a description of a combination of a first document description file and a second document description file;

a description of the first document description file, the description including (i) a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application, that produced a first document, (ii) a description of a location from which the first document can be obtained, and (iii) a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the first document; and

a description of the second document description file, the description including (i) a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application, that produced a second document, (ii) a description of a location from which the second document can be obtained, and (iii) a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the second document.

53. The document description file of claim 52, wherein the combination is an aggregation of the first document description file and the second document description file.

54. The document description file of claim 52, wherein the combination is an alternation of the first document description file and the second document description file.

55. The document description file of claim 52, further comprising a description of an operation that can be performed on the first document description file and the second document description file.

56. A computer program product, tangibly stored on machine-readable medium, the product comprising instructions operable to cause a processor to:

generate a first document description file for describing a document stored on a computer-readable medium, wherein instructions to generate the first document description file includes instructions to;

generate a description of an application, the application being a content authoring application program, that produced the document, and include the generated description of the application in the first document description file;

generate a description of a location from which the document can be obtained, and include the generated description of the location in the first document description file; and

generate a description specifying a computer-program-implemented operation that can be performed on the document, and include the generated description specifying the computer-program-implemented operation in the first document description file.

57. The product of claim 56, wherein the description of the location comprises a uniform resource locator.

58. The product of claim 56, wherein:

the operation comprises a transformation of the document from a file stored in a first storage format to a file stored in a second storage format; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the file stored in the second storage format.

59. The product of claim 56, wherein:

the operation comprises extraction of information from the document; and

the operation produces a second document description file that describes the information extracted from the document.

60. The product of claim 59, wherein the second document description file describes the first document description file.

61. The product of claim 56, further comprising instructions to:

generate application-specific data describing the document.

62. The product of claim 60, wherein application-specific data comprises one of a name of an application that produced the document or a version number of an application that produced the document.