Representing latent data in an extensible markup language document
First Claim
1. A method of representing formatting functionality available to an application program for applying to a document, comprising:
- saving a document as an Extensible Markup Language (XML) representation whereby XML markup is applied to the document to represent text and data objects, properties and attributes including formatting styles applied to the document;
enumerating all formatting styles available to the document according to functionality of an application program creating or editing the document;
setting a default designation for the enumerated formatting styles as locked for use or locked for non-use;
for any of the enumerated formatting styles that may be used or that may not be used in contradiction to the default designation for all enumerated formatting styles, designating said any of the enumerated formatting styles as an exception to the default designation; and
saving data identifying the enumerated formatting styles, identifying the default designation, and identifying any exceptions to the default designation to a data structure separate from the document;
wherein when the default designation is set as locked for non-use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are available for use; and
wherein when the default designation is set as locked for use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are not available for use.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and systems allow style and other formatting settings to remain latent until one or more particular style or formatting settings is instantiated by a user. Data representing each latent style or formatting object is persisted in a data structure apart from the user'"'"'s document. Each potential style setting or formatting setting may be set as locked for use for a given document or locked for non-use for a given document. Upon saving the document, no data is saved for the numerous available style and formatting settings in the document. When a particular style is called upon by a subsequent consuming application, that application may then instantiate the particular style or formatting setting based on the properties of that style or formatting setting available from the subsequent consuming application.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A method of representing formatting functionality available to an application program for applying to a document, comprising:
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saving a document as an Extensible Markup Language (XML) representation whereby XML markup is applied to the document to represent text and data objects, properties and attributes including formatting styles applied to the document; enumerating all formatting styles available to the document according to functionality of an application program creating or editing the document; setting a default designation for the enumerated formatting styles as locked for use or locked for non-use; for any of the enumerated formatting styles that may be used or that may not be used in contradiction to the default designation for all enumerated formatting styles, designating said any of the enumerated formatting styles as an exception to the default designation; and saving data identifying the enumerated formatting styles, identifying the default designation, and identifying any exceptions to the default designation to a data structure separate from the document; wherein when the default designation is set as locked for non-use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are available for use; and wherein when the default designation is set as locked for use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are not available for use. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium having control logic stored therein for causing a computer to represent formatting functionality available to an application program for applying to a document, the control logic comprising computer-readable program code for causing the computer to:
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save a document as an Extensible Markup Language (XML) representation whereby XML markup is applied to the document to represent text and data objects, properties and attributes including formatting styles applied to the document; enumerate all formatting styles available to the document according to functionality of an application program creating or editing the document; setting a default designation for the enumerated formatting styles as locked for use or locked for non-use; for any of the enumerated formatting styles that may be used or that may not be used in contradiction to the default designation for all enumerated formatting styles, designate said any of the enumerated formatting styles as an exception to the default designation; and save data identifying the enumerated formatting styles, identifying the default designation, and identifying any exceptions to the default designation to a data structure separate from the document; wherein when the default designation is set as locked for non-use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are available for use; and wherein when the default designation is set as locked for use, the any exceptions comprise a minority of the enumerated formatting styles and are not available for use. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification