Text reflow in a structured document

• US 7,937,654 B1
• Filed: 03/30/2009
• Issued: 05/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Ayers, Robert M., Sites, Richard L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang; Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chu; David H
• Application Number:
  US12/414,086
• Time in Patent Office: 764 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 715/252
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/189 Automatic justification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/191 Automatic line break hyphenation

Abstract

A method and computer program product for reflowing a PDL page without using the original application used to create the PDL page. The method and computer program product include receiving a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects, and changing one or both of a size of the page and a size of one or more of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects.

Claims

1. A method for reflowing a page, comprising:

receiving, in a processor, a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

changing a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension without changing the size of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the changed size as in the first dimension, and, adding textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the textual elements to the one or more new pages and the graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of adding the graphical elements according to the map comprises:

associating one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determining distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

selecting positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the associating step comprises:

associating a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the first dimension.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein

the associating step includes associating a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the selecting step includes scaling the given graphical element when a distance in the first dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance between the plurality of given textual elements in the one or more new pages.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

6. A method for reflowing a page, comprising:

receiving, in a processor, a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

changing a size of the page objects without changing the size of the page, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a dimension of the page, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in the further dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the dimension and the positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of adding the scaled graphical elements according to the map comprises:

associating one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determining distances in the dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

selecting positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the associating step comprises:

associating a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the further dimension.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein

the associating step includes associating a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the selecting step includes scaling the given graphical element in the dimension when a distance in the dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance in the one or more new pages between a plurality of scaled textual elements corresponding to the plurality of given textual elements.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

11. A method for reflowing a page, comprising:

receiving, in a processor, a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

changing a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension, and changing a size of one or more of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size of the page includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in the second dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of adding the graphical elements according to the map comprises:

associating one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determining distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

selecting positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the associating step comprises:

associating a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the first dimension.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein

the associating step includes associating a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the selecting step includes scaling the given graphical element when a distance in the dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance in the one or more new pages between a plurality of scaled textual elements corresponding to the plurality of given textual elements.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the amount of size change of a page object depends on the type of the page object.

17. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable storage device, for reflowing a page, comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension without changing the size of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the changed size in the first dimension, and, adding the textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the textual elements to the one or more new pages and the graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to add the graphical elements according to the map include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the first dimension.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein

the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to

associate a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to

scale the given graphical element when a distance in the first dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance between the plurality of given textual elements in the one or more new pages.

21. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

22. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable storage device, for reflowing a page, comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page objects without changing the size of the page, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a dimension of the page, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in a further dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the dimension and the positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to add include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

24. The computer program product of claim 23, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in, the further dimension.

25. The computer program product of claim 23, wherein

the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to select include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to scale the given graphical element in the dimension when a distance in the dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance in the one or more new pages between a plurality of scaled textual elements corresponding to the plurality of given textual elements.

26. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

27. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a computer-readable storage device, for reflowing a page, comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension, and changing a size of one or more of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size of the page includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in a further dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

28. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to add the graphical elements according to the map include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

29. The computer program product of claim 28, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

associate a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the first dimension.

30. The computer program product of claim 28, wherein the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to associate a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to select include instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to scale the given graphical element when a distance in the dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance in the one or more new pages between a plurality of scaled textual elements corresponding to the plurality of given textual elements.

31. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

32. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the amount of size change of a page object depends on the type of the page object.

33. A system, comprising:

a computer system comprising;

a memory for storing instructions; and

a processor for executing the stored instructions to;

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension without changing the size of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the changed size in the first dimension, and, adding textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the textual elements to the one or more new pages and the graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the processor is further configured to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the processor is further configured to:

associate a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in the first dimension.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the processor is further configured to

associate a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

wherein to associate, the processor is configured to

scale the given graphical element when a distance in the first dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance between the plurality of given textual elements in the one or more new pages.

37. The system of claim 33, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

38. A system comprising:

a computer system comprising;

a memory for storing instructions; and

a processor for executing the stored instructions to;

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page objects without changing the size of the page, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a dimension of the page, wherein changing the size includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in a further dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the dimension and positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the processor is further configured to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and the positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein the processor is further configured to:

associate a particular graphical element with a particular textual element that is nearest to the particular graphical element in, the further dimension.

41. The system of claim 39, wherein

the processor is configured to associate a given graphical element with a plurality of given textual elements;

and

the processor is configured to scale the given graphical element in the dimension when a distance in the dimension between the plurality of given textual elements in the page differs from a corresponding distance in the one or more new pages between a plurality of scaled textual elements corresponding to the plurality of given textual elements.

42. The system of claim 38, wherein the textual elements are organized as words.

43. A system comprising:

a computer system comprising;

a memory for storing instructions; and

a processor for executing the stored instructions to;

receive a page represented in a page description language, the page including a plurality of page objects that include at least one item of text and at least one graphical element; and

change a size of the page to a changed size in a first dimension, and change a size of one or more of the page objects, while maintaining spatial relationships between the page objects in a second dimension, wherein changing the size of the page includes creating one or more new pages having the same size as the page in the second dimension, and, adding scaled versions of textual and graphical elements to the one or more new pages, wherein adding includes identifying distances in the second dimension between one or more textual elements and one or more graphical elements, and adding the scaled textual elements to the one or more new pages and the scaled graphical elements to the one or more new pages based on the distances in the second dimension and positions of the scaled textual elements in the one or more new pages, wherein identifying distances includes creating a map containing the positions of the textual elements in the page, and augmenting the map with the positions of the textual elements in the one or more new pages to produce a relationship for each textual element between the position of the textual element in the page and the position of the corresponding scaled textual element in the one or more new pages, wherein the scaled graphical elements are added to the one or more new pages according to the map.

44. The system of claim 43, wherein the processor is further configured to:

associate one or more particular textual elements with one or more particular graphical elements;

determine distances in the second dimension between the particular textual elements and the particular graphical elements; and

select positions in the one or more new pages for placement of the scaled graphical elements corresponding to the particular graphical elements based on the distances and positions of scaled textual elements corresponding to the particular textual elements in the one or more new pages as listed in the map.