Selection of text in an unstructured document

• US 8,352,855 B2
• Filed: 06/07/2009
• Issued: 01/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Levy, Michael Robert, Mansfield, Philip Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Hutton, Jr., Doug
• Assistant Examiner(s): MCINTOSH, ANDREW T
• Application Number:
  US12/479,845
• Publication Number:
  US 20100174983A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,311 Days
• Field of Search: 715/276, 715/243, 715/238, 715/234
• US Class Current: 715/243
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/126 Character encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/163 Handling of whitespace
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for defining a selection of text in an unstructured document that includes a number of glyphs. The method identifies associated sets of glyphs and a reading order that specifies a flow of reading through the glyphs. The method displays the document. The method receives a start point and end point for a selection of text within the displayed document. The method defines a selection of text from the start point to the end point by using the identified sets of glyphs and intended flow of reading.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor defines a selection of text in a document, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving an unstructured document comprising a plurality of unassociated glyphs;

associating sets of glyphs into a plurality of columns;

creating a structured document from the unstructured document comprising a plurality of layouts and a flow of reading through the plurality of layouts, each particular layout comprising at least one of the plurality of columns and a reading order for the columns within the particular layout;

displaying the structured document;

receiving a start point in a first column in a first layout and an end point in a second column in a second, different layout, the second layout having an order value after the first layout; and

defining a selection of text from the start point to the end point by using the structured document, the selection including (i) all glyphs after the start point in the first column in the first layout according to the reading order for the columns in the first layout, (ii) all glyphs of the columns of the intervening layouts between the first and second layouts according to the flow of reading through the layouts, and (iii) all glyphs that precede the end point in the second layout according to the reading order for the columns in the second layout.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises a set of instructions for associating sets of glyphs into a plurality of paragraphs, wherein the flow of reading runs from a first paragraph to a second paragraph that is not contiguous with the first paragraph.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the computer program further comprises sets of instructions for:

determining whether the start point is after the end point in the flow of reading; and

when the start point is after the end point, switching the start point and the end point for the selection so that the start point is before the end point in the flow of reading.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the start point and end point for the selection of text are received through a click and drag selection with a cursor controller.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the start point is a location of a cursor when a cursor controller button is pressed and the end point is a location of the cursor after the cursor is moved from the start point.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the start point and end point for the text selection are received through a touchscreen gesture.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6, wherein the start point is a location at which a user initially touches the touchscreen with an object and the end point is a location to which the user has dragged the object.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the object is the user'"'"'s finger.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the selection of text further comprises glyphs not visually located between the start point and the end point.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the glyphs not visually located between the start point and the end point are selected as a result of the flow of reading through the layouts.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a vector graphics document.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a portable document format (PDF) document.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the selection of text is for copying and pasting into a second document, wherein the text is pasted into the second document with the flow of reading maintained.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for execution by at least one processor, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

analyzing an unstructured document that comprises a plurality of primitive elements to create a structured document from the unstructured document as a hierarchical model of the unstructured document, the structured document comprising a plurality of layouts and a reading order through the layouts, the layouts comprising separate ordered sequences of text columns;

displaying the structured document;

receiving a start point in a first layout and an initial end point in a second, different layout for a selection of text in the displayed structured document;

automatically moving the initial end point to a new end point within the first layout based on positions of the start point and the initial end point in order for the start point and the end point to be in the same layout; and

selecting text in the structured document from the start point to the new end point by using the reading order in the first layout.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the structured document is displayed on a handheld display device.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the start point is in a column of text within an article and the initial end point is within a call-out for the article.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the set of instructions for automatically moving the initial end point to the new end point comprises a set of instructions for moving the initial end point to a column of text in the article.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the set of instructions for selecting text comprises a set of instructions for selecting all text in the columns of the article.

19. A method for defining a selection of text in a document, the method comprising:

receiving an unstructured document comprising a plurality of unassociated glyphs;

associating sets of glyphs in a plurality of layouts, the layouts comprising separate ordered sequences of text columns;

identifying a reading order that specifies a flow of reading through the glyphs;

creating a structured document from the unstructured document, the structured document comprising the plurality of layouts and the reading order through the glyphs;

displaying the structured document;

receiving a start point in a first layout and an initial end point in the structured document for a selection of text within the displayed structured document;

calculating a line from the start point to the initial end point;

automatically selecting a new end point along the line; and

defining a selection of text from the start point to the new end point by using the identified sets of glyphs and the intended flow of reading.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the initial end point is not in one of the layouts, wherein automatically selecting the new point along the line comprises selecting the new end point at a point along the line in any layout closest to the initial end point.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the initial end point is in a second layout different from the first layout, wherein automatically selecting the new point along the line comprises selecting the new end point at a point along the line in the first layout that is closest to the initial end point.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the new end point is a particular glyph intersected by the line in the first layout.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the particular glyph is the closest intersected glyph in the first layout to the initial end point.

24. The method of claim 19, wherein the new end point is an intersection of the line and a bounding box of the first layout.