Automatically converting text to business graphics

• US 8,438,486 B2
• Filed: 02/09/2006
• Issued: 05/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Waldman, Lawrence Fubini, Wright, Dawn M., Pritting, Gary A., Gerhard, Lutz, Kotler, Matthew J., Shelly, Cynthia C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pesin, Boris
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wright, Elizabeth G
• Application Number:
  US11/351,341
• Publication Number:
  US 20070186168A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,644 Days
• Field of Search: 715/730, 715/732, 345/441
• US Class Current: 715/732
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/00 Digital computers in general details G06F1/00 – G06F13/00; Data processing equipment in general
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/109 Font handling; Temporal or kinetic typography
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/24 involving graphical user interfaces [GUIs]

Abstract

A facility for generating a graphic image is described. The facility receives from a user a body of text whose creation is not subject to any rules or prototypes. The facility discerns from the body of text a textual organization. The facility then generates a graphic image conveying the discerned textual organization.

Claims

1. A computing system comprising:

at least one processing unit; and

at least one memory having computer-readable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the computing system for perform a method, the method comprising;

receiving a selection of a body of text displayed within a presentation document, the body of text comprising at least a first line of text and a second line of text that have not been converted into a graphical image, the selected body of text having text formatting characteristics that define a hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text;

receiving a selection to convert the selected body of text into a graphical image comprising a hierarchical diagram;

receiving a selection of a graphic design from a gallery;

deriving a hierarchical structure from the hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text, the hierarchical structure having at least two levels and comprising at least a first textual element corresponding to the first line of text and a second textual element corresponding to the second line of text, the first textual element corresponding to a first level of the hierarchical structure and the second textual element corresponding to a second level of the hierarchical structure;

in response to receiving the selected graphic design and deriving the hierarchical structure, automatically generating the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram from the selected body of text, the graphical image comprising;

at least a first graphical element comprising the first textual element, wherein a shape of the first graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the first graphical element corresponds to the first level of the hierarchical structure;

at least a second graphical element comprising the second textual element, wherein a shape of the second graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the second graphical element corresponds to the second level of the hierarchical structure; and

replacing the selected body of text with the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram.

2. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the method is configured to generate the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram from any selected body of text having at least a first line of text and a second line of text.

3. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram reflects the hierarchical structure implied by the selected body of text, the hierarchical structure having a depth that is greater than or equal to two.

4. A computer-readable medium not consisting of a modulated data signal, the computer-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by a processing unit cause a computing system to perform a method for generating a graphical image comprising a hierarchical diagram, the method comprising:

receiving a selection of a body of text displayed within a presentation document comprising at least a first line of text and a second line of text that have not been converted into a graphical image, the selected body of text having text formatting characteristics that define a hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text;

receiving a selection to convert the selected body of text into the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram;

receiving a selection of a graphic design from a gallery;

after receiving the selected body of text and the selected graphic design, automatically discerning a textual organization of the selected body of text from the hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text, the discerned textual organization including a hierarchy having at least two levels and comprising at least a first textual element and a second textual element, the first textual element corresponding to the first line of text and the second textual element corresponding to the second line of text;

in response to automatically discerning the textual organization and receiving the selected graphic design, generating the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram from the selected body of text, the graphical image comprising;

at least a first graphical element comprising the first textual element, wherein a shape of the first graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the first graphical element corresponds to the first level of the hierarchy;

at least a second graphical element comprising the second textual element, wherein a shape of the second graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the second graphical element corresponds to the second level of the hierarchy; and

replacing the selected body of text with the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein the discerned textual organization includes an order among a plurality of textual elements that is depicted as an order among a plurality of graphical elements.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein the method further comprises, before receiving the selection of the graphic design, displaying one or more available graphic designs in the gallery.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein the one or more available graphic designs are displayed in an order corresponding to quantitative characterizations of the likelihood of each corresponding graphic design to produce good conversion results.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein the instructions that cause the computing system to perform the method comprise an application program having a release date, and wherein at least one graphic design of the one or more available graphic designs is displayed with an indication that the at least one graphic design was created after the release date of the application program.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the at least one graphic design is distributed separately from the application program.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein the method further comprises:

after generating the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram, receiving a selection of a second graphic design from the gallery; and

revising the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram in accordance with the selected second graphic design.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein the method further comprises adding the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram to a document, and wherein the selected body of text is entered into a client area of an application window of an application program being used to edit the document, and wherein the method further comprises receiving a convert to graphic command from the user at a time subsequent to the entry, and wherein the generating is performed in response to receiving the selection to convert the selected body of text into the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the selection to convert the body of text into the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram is based on a single user interaction, and wherein generating the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram is performed solely in response to receiving the selection to convert the selected body of text into the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, further comprising:

substantially simultaneously displaying the graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram with the selected body of text;

receiving edits to the selected body of text; and

solely in response to the receiving, altering the displayed graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram in accordance with the edits to the selected body of text, such that the altered graphical image comprising the hierarchical diagram is based on the edited selected body of text.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein the first graphical element has at least one visual feature displayed in addition to the first textual element, and the second graphical element has at least one visual feature displayed in addition to the second textual element.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, further comprising:

substantially simultaneously displaying the selected body of text and the hierarchical diagram;

receiving edits to the displayed hierarchical diagram; and

solely in response to the receiving, altering the displayed selected body of text in accordance with the edits to the displayed hierarchical diagram, such that the altered selected body of text is based on the edited displayed hierarchical diagram.

14. A method in a computing system for transforming textual content to a hierarchical graphic image, comprising:

receiving input selecting a body of text displayed within a presentation document comprising at least a first line of text and a second line of text that are not included in a hierarchical graphical image, the selected textual content having text formatting characteristics that define a hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text;

receiving a selection of a convert to graphic command;

receiving a selection of a graphic design from a gallery;

automatically deriving a hierarchical structure of the selected textual content from the hierarchical relationship between the first line of text and the second line of text, the hierarchical structure having at least a first textual element corresponding to the first line of text and a second textual element corresponding to the second line of text, the first textual element corresponding to a first level of the hierarchical structure and the second textual element corresponding to a second level of the hierarchical structure;

in response to receiving the selected graphical design and automatically deriving the hierarchical structure, generating the hierarchical graphic image from the selected textual content, the hierarchical graphical image comprising;

at least a first graphical element comprising the first textual element, wherein a shape of the first graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the first graphical element corresponds to the first level of the hierarchical structure;

at least a second graphical element comprising the second textual element, wherein a shape of the second graphical element is determined by the selected graphic design, and wherein the second graphical element corresponds to the second level of the hierarchical structure; and

replacing the selected textual content with the hierarchical graphic image.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the selected graphic design is manually selected.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising, before the deriving and replacing, automatically adjusting the selected textual content.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising scaling the hierarchical graphic image to occupy substantially the same region of the document occupied by the selected textual content before the replacement.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

subsequently to the replacing, receiving edits to the hierarchical graphic image; and

solely in response to the receiving, altering the selected body of text in accordance with the edits to the hierarchical graphic image, such that the altered selected body of text is based on the edited hierarchical graphic image.