Quick font match

• US 9,002,877 B2
• Filed: 08/25/2011
• Issued: 04/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Fu, Xing W., Jia, Yan M., Lai, Jing, Zhang, Hai F., Zhang, Jian F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Casanova, Jorge A
• Application Number:
  US13/217,403
• Publication Number:
  US 20120054231A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,321 Days
• Field of Search: 707/769, 707/772, 715/269
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/109 Font handling; Temporal or kinetic typography
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/203 Drawing of straight lines or curves

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention relate to a font match technology, and in particular relate to a technology for performing font match with attribute values of a font. A method for font matching may include generating a two-dimensional link matrix based on available fonts and attribute values of the available fonts, receiving a font match query, and determining a font matching the received font match query from the available fonts by using the two-dimensional link matrix. Font matching may be implemented automatically, quickly, and accurately, without the need of manually randomly trying each font of a plurality of available fonts. Meanwhile, this method is independent from text processing software and may be called by any arbitrary text processing software (application). Moreover, this method allows the user to flexibly configure selection of the font attributes so as to perform font match more efficiently.

Claims

1. A method for determining a suitable font for displaying text, comprising:

generating a two-dimensional link matrix to link a plurality of available fonts for displaying text each identified in the matrix with one or more font attributes identified in the matrix via one or more attribute values identified in the matrix;

receiving a font match query to determine a suitable font for text to be displayed from the plurality of available fonts including one or more specified attribute-attribute value pairs; and

determining one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query from the available fonts based on a match between the one or more specified attribute-attribute value pairs and the one or more attribute values of the two-dimensional link matrix to determine which font can correctly display the text wherein determining the one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query further comprises;

retrieving the two-dimensional link matrix for one or more of the attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query to generate a set of fonts returned results, wherein the set of fonts returned results includes a list of fonts that can correctly display the text corresponding to the font match query.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein each row in the two-dimensional link matrix indicates the attribute value of one different font instance corresponding to each of the font attributes.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein each of the one different font instance is indicated by the following vector:

Ft=(V_p1, V_p2, . . . , V_pm), wherein Ft indicates the one font instance, and V_p1, V_p2, . . . , V_pm indicate the attribute values of the one font instance corresponding to the font attributes indicated by P₁, P₂, . . . , P_m.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the font match query has the following form:

Q={P_q1=V_q1, P_q2=V_q2, . . . , P_qk=V_qk},

wherein Q indicates the font match query, P_qk indicates the k^th attribute in the query Q for font match, and V_qk indicates the attribute value of the k^th attribute in the query Q for font match.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query further comprises:

retrieving the two-dimensional link matrix for other attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query one by one to filter the generated set of fonts returned results; and

determining a font contained in the set of fonts returned results after final filtering as the font matching the received font match query if all of the attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query have been traversed.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein determining the one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query further comprises:

determining the set of fonts returned results previous to the filtering for use if the filtered set of fonts returned results is an empty set.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query further comprises:

initializing a set of fonts returned results to a set containing all available fonts before a first time of retrieving of the two-dimensional link matrix to generate the set of fonts returned results.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the one or more fonts satisfying the received font match query further comprises:

determining the set of font returned results based on a predetermined weight value of each attribute, wherein a font that is filtered is selected to remain based on the predetermined weight value to prevent an empty set.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the font match query is generated by a text processing application.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of attribute-attribute value pairs is specified by automatically determining at least the attribute value independently of a user input to set the attribute value.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the two-dimensional matrix comprises the plurality of available fonts in one dimension and the one or more font attributes in another dimension.

12. The method according to claim 1 wherein the text to be displayed is from a document having multiple languages therein.

13. A system for determining a suitable font for displaying text, comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium;

matrix generating means for generating a two-dimensional link matrix to link a plurality of available fonts for displaying text each identified in the matrix with one or more font attributes identified in the matrix via one or more attribute values identified in the matrix;

receiving means for receiving a font match query to determine a suitable font for text to be displayed from the plurality of available fonts including one or more specified attribute-attribute value pairs; and

font match determining means for determining a font satisfying the received font match query from the available fonts based on a match between the one or more specified attribute-attribute value pairs and the one or more attribute values of the two-dimensional link matrix to determine which font can correctly display the text wherein the font match determining means is further configured to;

retrieve the two-dimensional link matrix for one or more of the attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query to generate a set of fonts returned results.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein each row in the two-dimensional link matrix indicates the attribute value of one different font instance corresponding to each of the font attributes.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein each of the one different font instance is indicated by the following vector:

Ft=(V_p1, V_p2, . . . , V_pm), wherein Ft indicates the one font instance, and V_p1, V_p2, . . . , V_pm indicate the attribute values of the font corresponding to the font attributes indicated by P₁, P₂, . . . , P_m.

16. The system according to claim 13, wherein the font match query has the following form:

Q={P_q1=V_q1, P_q2=V_q2, . . . , P_qk=V_qk},

wherein Q indicates the font match query, P_qk indicates the k^th attribute in the query Q for font match, and V_qk indicates the attribute value of the k^th attribute in the query Q for font match.

17. The system according to claim 13, wherein the font match determining means is further configured to:

retrieve the two-dimensional link matrix for other attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query one by one to filter the generated set of fonts returned results; and

determine a font contained in the set of fonts returned results after final filtering as the font satisfying the received font match query if all of the attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query have been traversed.

18. The system according to claim 13, wherein the font match determining means is further configured to:

initialize a set of fonts returned results to a set containing all available fonts that can correctly display the text before a first time of retrieving of the two-dimensional link matrix to generate the set of fonts returned results.

19. The system according to claim 17, wherein the font match determining means is further configured to:

determine the set of fonts returned results previous to the filtering operation for use if the filtered set of fonts returned results is an empty set.

20. The system according to claim 13, wherein the font match determining means is further configured to:

determine a sequence of retrieving the two-dimensional link matrix for the attribute-attribute value pairs in the font match query based on a predetermined weight value of each attribute.

21. The system according to claim 13, wherein the font match query is generated by a text processing application.

22. The system according to claim 13 wherein the text to be displayed is from a document having multiple languages therein.