System and method for distributed design of a variable data publication

• US 9,063,921 B1
• Filed: 08/10/2005
• Issued: 06/23/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PTI Marketing Technologies, Inc. (Ricoh Company Limited)
• Original Assignee: Printable Technologies Incorporated (Ricoh Company Limited)
• Inventors: Cogan, Douglas Neal
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Gregory J
• Application Number:
  US11/200,861
• Time in Patent Office: 3,604 Days
• Field of Search: 715/221, 715/222, 715/224, 715/225, 715/226, 715/234, 715/236, 715/237
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• 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 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

A method for collecting information useable in creating a Web form through which data for variable portions of a printable document is entered is disclosed herein. The method includes receiving layout information relating to a template document having one or more fields. The method further includes receiving form definition information relating to a design of a Web form for the template document, wherein the Web form includes one or more entries corresponding to the one or more fields. The layout information and the form definition information are then collected for storage within a file, and the file is transmitted to a server capable of generating the Web form using the file.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receive, at a first client device and from a first user, layout information that includes instructions for a layout and formatting of a plurality of variable data fields;

defining, at the first client device, a Variable Data Publication (VDP) template document based on the layout information and including the plurality of variable data fields;

deriving, at the first client device from the VDP template document, a web form definition file to include each data field from the plurality of data fields, the web form definition file configured to be converted, by a web form generator of a publication server, into a web form wherein the web form includes an entry field corresponding to each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields;

defining, at the first client device, a variable data design file that includes the VDP template document and the web form definition file; and

transmitting, from the client device to the publication server, the variable data design file such that the publication server (1) composes a web form viewable on a second client device, different from the first client device, that is configured to receive field content data associated with the plurality of variable data fields, (2) composes a VDP printable document based on the VDP template document and field content data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the web form definition file specifies a prompt to be displayed in association with each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the web form definition file specifies a data type for each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the indication of the data type corresponds to a pick list.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the web form definition file specifies an input data format for the field content data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the variable data design file is a ZIP file.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the web form definition file is incorporated within the variable data design file in an extensible markup language (XML) format.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the variable data design file further includes default data.

9. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor configured to execute a design module; and

the design module configured to be operatively coupled to a client device and a publication server, the design module configured to receive layout information that includes instructions for a layout and formatting of a plurality of variable data fields,

the design module configured to define a Variable Data Publication (VDP) template document based on the layout information and including the plurality of variable data fields,

the design module configured to derive, from the VDP template document, a web form definition file that includes each data field from the plurality of data fields, the web form definition file configured to be converted, by a web form generator of the publication server, into a web form wherein the web form includes an entry field corresponding to each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields,

the design module configured to define a variable data design file that includes the VDP template document and the web form definition file,

the design module configured to transmit, to the publication server, the variable data design file such that the publication server (1) composes a web form viewable on the client device that is configured to receive field content data associated with the plurality of variable data fields, (2) composes a VDP printable document based on the VDP template document and field content data.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the web form definition file specifies a prompt to be displayed in association with each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the web form definition file specifies a data type for each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the indication of the data type corresponds to a pick list.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the web form definition file specifies an input data format for the field content data.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the variable data design file further includes sample data.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

a publication server configured to operatively coupled to a first client device and a second client device, the publication server configured to receive, from the first client device, a variable data design file that includes (1) a Variable Data Publication (VDP) template document and (2) a web form definition file, the VDP template document having been defined by the first client device based on layout information that includes instructions for a layout and formatting of a plurality of variable data fields, the web form definition file having been derived from the VDP template document by the first client device to include each data field from the plurality of data fields,

the publication server configured to extract the web form definition file from the variable data design file and convert the web form definition file into a web form, the web form being viewable on the second client device and including an entry field corresponding to each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields,

the publication service configured to receive, from the second client device field content data associated with the plurality of variable data fields,

the publication server configured to composes a VDP printable document based on the VDP template document and field content data.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the publication server is configured to send a signal indicative of a preview of the VDP printable document such that the preview is displayed by the second client device.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the variable data design file is a ZIP file.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the web form definition file is incorporated within the variable data design file in an extensible markup language (XML) format.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the publication server is configured to rasterize the VDP printable document file.

20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the variable data design file further includes sample data.

21. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions that when executed cause a processor to:

receive layout information that includes instructions for a layout and formatting of a plurality of variable data fields;

define a Variable Data Publication (VDP) template document based on the layout information and including the plurality of variable data fields;

derive, from the VDP template document, a web form definition file that includes each data field from the plurality of data fields, the web form definition file configured to be converted, by a web form generator of a publication server, into a web form wherein the web form includes an entry field corresponding to each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields;

define a variable data design file that includes the VDP template document and the web form definition file; and

transmit, to the publication server, the variable data design file such that the publication server (1) composes a web form viewable on a client device that is configured to receive field content data associated with the plurality of variable data fields, (2) composes a VDP printable document based on the VDP template document and field content data.

22. The non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code of claim 21, wherein the web form definition file specifies a prompt to be displayed in association with each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

23. The non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code of claim 21, wherein the web form definition file specifies a data type for each variable data field from the plurality of variable data fields.

24. The non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code of claim 23, wherein the indication of the data type corresponds to a pick list.

25. The non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code of claim 21, wherein the web form definition file specifies an input data format for the field content data.

26. The non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code of claim 21, wherein the variable data design file further includes sample data.