Interactive format manipulation and replication

• US 9,990,409 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2013
• Issued: 06/05/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kritt, Barry A., Rakshit, Sarbajit K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Featherstone, Mark D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Doraiswamy, Ranjit P
• Application Number:
  US14/025,022
• Publication Number:
  US 20150019489A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,727 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Selectively applying format attributes of a source to the content of a destination. The format attributes defining the format of one or more source objects are captured, and from among the captured attributes, format attributes are selected. A destination object is formatted such that selected format attributes are copied to the content of the destination, and the copied format attributes are applied to the destination object as a destination format.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

capturing one or more attributes associated with formatting content of one or more sources, including capturing one or more first attributes associated with formatting first content of a first source;

presenting an interface to facilitate selection of the captured attributes, wherein the interface displays one or more listings of respective captured attributes, including a first listing of the captured first attributes, and wherein each listing comprises attributes organized into one or more respective categories;

selecting one or more elements from at least the first listing, wherein an element is selected from the group consisting of;

an attribute, a category, and a combination thereof;

responsive to selecting a destination different from the source, copying each selected element;

and formatting content of the selected destination, including applying each copied element to the selected destination content;

capturing one or more second attributes associated with formatting second content of a second source, wherein the interface further displays a second listing of the captured second attributes;

selecting an element from the second listing;

wherein copying further comprises merging the selected first and second elements, and wherein the merged attributes are applied to the destination content.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each captured attribute is initially selected, and wherein the selection of the elements comprises de-selecting at least one of the captured attributes.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the interface is a graphical user interface (GUI).

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising collapsing the listing of attributes within a selected category.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising expanding the listing of attributes within a selected category.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein at least one of the captured attributes is excluded from the destination.