System and method for data publication through web pages

• US 20030200507A1
• Filed: 06/02/2003
• Published: 10/23/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ignite Olive Software Solutions Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Olive Software, Inc. (Ignite Technologies Incorporated)
• Inventors: Stern, Yonatan P., Shteinvil, Emil
• Granted Patent: US 7,600,183 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/517
• 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 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• 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

A system and a method for publishing a newspaper page or other data through a Web page, such that the information can be made available more easily through a network such as the Internet. The data is automatically converted to the Web page format by first rendering the newspaper page into a digital format; converting the digital format to a basic internal publishing format; and then publishing the data in any one of a number of different possible publishing formats, including but not limited, a mark-up language document such as a Web page for example. The present invention supports such advanced features as arrangement of the content of the newspaper according to relationships within the information of the content and/or according to the preference(s) of the user by analyzing the newspaper page as a plurality of objects. Each newspaper object may optionally be a title, an article, a picture and/or other graphic advertisement, and so forth. The different objects may optionally be separated into categories, such that objects in each category are preferably compressed according to a different image format.

Claims

1. A method for automatically publishing data in a final publication format, the data having pages, the method comprising:

analyzing the data to decompose a layout of each page into a plurality of blocks, each block representing an object wherein said analyzing further comprises;

preparing a list of text and/or graphic elements for each object;

determining properties of each element; and

recognizing structural layout properties of the data;

converting the page to an internal publication format;

categorizing each object into one of a plurality of categories;

converting each object in a category into a image format;

rendering said internal publication format in the final publication format; and

displaying an image of the page according to a plurality of image formats of said plurality of objects.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said internal publication format is a mark-up language.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said mark-up language is XML.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the final publication format is a mark-up language document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said layout is decomposed by classifying each object according to a category selected from the group consisting of an article, an advertisement, a picture not otherwise associated with said article or said advertisement, and general data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said object is constructed in said converting from content and at least one attribute of said object in said layout.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said object is composed of a plurality of primitives, each primitive containing a portion of content and an attribute.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein each attribute is stored in an XML tag.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein at least one attribute describes a relationship between said primitives of said object.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said rendering said internal publication format is performed according to a type of hardware device for displaying the final publication format.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said rendering said internal publication format is performed only after a query from a specific hardware device is received.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining properties of each element includes determining visibility and overlap characteristics for each graphic element.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining properties of each element includes determining a special characteristic for each text element.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is in a form of a newspaper, and said analyzing the data to decompose said layout further comprises:

determining each text segment for each object; and

building a text block from a plurality of aligned text segments.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said analyzing the data to decompose said layout further comprises:

creating a graphic block from a plurality of graphic elements;

creating a hierarchy of graphic blocks; and

distributing text blocks in said hierarchy of graphic blocks.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is in the form of a newspaper.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said categories comprise at least text and image categories.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein at least said image category comprises a plurality of subcategories, said plurality of subcategories comprising at least a vector graphic image category and photographic image category.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said converting each object into an image format further comprises converting at least an object in a text category to a different format than an object in an image category, wherein each image format features a different compression method.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein at least an object in said text category and an object in an image category are separated into different layers of the page, wherein each layer maintains a layout structure of the page, said layout structure being determined from said analyzing the data to decompose said layout.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein each layer comprises a transparent background.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein said displaying said image of the page comprises combining said layers.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein said displaying said image of the page comprises combining said layers.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said combining said layers comprises placing said layers in a different z-order one on top of each other.

25. A method for automatically publishing data in a final publication format, wherein the data is in the form of a newspaper, the method comprising:

analyzing the data to decompose the data into a plurality of objects;

preparing a list of text and/or graphic elements for each object;

determining properties of each element;

recognizing structural layout properties of the data;

determining each text segment for each object;

building a text block from a plurality of aligned text segments;

converting each object to an internal publication format; and

rendering said internal publication format in the final publication format.

26. A method for efficiently compressing an image of a page of a document, comprising:

separating at least images of text and images on the page into a text layer and an image layer;

transforming a format of said text layer and said image layer into different image formats, wherein each image format features a different compression method; and

displaying the image of the page by combining said text layer and said image layer for display.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein said image layer further comprises a vector graphic image layer and a photographic image layer.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein an appropriate page resolution is selected for the page.

29. The method of claim 26, wherein at least one optimization parameter is selected for each layer for performing said compression method.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein said separating at least images of text and images on the page further comprises converting the page to an interconvertible format, such that said layers are separated according to said interconvertible format.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the document comprises a digital document, such that the page is converted to said interconvertible format without requiring scanning.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the document comprises a document in a physical format, such that the page is converted to said interconvertible format by scanning the page to form a digital document, and then converting said digital document to said interconvertible format.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein said separating at least images of text and images comprises segmenting a plurality of areas on the page according to image or textual components.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein information from said segmenting is used for building said layers.