SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DOCUMENT NAVIGATION WITH A TEXT-TO-SPEECH ENGINE

• US 20100106506A1
• Filed: 10/24/2008
• Published: 04/29/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Denoue, Laurent, Carter, Scott
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,028 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/00 Speech synthesis; Text to speech systems

Abstract

A system for visually navigating a document in conjunction with a text-to-speech (“TTS) engine presents a visual display of a region of interest that is related to the text of the document that is being audibly presented as speech to a user. When the TTS engine converts the text to speech and presents the speech to the user, the system presents the corresponding section of text on a display. During the presentation, if the system encounters a linked section of text, the visual display changes to display a linked region of interest that corresponds to the linked section of text.

Claims

1. A system for document navigation, comprising:

a display module displaying a text document to a user;

a text-to-speech (“

TTS) engine converting the text of a document into at least one audible sound;

an audio module presenting the at least one audible sound to the user; and

a document navigation application displaying a section of the document corresponding to the audible sound,

wherein upon displaying a section of the document containing a link which points to a region of interest, the document navigation application displays the region of interest pointed to by the link.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a linking module creating at least one link from at least one section of text in the document to at least one region of interest.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the linking module uses a set of heuristics to determine sections of text to link with regions of interest.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the region of interest is within the document.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the region of interest is separate from the document.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the region of interest comprises a non-text object.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the region of interest comprises a section of text.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the link comprises a hyperlink.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the link comprises a macro.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a notification module that notifies the user if the TTS engine cannot accurately convert a section of the text of the document into speech.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a notification module that notifies the user when a region of interest has been completely loaded onto the display module.

12. A method for navigating a document while using a text-to-speech engine, the method comprising the steps of:

displaying a text document to a user;

converting the text of the document into at least one audible sound using a text-to-speech (“

TTS) engine;

presenting the at least one audible sound to the user; and

displaying a section of the document corresponding to the audible sound;

wherein when a section of the document containing a link which points to a region of interest is displayed, further displaying the region of interest pointed to by the link.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising creating at least one link from at least one section of text in the document to at least one region of interest.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising using a set of heuristics to determine sections of text to be linked with regions of interest.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising selecting the region of interest from within the document.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising selecting the region of interest from outside the document.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising selecting a non-text object as the region of interest.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising selecting a section of text as the region of interest.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising using a hyperlink to link the at least one section of text of a document to the at least one region of interest.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising using a macro to link the at least one section of text of a document to the at least one region of interest.

21. The method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the user if the TTS engine cannot accurately convert a section of the text of the document into speech.

22. The method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the user when the link to a region of interest has been completely loaded onto the display module.