Method and apparatus for cross-referencing text
First Claim
1. A computer readable medium for storing a computer executable software program for cross-referencing text within a document, the program including instructions for:
- locating a plurality of label strings within said document, each label string labelling an associated part of said document;
converting each said located label string into a standard format such that the said associated parts of said document are each unambiguously labelled by said standard format;
locating a plurality of cross-reference strings within said document, said cross-reference strings referring to parts of said document labelled by said label strings;
converting each said cross-reference string into said standard format such that said converted cross-reference strings refer unambiguously to one or more labelled parts of said document;
collating said standard format cross-reference strings with said standard format label strings; and
providing a program link between said cross-reference strings and those labelled parts of said document to which the cross-reference strings refer.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for the automatic insertion of hypertext links into a passage or document of encoded text is disclosed. A program, resident on a personal computer, for example, receives and parses input text in HTML format. In a first part of the processing, label strings identifying each paragraph number are located in the read in document. These are converted into an unambiguous format. Next, the text is re-read, with the paragraphs/section headers masked off, to locate text strings within the body of the text which cross-reference the section headers, or term definitions, or external links. These are also placed in an unambiguous format. Finally, the cross-references are matched up as far as possible with section/paragraph headers and the original HTML text is marked up automatically with hyperlinks, using the unambiguous section labels and cross-references as HTML anchors and destinations.
125 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A computer readable medium for storing a computer executable software program for cross-referencing text within a document, the program including instructions for:
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locating a plurality of label strings within said document, each label string labelling an associated part of said document;
converting each said located label string into a standard format such that the said associated parts of said document are each unambiguously labelled by said standard format;
locating a plurality of cross-reference strings within said document, said cross-reference strings referring to parts of said document labelled by said label strings;
converting each said cross-reference string into said standard format such that said converted cross-reference strings refer unambiguously to one or more labelled parts of said document;
collating said standard format cross-reference strings with said standard format label strings; and
providing a program link between said cross-reference strings and those labelled parts of said document to which the cross-reference strings refer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
generating a list of converted label strings; generating a list of converted cross-reference strings; and
compiling a table of converted cross-reference strings with reference to the labelled parts of the document in which the said cross-reference strings appear.
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19. The medium of claim 18 further including instructions for generating a further list of converted cross-reference strings which do not refer to any of the parts of the document labelled by a converted label string.
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20. The medium of claim 19 further including instructions for
generating a database of database strings defining a plurality of external addresses; -
matching those converted cross-reference strings within said further list with corresponding strings within said database; and
linking said cross-reference strings with the addresses of said corresponding strings within said database.
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21. The medium of claim 20 further including instructions in which said external addresses comprise Uniform Resource Locations (URLs).
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22. The medium of claim 21 further including instructions wherein said URLs are selected from a group comprising a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN) and an Internet address.
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23. The medium of claim 21 further including instructions for generating a list of each converted cross-reference string which neither refers to any of the parts of the document labelled by a converted label string, nor refers to a database string defining an external address;
said list being indicative of incorrect cross-references.
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24. The medium of claim 1 further including instructions for
inserting hypertext markup language code for tagging each said located label string with said converted label string; - and
inserting hypertext markup language code adjacent each said located cross-reference string such that each said cross-reference points to a corresponding tagged label string, whereby a hypertext link is created between the cross-reference and the part of said document to which it refers.
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25. A computer readable medium for storing a computer executable software program for cross-referencing text within a plurality of documents, the program including instructions for:
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locating a plurality of label strings within each said document, each label string labelling an associated part of each said document;
converting each said located label string into standard format such that the said associated parts of each said document are all unambiguously labelled by said standard format;
locating a plurality of cross-reference strings within said documents, said cross-reference strings referring to parts of said documents labelled by said label strings;
converting each said cross-reference string into said standard format such that said converted cross-reference strings refer unambiguously to one or more labelled parts of said documents;
collating said standard format cross-reference strings with said standard format label strings; and
providing a program link between said cross-reference strings and those labelled parts of each said document to which the cross-reference strings refer, whereby a cross-reference string may be linked to a label string within a same one of the plurality of documents or to a label string within another of the plurality of documents.
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26. A computer system for cross-referencing text within a document, said system comprising a computer having:
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means for locating label strings within said document, each label string labelling an associated part of said document;
means for converting each said located label string into standard format such that the said associated parts of said document are each unambiguously labelled by said standard format;
means for locating cross-reference strings within said document, said cross-reference strings referring to parts of said document labelled by said label strings;
means for converting each said cross-reference string into said standard format such that said converted cross-reference strings refer unambiguously to one or more labelled parts of said document;
means for collating said standard format cross-reference strings with said standard format label strings; and
means for providing a program link between said cross-reference strings with those labelled parts of said document to which they refer.
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Specification