Document annotation service

• US 9,880,989 B1
• Filed: 05/09/2014
• Issued: 01/30/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cadabam, Nagesh Pradhan, Rao, Chetan, Dang, Wei Lien Stephen, Sharma, Sean Krishan, Eisner, Noah, Fowler, Kevin
• Primary Examiner(s): Tapp, Amelia
• Application Number:
  US14/274,361
• Time in Patent Office: 1,362 Days
• 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 40/151 Transformation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

Organizations maintain and generate large amounts of documentation and entities of these organizations often need to collaborate on generating and reviewing this information. There is a need to maintain and store this documentation remotely in such a way that the entities of these organizations may collaborate with each other. To ensure that entities of the organization can collaborate on documents, a document annotation service is described that converts a text-based document, such as a word processing document, to a fixed-layout document, such as a coordinate-based document. Annotations can be received on the fixed-layout document. The annotations can then be mapped to the text-based document and downloaded to a user for viewing.

Claims

1. A method for document annotation operated by a compute service provider, comprising:

receiving a document in a first file format at the compute service provider;

converting the document to a second file format, different than the first file format;

generating a coordinate map for the document in the second file format;

allowing access to the document in the second file format;

receiving annotations to be included in the document from the one or more users viewing the document in the second file format;

converting the document back to the first file format by mapping the annotations onto the document in the first file format so that a user can view the document in the first file format with the received annotations; and

receiving a request to download the document including the annotations in the first file format from the compute service provider;

wherein the annotation is highlighted words and other objects, and wherein the first file format does not support highlighting the other objects, and wherein mapping the annotations includes searching for a group of words that are highlighted in the document in the second file format, searching for a matching group of words in the document in the first file format and highlighting the group of words in the document in the first file format and bypassing highlighting of the other objects.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first file format is a text-based format wherein fonts associated with text can be customized and the second file format is a fixed-layout format.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first file format is a DOM-based format and the fixed-layout format is a coordinate-based format.

4. The method of claim 1, where mapping the annotations onto the document includes obtaining text associated with the annotations and searching for the text associated with the annotations in the document in the first file format.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation includes a highlighted rectangular region and mapping the annotations includes using coordinates of the highlighted rectangular region to determine words and objects with intersecting coordinates in the document in the first file format and highlighting the determined words or objects in their entirety in the document in the first file format even when the determined words or objects are only partially highlighted in the document in the second file format.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotation includes a highlighted region with no text or objects associated therewith and mapping the annotation includes inserting a comment field into the document in the first file format, the comment field being associated with a paragraph and placed at or near a top, bottom or middle point of the paragraph depending on a relative location of the highlighted region with respect to the paragraph.

7. A computer-readable storage, which is non-transitory, including instructions thereon for executing a method of annotating a document, the method comprising:

receiving a text-based first document at a service;

transforming the first document to a coordinate-based second document;

receiving annotations to the second document, wherein the annotations include highlighted words or objects in the second document;

mapping the annotations onto the first document so as to convert the annotations back to the text-based first document and wherein the mapping includes comparing coordinates of the highlighted words or objects in the second document to the words or objects that match in the first document and performing the highlighting only when the coordinates intersect;

transmitting the first document with the annotations incorporated therein; and

further including obtaining a first word and a last word of a highlighted region of the second document, performing string matches for the first and last words in the first document, and highlighting all highlightable words and objects between the first and last words, while bypassing objects that are not highlightable.

8. The computer-readable storage of claim 7, wherein mapping the annotations onto the first document includes determining words and/or objects that are highlighted in the second document, performing a word search in the first document for the determined highlighted words and/or objects to find matching words and/or objects and highlighting the matching words and/or objects in the first document.

9. The computer-readable storage of claim 7, wherein mapping the annotations includes mapping a highlighted rectangular region onto the first document by highlighting any words or objects in the first document that have at least a percentage portion thereof within the rectangular region.

10. The computer-readable storage of claim 8, further including converting a highlight that does not contain any words or objects to a comment in the first document.

11. The computer-readable storage of claim 10, further including placing the comment either adjacent a first line, a last line or in a middle of a paragraph depending on the relative location of the highlight with respect to the paragraph.

12. The computer-readable storage of claim 9, wherein individual words in the text-based document have a customizable format and the coordinate-based second document is a fixed-layout format.

13. The computer-readable storage of claim 10, further including generating an index file describing XY coordinates for each word and object in the coordinate-based second document.

14. A computer-readable storage, which is non-transitory, including instructions thereon for executing a method of annotating a document, the method comprising:

uploading a text-based first document to a service;

transforming the first document to a coordinate-based second document;

receiving annotations to the second document;

mapping the annotations onto the first document; and

downloading the first document with the annotations incorporated therein;

converting a highlight that does not contain any words or objects to a comment in the first document.

15. The computer-readable storage of claim 14, further including placing the comment either adjacent a first line, a last line or in a middle of a paragraph depending on the relative location of the highlight with respect to the paragraph.

16. The computer-readable storage of claim 15, wherein individual words in the text-based document have a customizable format and the coordinate-based second document is a fixed-layout format.

17. The computer-readable storage of claim 16, further including generating an index file describing XY coordinates for each word and object in the coordinate-based second document.