Email text checker system and method
OwnerJohn N. Gross, Anthony A. Grossinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A word processing tool is disclosed for checking the substance and not merely the spelling of words provided by a user. The word checker is capable of identifying potentially inappropriate word choices so that unintentional errors are not introduced into electronic text documents. The word checker can be implemented as a stand-alone procedure, or integrated into a conventional spell-checking program.
Claims82
A method of checking the meaning of a word in an electronic document comprising the steps of:
- retrieving said word to be checked from said document;
- determining whether said word has been inadvertently included in said document and has a particular meaning that has been designated as potentially inappropriate for use in said document.
A method of permitting a user to simultaneously check both the spelling and meaning of words in an electronic document comprising the steps of:
- [a] retrieving a word to be spell checked and word checked from said document;
- and
- [b] determining whether said word has been spelled correctly;
- and
- [c] when said word has been spelled incorrectly, presenting a first list of alternative words to said user as replacements for said word, and permitting said user to select a first replacement word for said word;
- and
- [d] determining whether the meaning of said word or replacement word has been designated as potentially inappropriate for use in a text document;
- and
- [e] when said word has been designated as potentially inappropriate, presenting a second list of alternative words to said user as replacements for said word, and permitting said user to select a second replacement word for said word.
A method of word checking an electronic document generated by a word processing program under control of a user of said program, said method comprising the steps of:
- storing word-checking status information for said document, including a table containing potentially inappropriate words used in said document;
- monitoring interaction between said user and said word processing program to identify idle editing periods;
- locating potentially inappropriate words in said document during the idle editing periods, and updating the word checking status information in response thereto as needed.
A method of automatically word checking an electronic document as it is generated by a user of a word processing program, comprising the steps of:
- monitoring data input by said user during a data input period that is intended to be included as a word in said document;
- determining whether the word is potentially inappropriate for use in said document;
- when the word is determined to be potentially inappropriate, alerting said user;
- wherein a result of said word checking is communicated to said user with substantially minimal delay after the data input period for the word.
A method of generating an electronic version of a dictionary comprising the steps of:
- inputting data in electronic form to create a set of words in computer readable form for said dictionary;
- and
- providing a status field associated for each of such words, which status field indicates whether such word has a meaning that is potentially inappropriate for use in an electronic document.
An electronic system for permitting a user to check the meaning of words in an electronic document, said system including:
- a system memory for storing a word checking software module;
- a processing device for executing the word checking software module;
- wherein the word checking software module is configured such that it can perform the following operations:
- (i) retrieving said words to be checked from said document;
- (ii) determining whether said word has been inadvertently included in said document and has a particular meaning that has been designated as potentially inappropriate for use in said document.
An article of manufacture comprising:
- an electronic dictionary including a set of words and an associated status field for each of the words for indicating a level of potential inappropriateness for such word when used in an electronic text document;
- a word checking routine executable by a computing device and for checking whether words in the electronic text document are inadvertently included, and which routine is configured to perform the following operations:
- [a] retrieving a word to be word checked from an electronic text document;
- and
- [b] accessing the electronic dictionary to determine whether the level of potential inappropriateness of such word exceeds a threshold value specified for such document;
- and
- wherein the electronic dictionary and word checking routine are embodied in a computer readable media.
A system for permitting a user to check the meaning of words in an electronic document, said system including:
- a computer readable storage structure for storing a word checking software module, such module being incorporated as part of a word processing program that can be executed by a computer processing device;
- wherein the word checking software module is configured such that when it is executed by the computer processing device it can perform the following operations:
- (i) retrieving said words to be checked from said document;
- (ii) determining whether said word is inadvertently included and has a particular meaning that has been designated as potentially inappropriate for use in said document.
An electronic dictionary embodied in computer readable form for use in a word processing program, said dictionary including:
- a set of words represented in computer readable form;
- a status field associated for each of such words, which status field facilitates a determination of whether such word, when inadvertently included in an electronic document, has a meaning that is potentially inappropriate for use in such document.
A method of checking the meaning of a word in an electronic document comprising the steps of:
- retrieving said word to be checked from said document;
- determining whether said word has a particular meaning that is likely to be offensive to persons intended to read such text document.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.