Method and system for facilitating the production of documents
AssigneePado Metaware AB
InventorsTimothy Poston, Tomer Shalit, Mark Dixon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Comparison of versions of a document reveals both their descent tree and the details of their differences. The descent tree directs the attention of a collaborative author to particular versions and permits leaving the rest in an archive, while appropriate display of the detailed differences simplifies the multi-source editing process. In our preferred embodiment, this is delivered as a web-based service.
Claims24
A method for facilitating the production of documents when executed on a control unit of a computer unit, comprising the steps of
- assembling a related group of files on the computer;
- marking each file of the group with an identity;
- comparing the files of the group to find matching substrings;
- determining a file to be the original version based on the comparison;
- deriving a descent tree structure of the files of the group based on the comparison, starting from the determined original file;
- and
- displaying the group of files in the descent tree structure to a user on a display.
A computer program product comprising program instructions stored by a computer-readable medium for directing operations of a computer to perform the steps of:
- assembling a related group of files on the computer;
- marking each file of the group with an identity;
- comparing the files of the group to find matching substrings;
- determining a file to be the original version based on the comparison;
- deriving a descent tree structure of the files of the group based on the comparison, starting from the determined original file;
- and
- displaying the group of files in the descent tree structure to a user.
A server comprising a control unit and a memory wherein a computer program product is stored in the memory arranged to perform a method when executed on the control unit comprising the steps of:
- assembling a related group of files on the computer;
- marking each file of the group with an identity;
- comparing the files of the group to find matching substrings;
- determining a file to be the original version based on the comparison;
- deriving a descent tree structure of the files of the group based on the comparison, starting from the determined original file;
- and
- displaying the group of files in the descent tree structure to a user in a web page format.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.