US 2014/0237353 A1 · SYSTEMS, METHODS AND ARTICLES TO AUTOMATICALLY TRANSFORM DOCUMENTS TRANSMITTED BETWEEN SENDERS AND RECIPIENTS

Abstract

A document transformation system automatically transforms documents electronically transferred between senders and recipients, even where documents of a given type from a given sender which are assumed to be identically formatted differ in various aspects, for instance in scaling, alignment, concatenating, resizing, etc. Document transformation instructions selected based on sender, recipient, or both specify transformation instructions which include one or more maps, document layouts, page layouts, sections extraction instructions, allowing extraction of data or information, and generation of documents or information in a format specified by recipient. Headers and footers may be extracted, and a remaining body concatenated. The system continues to searching for additional instructions on failure of previous instructions to successfully extract a previous section, without terminating. Documents may be converted from a large variety of file formats into a common file format. Extracted information may be stored in a database.

Claims79

Dependent claims

A method of operating a document transformation system, comprising:

receiving a first document for processing by the document transformation system;
determining a first set of instructions stored on at least one nontransistory processor-readable medium of the document transformation system based on at least one aspect of the received first document;
based on the first set of instructions which includes at least one set of header specific extraction instructions, at least one set of footer specific extraction instructions and at least one set of line item specific extraction instructions:
attempting to extract header data from a first document according to a first one of the at least one set of header specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions by the at least one processor of the document transformation system;
attempting to extract footer data from the first document according to a first one of the at least one set of footer specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions by the at least one processor of the document transformation system;
concatenating remaining data in the first document after extracting all of the header data and all of the footer data from the first document by the at least one processor of the document transformation system;
and
attempting to extract a number of line items from the first document according to a first one of the set of at least one set of line item specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions by the at least one processor of the document transformation system.

5 more elements

A document transformation system, comprising:

at least one processor coupled to receive a plurality of documents transmitted by at least one send system to at least one recipient system;
and
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores processor executable instructions including a first set of instructions which includes at least one set of header specific extraction instructions, at least one set of footer specific extraction instructions and at least one set of line item specific extraction instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to:
determine a first set of instructions stored on at least one nontransistory processor-readable medium of the document transformation system based on at least one aspect of a first document of the plurality of documents received by the at least one processor;
attempt to extract header data from the first document according to a first one of the at least one set of header specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
attempt to extract footer data from the first document according to a first one of the at least one set of footer specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
concatenate remaining data in the first document after extracting all of the header data and all of the footer data from the first document;
and
attempt to extract a number of line items from the first document according to a first one of the set of at least one set of line item specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions.

6 more elements

A method of operating a document transformation system, comprising:

successively attempting to extract information from a first section of a first page of a first document according to each of a plurality of sets of first section specific extraction instructions of a first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the first section of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the first section of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of first section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
in response to successfully extracting the information from the first section of the first page of the first document, successively attempting to extract information from a second section of the first page of the first document according to each of a plurality of sets of second section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the second section of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the second section of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of second section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
and
if extraction from the first and second sections has been successful, successively attempting to extract information from a third section of at least the first page of the first document according to each of a plurality of sets of third section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the third section of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the third section of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of third section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions.

4 more elements

A document transformation system, comprising:

at least one processor coupled to receive a plurality of documents transmitted by at least one send system to at least one recipient system;
and
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores processor executable instructions which when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to:
successively attempt to extract information from a first section of a first page of a first document according to each of a plurality of sets of first section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the first section of the first page of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the first section of the first page of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of first section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
in response to successful extraction the information from the first section of the first page of the first document, successively attempt to extract information from a second section of the first page of the first document according to each of a plurality of sets of second section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the second section of the first page of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the second section of the first page of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of second section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions;
and
if extraction from the first and second sections has been successful, successively attempt to extract information from a third section of at least the first page of the first document according to each of a plurality of sets of third section specific extraction instructions of the first set of instructions until an occurrence of a first of:
a) the information from the third section of the first document is successfully extracted or b) extraction of the information from the third section of the first document has been unsuccessfully attempted using each of the plurality of sets of third section specific extraction instructions of the first set of mapping instructions.

7 more elements

A document transformation system, comprising:

at least one processor coupled to receive a plurality of documents transmitted by at least one send system to at least one recipient system;
and
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores processor executable instructions including a set of transformation instructions which when executed by the at least one processor causes the at least one processor to:
determine whether to scale at least a portion of a document;
determine whether to realign at least a portion of the document;
determine whether to concatenate at least a portion of the document;
determine whether to resize at least a portion of the document;
and
perform at least one action on the document based at least in part on an outcome of the determinations.

6 more elements

A method of operating a document transformation system, the method comprising:

comparing by the at least one processor at least one piece of information from a transformed document to at least one piece of information from a pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated;
determining by the at least one processor whether the at least one piece of information from the transformed document corresponds to the at least one piece of information from the pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated;
and
generating by the at least one processor a notification in response to determining that the at least one piece of information from the transformed document does not correspond to the at least one piece of information from the pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated.

1 more element

A document transformation system, comprising:

at least one processor coupled to receive a plurality of documents transmitted by at least one send system to at least one recipient system;
and
at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores processor executable instructions that cause the at least one processor to:
compare at least one piece of information from a transformed document to at least one piece of information from a pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated;
determine whether the at least one piece of information from the transformed document corresponds to the at least one piece of information from the pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated;
generate a notification in response to determining that the at least one piece of information from the transformed document does not correspond to the at least one piece of information from the pre-transformation document from which the transformed document was generated.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Systems, methods and articles to automatically transform documents transmitted between senders and recipients

Life of this patent

Systems, methods and articles to automatically transform documents transmitted between senders and recipients

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims79