System and method for comparing versions of html documents in a proofing interface

A method for annotating a document in a proofing interface that allows temporary highlights, comprising:

• receiving an indication from a user that an element of the document is a highlight element;
• determining a target element, the target element comprising a nearest non-highlight parent element of the highlight element;
• determining coordinates of an annotation, relative to boundaries of the target element;
• building an XPath to the target element, where the XPath is a representation of a location of an element within a hierarchical structure of the document;
• and
• using the determined coordinates and the XPath to render the annotation at a desired location in the proofing interface, thus allowing the annotation to be persistently located on the document whether or not the document is displayed with highlights.

A method to compare a first and a second hypertext markup language (HTML) documents, comprising:

• identifying a plurality of hierarchical chunks in the two HTML documents a hierarchy of chunks having at least a leaf chunk and a non-leaf chunk where the leaf chunk is within the non-leaf chunk;
• rendering the two HTML documents and displaying the rendered documents on a user interface, the rendered documents including rendering of the identified plurality of chunks;
• repeating the following until a current chunk in one of the two HTML documents is a non-leaf chunk;
• comparing a current chunk in the first HTML document to a current chunk in the second HTML document to determine a string similarity score for the current chunks to determine if the compared chunks are matched leaf chunks;
• visually highlighting, on the user interface, matched leaf chunks containing differing content;
• and
• visually highlighting, on the user interface, differing text within matched leaf chunks.

A system having a user interface, comprising:

• a data processing system displaying the user interface, the user interface comprising:
• a first area to display a first rendered HTML document;
• a second area to display a second rendered HTML document;
• a first user input area to receive user input indicating that high-level portions of the rendered HTML documents that differ should be highlighted;
• and
• a second user input area to receive user input indicating that text of the rendered HTML documents that differ should be highlighted.