Method and apparatus for downloading multi-page electronic documents with hint information

A method for downloading a document including a plurality of pages from a remote host computer, comprising:

• placing within the document page offset information hints specifying the exact location of the elements defining the appearance of each page of the document, hints being optional information not logically part of the structure or content of the document;
• reading the page offset information hints early during the downloading process;
• and
• using the page offset information hints to obtain and download a specific page requested by a user, the elements defining, the appearance of the specific page being stored in the document in a non-contiguous manner.

A computer readable storage medium including program instructions for performing steps during a downloading process for interleaving page contents of a page of a document with a shared object referenced by the page, the steps comprising:

• downloading a first portion of page content of a page-based document stored on a host computer, the portion of page content including a reference to a shared object;
• downloading the shared object referenced by the first portion of the page;
• and
• downloading a second portion of page content of the page of the page-based document;
• wherein the second portion of page content is stored contiguously with the first portion of page content on the host computer and the shared object is not stored contiguously with either the first portion of page content or the second portion of page content on the host computer.

An apparatus for downloading a page-based document stored on a host, the document containing page offset information hints located at a predetermined location, the apparatus comprising:

• a digital processor;
• a memory device coupled to the digital processor;
• a display screen coupled to the digital processor;
• means for displaying the page-based document on the display screen, the means for displaying connecting with the host to download the page offset information hints, to download a specific page of the page-based document requested by the user without the necessity of downloading other pages in the document, and to display the downloaded page on the display screen;
• and
• a finder for utilizing the page offset information hints to provide a location of the specific page in the document to the means for displaying so that the means for displaying can download the specific page;
• wherein
• when the means for displaying is downloading a portion of a specific page during a connection with the host, the finder additionally requests additional portions of the specific page and the additional portions of the page are downloaded to the means for displaying to be displayed, the additional portions including page contents and shared objects, the page contents including text and the shared objects including font objects, the finder requesting a portion of the page contents to be downloaded that includes a reference to a particular shared object and requesting the particular shared object to be downloaded after the portion of the page contents.

Apparatus comprising a computer-readable storage medium tangibly embodying computer program instructions comprising instructions to:

• connect with a host computer to download page offset information hints located at a predetermined location in a document;
• download shared object hints from the host computer;
• using the page offset information hints and the shared object hints, locate a first portion of page content of a page of the document, a second portion of page content of the page of the document, and a shared object in the document, the first portion of page content including a reference to the shared object;
• download the located first portion of page content;
• download the located shared object;
• and
• download the located second, portion of content.