Layout-based page capture

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• providing electronic data including a first electronic document, the first electronic document having a layout defining a rendered appearance, the first electronic document containing a plurality of references, the first document containing pre-defined selection areas;
• receiving user input specifying a first selection operation that defines a first area of interest in the first electronic document based on the layout of the first electronic document, the first area of interest being defined independently of the pre-defined selection areas and is less than the entire area of the document;
• and
• in response to a user command, using the first area of interest to identify references in the rendered appearance of the first electronic document and retrieving one or more second electronic documents using the references identified in the rendered appearance.

A computer program product tangibly stored on a machine-readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

• provide electronic data including a first electronic document, the first electronic document having a layout defining a first rendered appearance, the layout being formatting information defining a first rendered appearance of the first electronic document, the first electronic document containing a plurality of references;
• receive user input specifying a first selection operation that defines a first area of interest in the first electronic document based on the layout of the first electronic document;
• use the first area of interest to define a first action area over the first rendered appearance, the first action area having a position relative to the first rendered appearance, the first action area containing one or more of the plurality of references, the defined first action area being less than the entire area of the document;
• identify the references contained in the first action area;
• retrieve a second electronic document using one of the references contained in the first action area;
• use the definition of the first action area to define automatically a second action area over a second rendered appearance of the second electronic document, the second action area having the same position over the second rendered appearance as the first action area has over the first rendered appearance;
• and
• identify the references contained in the second action area.

A computer program product, tangibly stored on a machine-readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

• provide electronic data including a first electronic document, the first electronic document having a layout defining a rendered appearance, the first electronic document containing a plurality of references, the first document containing pre-defined selection areas;
• receive user input specifying a first selection operation that defines a first area of interest in the first electronic document based on the layout of the first electronic document, the first area of interest being defined independently of the pre-defined selection areas and is less than the entire area of the document;
• and
• in response to a user command, use the first area of interest to identify references in the rendered appearance of the first electronic document and retrieve one or more second electronic documents using the references identified in the rendered appearance.