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US 7,743,324 B1Granted
System and method of formatting text according to phrasing
AssigneeLanguage Technologies, Inc.
InventorsThomas G. Bever, John Robbart, II
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A text formatting system parses text and reformats it to establish optimal spacing for readability and reader comprehension. It also reduces the incidence of rivers and therefore enhances the aesthetic quality of the formatted text. The formatting applied to the text by the present invention is based on structure rules that determine key parameters of page layout including for example column width, font, font size, color, leading and kerning.
Claims21
A method for formatting text, comprising the steps of:
- a) providing text input;
- b) providing an installed input vocabulary of words and punctuation definitions that are stored in a library;
- c) examining by a computing device a plurality of words of the said text input to look for punctuation and patterns of key words in the input vocabulary indicating the beginning or end of a phrase;
- d) assigning, by the computing device, values to each and every between word spaces in said plurality, each said assigned value being the likelihood that the word preceding the space ends a phrase and the word following the space begins a phrase based on the located punctuation and patterns of key words;
- e) repeating steps c-d for a next plurality of words until all the text input has been analyzed and values assigned to every between word space in the text input;
- and
- f) formatting by the computing device said text input according to the assigned values.
4 more elements
A system for formatting text, comprising:
- a first computing device;
- a parser for parsing text input and recognizing words and punctuation;
- a library of key words and punctuation definitions;
- a readability engine implemented by the first computing device, said readability engine examining said parsed text input to look for punctuation and patterns of key words in the input vocabulary indicating the beginning or end of a phrase and assigning values to each and every between word space in said text input based on the located punctuation and patterns of key words, each said assigned value being the likelihood that the word preceding the space ends a phrase and the word following the space begins a phrase;
- a formatter implemented by a second computing device for formatting said text input according to said assigned values.
2 more elements
A computer-implemented method for formatting text, comprising the steps of:
- a) providing text input;
- b) examining a plurality of words of said text input;
- c) determining, by a first computing device, phrase boundaries in said plurality of words;
- d) repeating steps b-c for a next plurality of words until all the text input has been analyzed;
- e) formatting, by a second computing device, said text input by adjusting the relative space size of each and every between word space according to said determined phrase boundaries to create non-uniform between word space sizes within each line of the text-input.
2 more elements
A method for formatting text, comprising the steps of:
- a) providing text input having a certain left and/or right justification and line-to-line text density;
- b) providing an installed input vocabulary of key words and punctuation definitions that are stored in a library;
- c) examining said text input to look for punctuation and key words in the input vocabulary indicating the beginning or end of a phrase and assigning values to each and every between word spaces based on the outcome of the examination, each said assigned value being the likelihood that the word preceding the space ends a phrase and the word following the space begins a phrase;
- and
- d) formatting said text input according to the assigned values while maintaining said justification and the line-to-line density of said text input.
2 more elements
A method for formatting text, comprising the steps of:
- a) providing text input having a certain left and/or right justification and a certain number of lines;
- b) providing an installed input vocabulary of key words and punctuation definitions that are stored in a library;
- c) examining said text input to look for punctuation and key words in the input vocabulary indicating the beginning or end of a phrase and assigning values to each and every between word spaces based on the outcome of the examination, each said assigned value being the likelihood that the word preceding the space ends a phrase and the word following the space begins a phrase;
- and
- d) formatting said text input according to the assigned values while maintaining said justification and the line-to-line density of said text input and maintaining or reducing the number of lines of text in said input.
2 more elements
A method for formatting text, comprising the steps of:
- a) providing text input comprising words formed of characters including letters and spaces;
- b) providing an installed input vocabulary of key words and punctuation definitions that are stored in a library;
- c) examining a plurality of words of the said text input to look for punctuation and patterns of key words in the installed vocabulary indicating the beginning or end of a phrase;
- d) based on the located punctuation and patterns of key words, assigning values to each and every between word spaces in said plurality, each said assigned value being the likelihood that the word preceding the space ends a phrase and the word following the space begins a phrase;
- and
- e) repeating steps c-d for a next plurality of words until the text input has been analyzed;
- f) formatting said text input by adjusting physical features of said characters in the text input according to the assigned values;
- and
- g) outputting the formatted text input by displaying the formatted text input on a display device or printing the formatted text input on paper.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.