Text Layout Boundary Generation for Document Layout Preservation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods fail to automatically capture the graphic appearance of electronic documents, particularly in textual content areas with unjustified sides and text lines flowing around neighboring blocks, making it difficult to preserve the intended layout when accommodating variable content.
Innovation Solution
A machine-implemented method that extracts logical blocks from electronic documents, extends the edges of bounding rectangles to maintain layout relationships, and generates a text layout boundary to preserve the graphic appearance, allowing for variable content while maintaining the original look and feel.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If image-based formats (TIFF, GIF, JPEG, PDF) are used to preserve the graphic appearance of electronic documents, then the appearance is preserved, but storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a structural representation (copy) of the document layout that captures the graphic appearance without storing the actual image data. This structural model includes templates, content areas, and layout constraints that reproduce the visual appearance while using minimal storage space compared to image-based formats.
2Device complexity
If template fields with fixed size, shape and placement are used, then layout structure is simplified, but adaptability to variable content is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic template fields where the size, shape, and placement of content areas can be adjusted within specified ranges. The template system includes variables with value domains that allow content areas to adapt to different content types and sizes while maintaining the overall layout structure through constraint-based control.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses parameters to define the size, position, and content of content areas within templates. These parameters can be varied within specified ranges to accommodate different content while maintaining the layout structure. The constraint solver adjusts parameter values to satisfy all layout constraints for different content configurations.
3Measurement precision
If text line positions are used directly to infer layout, then the actual content position is captured, but the graphic designer's intended layout is lost, especially on unjustified sides and where text flows around blocks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces templates as an intermediary layer between the actual text positions and the intended layout. Templates define content areas and layout constraints that serve as a mediator, allowing the system to infer the graphic designer's intended layout from the actual content positions while preserving the structural information for future content placement.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems and machine-readable instructions for processing an electronic document are described. In one aspect, logical blocks that were extracted from the electronic document, including a text block comprising text lines each encompassed by a respective bounding rectangle, are received. Edges of ones of the bounding rectangles are extended to at least one boundary without changing layout relationships among the logical blocks in the electronic document. A text layout boundary is generated from extended and unextended edges of the bounding rectangles. A description of the text layout boundary is stored in a machine-readable medium.