Inferring Structure Information from Typography

Rheinisch-WestfälischeTechnischeHochschuleAachenDepartment of Computer Science III, Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. Nagl

September 14, 2000 / Digital Documents and Electronic Publishing 2000

Inferring Structure Informationfrom Typography

Christian Fuß

Dipl.-Inform. Felix Gatzemeier

Michael Kirchhof

Dipl.-Inform. Oliver Meyer

Department of Computer Science III, RWTH Aachen

Department of Computer Science III

RWTH Aachen

DDEP 2000

Inferring Structure Information from Typography

2

Overview Context

Deriving Structure Information:» Partitioning» Typographic abstraction» Determine Type

Conclusion

Cooperation project of

Prototype aTool in the WEP goupof the Global-Info Project (www.global-info.org)


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DDEP 2000


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Author

Proprietarydocument format

Writing

Today’s Publication Chain

CopyEditing

< > <>< >< >

Typesetting

Publisher

< >< >

Standard format

Reading

Reader

Conversion

Web Publ.


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DDEP 2000


4

TEX

Submissions

Classification of Submissions

MS Word

Unformatted

Formatted

Correctly Formatted

Somehow FormattedStructured

(XML)

Somehow FormattedFormatted

Unformatted

Structured(XML)

Somehow Formatted


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DDEP 2000


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Basic Assumptions

Textual Nature

Typographic markup

Consistent markup

Known target document type


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DDEP 2000


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Deriving Structure Information

In: MS Word document

Record Formatting (Format Tuples)

Locate the Elements

Reduce Format Tuples to Patterns

Determine Types

Out: XML document

Also interactively


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DDEP 2000


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Format Tuples

The basic typographic abstraction

FormatTuple("Is this a dagger?") = [Times, 22pt, regular, roman]

Here: Font, Size, Weight, Variation

Planned: Search expressions modulo Text

More general:Including regular expressions oftext content or context.


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DDEP 2000


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Locate the Elements

Tree-Partitioning of Formatted Character Streams on» Format Tuple changes» Paragraphs breaks

Nesting of Inline Elements» Is this a dagger? <ft1>» Is this a dagger? <ft1 <ft2> ft1>

» Is this a dagger? <ft1 <ft2> >» Is this a dagger? <ft1 <ft2 <ft3> > >

Format-To-Type Map: FormatTuple ElementType

ft1 (times, 22pt, reg, roman) dummyType1ft2 (times, 22pt, bold, roman) dummyType2ft3 (times, 22pt, reg, italic) dummyType3


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DDEP 2000


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Format patterns

Identity too restrictive wildcard generalization

Is this a dagger? (,,)

Times Times Times *22pt 22pt 22pt *regular bold regular boldroman roman roman *

(, a, b) = (a, a, b); (a, b, ) = (a, b, b)

(, a, ) propagated to paragraph level

Format-To-Type Map: FormatPattern ElementType

fp1 (*, *, regular, *) dummyType1fp2 (*, *, bold, *) dummyType2fp2b (*, *, bold, roman) dummyType2fp3 (*, *, regular, italic) dummyType3


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DDEP 2000


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Determine Types

Replace dummy types in Format-To-Type Map

Preconfiguration by publisher

Controlled Learning from the author

FormatPattern ElementType

(*, *, regular, *) Body(*, *, bold, *) FirstTerm(*, *, bold, roman) FirstTerm (*, *, regular, italic) Emphasis


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DDEP 2000


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Further useable information

Allowed context from the DTD

Paragraph standard format

Text patterns» Bullets» Enumeration» Whitespace» ASCII Markup (Is *this* a dagger?)

Format pattern match confidence


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DDEP 2000


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Motivational aspects

Quick feedback on formal correctness

Publication preview while keeping format freedom

(Via XSL) flexible previews of other formats

New structure-based functionality:» Structure editing» Structure evaluation» Document templates


RWTH Aachen

DDEP 2000


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Conclusion

Summary» 4-step inference

Record format tuples Locate the elements Reduce tuples to patterns Determine types

» Increase efficiency of publication chain» Provide unobtrusive structuring for non-expert authors

Plans» Cautious extension of inference» Validation of document» Evaluation with authors