Methods and systems for rendering electronic data

Abstract

Methods and a system are provided to receive electronic data in their native format and to deliver automatically revised electronic data in a new format and new layout. The received data are decomposed into their constituent parts including text and floating objects, geometric rectangles are generated to house the objects where like object rectangles are linked together creating a path for object insertion onto the rendered page. Moreover, a method of electronically providing for a footnote body on an electronic page is provided wherein page objects are received having reference and body objects. A body area is generated at the bottom of a page to house the body objects while a reference area is generated above the body area to house the reference objects. The areas are represented as geometric rectangles, and the body area is expanded to accommodate an additional body object while the reference are is correspondingly decreased maintaining the overall area associated with the page.

1 . A method of electronically rendering data on a computer readable medium, comprising: 
 receiving one or more text objects and floating objects;    generating floating areas to house the floating objects;    outputting the floating areas at predetermined locations;    generating one or more textual areas to house the text objects, the textual areas comprising an outputted area where the floating areas have been removed; and    outputting the textual areas adjacent to the floating areas.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 linking the textual areas creating a linked list of textual areas; and    sequentially inserting the text objects into the linked list starting at a head of the list.    
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 linking the floating areas creating a linked list of floating areas; and    sequentially inserting the floating objects into the linked list starting at a head of the list.    
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the floating areas and the textual areas are generated by forming geometric rectangles.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein two adjacent rectangles representing textual areas are merged into a single rectangle.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: 
 displaying the outputted floating areas and textual areas within a viewer.    
   
   
       7 . A system for electronically rendering data on a computer readable medium comprising: 
 one or more text objects;    one or more floating objects;    a set of executable instructions operable to create and output data by dividing from input data a set of textual areas and a set of floating areas and operable to populate the textual areas with the text objects and the floating areas with the floating objects.    
   
   
       8 . The system of  claim 7 , further comprising: 
 a linking set of executable instructions operable to form a text linked list from the textual areas and a floating linked list from the floating areas.    
   
   
       9 . The system of  claim 8 , further comprising: 
 an inserting set of executable instructions operable to insert the text objects sequentially into the text linked list beginning at a text head of the text linked list and operable to insert the floating objects sequentially into the floating linked list beginning at a floating head of the floating linked list.    
   
   
       10 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the set of executable instructions segments the output data by forming textual geometric rectangles around a space on the output data not occupied by the floating objects and forming floating geometric rectangles around the floating objects, the textual geometric rectangles representing the textual areas and the floating geometric rectangles representing the floating areas.  
   
   
       11 . The system of  claim 7 , further comprising: 
 a rendering set of executable instructions operable to define how the output data may be displayed using at least one of a browser, a viewer, a mobile communications device, and a printer.    
   
   
       12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the defining is done by tagging the text objects and the floating objects with a markup language.  
   
   
       13 . The system of  claim 12  wherein the markup language is at least one of extended markup language, extended style sheets language, and portable document format.  
   
   
       14 . A method of electronically providing for a footnote body on a page, comprising: 
 receiving one or more page objects including reference objects and body objects    generating a body area located at the bottom of a page to house the body objects;    generating a reference area located above the body area to house the reference objects;    forming a reference geometric rectangle representing the reference area and a body geometric rectangle representing the body area; and    expanding an area of the body geometric rectangle to accommodate an additional body object while deceasing a second area of the reference area maintaining an overall area associated with the page.    
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising: 
 displaying the reference geometric rectangle area and the body geometric rectangle area in a browser.    
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising: 
 delivering the page including the reference geometric rectangle area and the body geometric rectangle area to at least one of a browser and a printer in a markup language defining the page.    
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the markup language is at least one of extended markup language, extended style sheets language, and portable document format.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the delivering the page occurs as reference objects and body objects are piped to a set of executable instructions operable to insert the markup language representing a displayed page.  
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising: 
 associating automatically a reference tag of the reference object with a text description of the body object.    
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the reference tag is an numeric character which is automatically incremented with each new reference tag.