Enhancing composite digital documents using XML-based standoff markup

ABSTRACT

Document representations can rapidly become unwieldy if they try to encapsulate all possible document properties, ranging from abstract structure to detailed rendering and layout.We present a composite document approach wherein an XML-based document representation is linked via a 'shadow tree' of bi-directional pointers to a PDF representation of the same document. Using a two-window viewer any material selected in the PDF can be related back to the corresponding material in the XML, and vice versa. In this way the treatment of specialist material such as mathematics, music or chemistry (e.g. via 'read aloud' or 'play aloud') can be activated via standard tools working within the XML representation, rather than requiring that application-specific structures be embedded in the PDF itself.The problems of textual recognition and tree pattern matching between the two representations are discussed in detail.Comparisons are drawn between our use of a shadow tree of pointers to map between document representations and the use of a code-replacement shadow tree in technologies such as XBL.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  E. Data
  E.1 DATA STRUCTURES
      Subjects: Trees

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING
      I.7.2 Document Preparation
          Subjects: Markup languages
      I.7.4 Electronic Publishing

General Terms:
Algorithms, Documentation

Keywords:
MathML, MusicXML, PDF, XBL, XML, composite documents, standoff markup