Forward extensible property modifiers for formatting information in a program module
US6016492A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 15, 1997 |
| Grant date | Jan 18, 2000 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 15, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10S707/99942
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Formatting information in a program module, particularly useful for word processing and similar text processing programs. A property information array stored in association with an executable program module contains formatting for applying to information in a document comprising a data structure and a property modifier structure. The data structure stores data elements corresponding to the information in the document to be formatted, e.g., a text file. The property modifier structure stores groups of data formatting property modifiers and their arguments that represent the appearance of the data elements, e.g., a character property, a paragraph property, a section property, etc. Each property modifier contains encoded format-related information and comprises an argument size field having information indicating the size of the property modifier argument and a unique identification field, i.e., an index into the property information array. A selected data element may be displayed, printed, etc. in accordance with the formatting information by accessing the property information array with the index of the property modifier associated with the selected data element. The property modifi…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.