WO2003040962A1

WO2003040962A1 - Method and system for publication of a document

Info

Publication number: WO2003040962A1
Application number: PCT/SE2001/001829
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jonas TÖRING; Karel Friedl; Leif Wintzell
Original assignee: Digital Brochure Central Ab
Priority date: 2000-08-28
Filing date: 2001-08-30
Publication date: 2003-05-15
Also published as: SE0003036D0; SE515759C2; SE0003036L

Abstract

A system and a method for publication of at least one copy of at least one of a client's (1) documents (3) on a server (2), which server has a first part (7) on which published copies (8) are accessible to users connected to the server (2). Furthermore, the client (1) has means for creating an instruction file (5) which comprises instructions to publish the document (3). The system has yet another transfer means adapted to transfer a copy each of the document (3) and the instruction file (5) to a second part (6) of the server (2). The server (2) has means for automatically providing program code in a page description language, such as HTML, and means for moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part (7) of the server (2).

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PUBLICATION OF A DOCUMENT

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a method and a system for publication of at least one copy of at least one of a client's documents on a server, which server has a first part on which published copies are accessible to users connected to the server.

Background Art

Small editions of printed matter and publications are becoming more and more common, especially as regards specific company- information, for example, product descriptions or presentations of companies. Traditionally, a company estimates the edition of the necessary pieces of printed matter based on, on the one hand, the immedi- ate need and, on the other, the need in the long term. In traditional production of printed matter, the cost per piece of printed matter decreases when the edition increases since, for example, the costs for developing printing plates then can be spread out on a large number of units. However, the company has to balance the size of the edition with respect to the cost per piece of printed matter against the period of time the piece of printed matter will be of interest. For example, a piece of printed matter with a product description loses as a rule most of its value when the product does not sell any longer.

Lately, parts of the printing industry have more and more been directed towards digital production, which makes it easier to produce small editions of printed mat- ter. Parts of digital production can comprise digital creation of originals by means of word processing tools, digital cameras, page layout programs etc, and then the production of the printed matter by means of a digital printing machine. A digital printing machine can be pro- vided with the digital original directly without producing printing plates.

However, there are problems which make full use of the advantages of digital production difficult, namely the handling of the originals between the producer of the originals, the purchaser and the printing machine. A purchaser is someone who desires to print a number of copies from a digital original ready for printing. In one way or another, the producer of the originals has to provide the purchaser with the originals. Common practice is to attach the original documents to electronic mail or simply to store them on movable storage media, such as a diskette, and to deliver the diskette in a letter or the like. In order to efficiently inform those involved about the documents of a purchaser, for example a company, the company may provide its employees with these on a file server or a web server. There are many advantages of placing them on a web server. For example, the documents can be made in duplicate, one which is adapted for being shown on a screen and one which is suited for being printed. Another advantage is that the documents can be organised in a manner that allows easy navigation between them, for example, a tree structure having folders which contain documents. When a user needs a few copies of a piece of printed matter, he or she connects to the web server and selects a piece of printed matter and, subsequently, transfers it to a digital printing machine.

This method involves some problems. For example, the purchaser needs to know how the web server functions. In addition, the purchaser has to administer the originals coming from the producer of them, not only initially, but also every time the producer of the originals makes changes in the originals that must have an impact on the documents stored on the web server. Problems may also arise when the documents are transferred from the producer to the purchaser, which can result in the purchaser placing incorrect documents on the web server without being aware of it .

Object of the Invention The object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system for publication of copies of a client's documents on a server, which server has a first part on which published copies are accessible to users connected to the server, overcoming at least some of the problems described above.

This is achieved by means of a method and a system according to the appended claims.

Summary of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of the type mentioned by way of introduction, comprising the steps of receiving in a second part of the server a copy each of the document and an instruction file comprising instructions to publish the document, automatically cre- ating program code in a page description language, such as HTML, comprising at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the instruction file, and moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part of the server.

The instruction file can be created in a client which is connected to the server.

By means of such a method, a purchaser of documents can organise and provide these without knowing much about how to handle the server or how to make the documents accessible to users. Furthermore, the method makes it possible to reduce the need for administrating the flow of documents between the producer of the documents and the purchaser since the producer himself or herself can transfer the documents to the purchaser and make them accessible to the purchaser's users. According to one embodiment of the invention, the instruction file further comprises information about at least one property of the document, such as size, and the method comprises controlling, in the server, that the properties of the transferred copy correspond to that of the document .of the client by means of the information in the instruction file and, if correspondence is not achieved, postponing carrying out the steps of automatically creating program code and moving the transferred copy and the program code until further instructions are given.

Owing to this, further advantages are achieved since documents that have not arrived, that are damaged or corrupt are prevented from being placed on the accessible part of the server. This ensures that the documents which are accessible to the users can be used, for instance, for printing.

According to another embodiment, the property to be compared in the controlling step is the document type of the copy, and the method comprises reading the introductory part of the transferred copy in order to verify that the transferred copy actually is of the document type indicated by its properties.

Thus, it can be avoided that documents which, for example, are intended for being printed, such as PDF files (created by software from Adobe Systems Incorporated, USA) or images of a certain document type, such as JPEG, GIF or TIFF, not only claim to be so by their properties, but really are. On a personal computer having the operating system Microsoft Windows, the document type is indicated by a suffix in the file name of the document after a dot, for example, the document "dokumentnamn.tif" has the suffix . tif, which means that it is a TIFF file. Thus, the method does not only indicate that the docu- ments have arrived properly, but also that they are of the document type they claim to be. On this account, a source of errors is eliminated which in certain cases could result in the users being misled into believing that they have access to certain documents of a certain type when they, as a matter of fact, do not.

The method preferably comprises the step of deleting the control file on the client from the server, if, and only if, correspondence is achieved in the controlling step. By this further step a simple confirmation that the document has arrived properly is provided.

Preferably, the first part of the server can be pub- lie and the second part non-public. The fact that the second part is non-public eliminates the risk of a user possibly having access to a document which is not yet published. In the embodiments where controlling steps are performed, this further feature means that the user could have access only to documents which are controlled and approved.

Preferably, the method further comprises the step of processing the copy that is found on the second part of the server by means of instructions in the instruction file in order to obtain several copies suited for different purposes to be moved to the first part of the server. As a result, the producer of the original documents can himself or herself decide whether copies having different purposes are to be published. For example, the producer can choose to publish a low-resolution copy of the document which is suited for being shown on a screen together with a copy that is adapted for sending to a digital printing machine. Since the producer of the documents, without any measures taken by the user who connects to the server, can create different copies of the document directly, the load on the system decreases when a user in connection with a preview does not need to check a document intended for printing. Thus, also so-called thumbnail images can be created from the original document in order to provide easy navigation between different documents . The present invention also relates to a system comprising a server and a client for publication of at least one copy of at least one of the client's documents on the server, which server has a first part on which published copies are accessible to users connected to the server, characterised in that the client comprises means for providing an instruction file comprising instructions to publish the document, the system has a transfer means adapted to transfer a copy each of the document and the instruction file to a second part of the server, the server has means for automatically providing program code in a page description language, such as HTML, containing at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the instruction file, and the server has means for moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part of the server.

By means of such a system, a purchaser of documents can organise and provide these without knowing much about how to handle the server or how to make the documents accessible to users. In addition, the system contributes to the possibility of reducing the need for administrating the flow of documents between the producer of the documents and the purchaser since the producer himself or herself can transfer the documents to the purchaser and make them accessible to the purchaser's users.

Brief Description of the Drawing

In the following, the invention will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which

Fig. 1 schematically shows the structure of a system according to the invention, and

Fig. 2 shows a schematic flow chart of an embodiment of the invention.

Description of a Preferred Embodiment A preferred embodiment of the invention comprises a client 1 and a server 2 which is shown in Fig. 1. The client 1 is used by a producer of documents in order to publish, i.e. place, one or more copies of an original document 3 on a unit accessible to other people, namely the server 2. It should be understood that in such a system there may be a plurality of clients 1 which each independently of one another can connect to the server 2. Thus, the respective clients 1 can be used by one or more producers of documents. The publication also means that an interface is provided or changed on the server 2 so that a user 4 easily can have access to published copies 8 of documents. The client 1 and the server 2 are implemented in software which is executed on computer equip- ment, such as a personal computer.

The server 2 has communication means for communicating with one or more clients 1. Furthermore, the server 2 offers possibilities of connection to a user 4 who desires to connect to the server 2 in order to have access to published documents 8. Preferably, the accessibility is simplified by a web server being executed on the server, the interface of which is defined in a page description language, such as HTML, XML or WML. In such cases, the user 4 connects with a web client which has an interpreter for converting the page description language and any attached files to a user interface, and preferably one that is graphical.

Preferably, the documents 8 are presented in the user's web client in some form of tree structure of dif- ferent folders, the tree structure possibly corresponding to a storage structure on the server 2. A branch of folders could represent different product fields and an underlying folder contain documents belonging to various products . In addition, the server 2 is divided into a first part 7 intended for a web server with associated page description files, other files and published copies 8 of original files 3, the first part being accessible to the users 4, and a second part 6 intended for being an intermediate station before the documents are published, the users 4 preferably not having access to the second part . A method of publishing will in the following be described in such a system as described above . The point of departure is that a new or a changed document 3, for instance a product sheet in the form of a PDF document, is to be published on the server 2. The producer then starts by selecting this document 3 in its client 1 for publication in a step SI, which is shown in Fig. 2. The document 3 can be located on the same computer as the client 1, on a unit which is connected to this computer, or anywhere in a network to which this computer is connected. Pref- erably, it is possible to select a plurality of documents 3 for simultaneous publishing.

It has been described above how the published documents 8 can be organised in a tree structure on the server 2. Conveniently, the same structure is accessible on the client 1 to allow the producer to determine where in the tree structure on the server the published document 8 will be placed. In order to make it possible for the client 1 to learn what the tree structure on the server 2 looks like, there is preferably an automatic ex- change between them of a structure file. On the client 1, there are preferably means with the aid of which the producer can change the tree structure, such as adding, deleting or changing folders. Nevertheless, such means would allow changes of names of the folders. When a change is made, a file with this information is sent to the server which, in its turn, controls the correctness of the changes and, subsequently, carries them out. If and when the changes are made, the server sends a new file to all the clients 1 which are connected in order to make the local representations correspond to the tree structure of the server. When the producer has selected which document (s) 3 is/are to be published and determined where it/they should be published, i.e. in which folder, the client 1 creates an instruction file 5 in a step S2. The instruc- tion file 5 can preferably also contain information about the name and the size of the document, a check sum based on the contents of the document, document type, description, the language of the description, the resolution of the document, if any, etc. Either an instruction file 5 is created for each document 3 or one instruction file 5 is created for a number of documents 3.

The instruction file 5 is preferably realised in a format where the structure of the file is indicated in the file by means of an HTML-like syntax. Preferably, the instruction file 5 contains no platform-dependent characters, such as end-of-line characters.

The information in the structure file might also, completely or partly, be transferred within the instruction file 5. Subsequently, the document 3 is transferred together with the instruction file 5 to the second part 6 of the server 2 in a step S3. The transfer preferably leaves the original document and the instruction file on the client, but could also delete one or both of them in connection with the transfer. In this embodiment, the server 2 has a number of folders also in the second part, the folders being associated with the respective producers. Preferably, these are processed by turns, and preferably only one document from the respective folders at a time. This means that the server 2 has a routine which is performed in a loop from one folder to another. When the routine encounters an instruction file 5 in a folder, it is processed and, subsequently, the routine continues to the next folder and leaves the other instruction files 5 in the same folder unprocessed in order to process them the next time the routine searches the folder for unprocessed files . Preferably, the server 2 has routines for controlling the transferred document or documents 3 in a controlling step S4. Above all, such a routine controls that the documents 3 which are described in the instruction file 5 have arrived at the server 2. Subsequently, controls are suitably carried out that the documents 3 have not been damaged during the transfer. This may take place by the size of the transferred documents 3 being compared with the values in the instruction file 5 or by some other property described in the instruction file 5 being compared with the copy of the transferred document 3.

Another control which might be carried out is a control whether the document type of the document 3 actually corresponds to the contents of the document . Such a control could, for example, read a certain number of initial characters in the document file 3 in order to verify the document type .

If the transfer is not approved according to the controls performed above, further processing is stopped. Suitably, a message, such as an e-mail, is then sent to someone in charge. This individual could be indicated in the instruction file. Such a message could contain proposals for measures.

When one copy of the document 3 to be published and the instruction file 5 have been transferred to the server 2 and possibly controlled and approved, the next routine takes over. By setting out from the transferred instruction file 5, the purpose of this routine is to create program code in a page description language, pref- erably in HTML, in step S5. This program code must then contain a reference, a link, to where the document will be located when it is transferred to the first part 7 of the server 2.

Together with the created program code, also copies of the document to be published according to the instruction file are transferred to the first part of the server in step S6. The document should now be seen as published. However, it is preferred to provide several different copies suited for different fields of application from the copy which has been stored on the second part 6 of the server 2. Different fields of application means, for example, that a copy is appropriate for being displayed on a screen, whereas another copy is suitable for printing, i.e. in this case actually a difference of resolution. A routine for providing different copies for different fields of application could preferably be imple- mented as a background process having different dedicated process folders which may be directories in a file system for automatically generating the different copies. Such a dedicated process folder implies that a routine for converting the document searches the folder periodically with the purpose of discovering new documents. When a new document is discovered, an automatic conversion of the document takes place, for example, from a high-resolution image to an image adapted to be viewed on screen or resampling of music. In connection with the various transfers taking place, on the one hand, from the client 1 to the server 2 and, on the other hand, within the server 2, there might preferably be routines for delaying or time-setting the transfers. Such routines could involve that it is made possible to schedule transfers in such a manner that they are carried out when the remaining utilisation of capacity is low.

Preferably, the client has a routine for monitoring the original documents which have been published by the client on the server. Such a routine could for example monitor changes of the original documents, for instance, that they have been changed, that they have been moved, that they are damaged, etc. Depending on what has happened to the document, the routine can take different measures, such as updating a publication or setting a status flag to true or false depending on whether an updated publication is permitted. Such a routine could be executed in the background. Preferably, the routine could also be configured individually for each connected unit, network and/or document.

Furthermore, a system according to this embodiment could comprise the possibility for a user of sending a profile file, containing a number of receivers of a document and information about the receivers, for instance, their name and age. This profile file could also be accompanied by files which are associated with one or more receivers in the profile file, such as photographs of the receivers. In this case, the server might have a routine for combining this profile file and any associated files with one or more published documents 8 in order to obtain an individual appearance of the respective receivers or group of receivers. For example, a document containing an advertisement for a product, can be combined with the name of the receiver of the product . This could result in more attention being paid to an advertising circular when it reaches the receiver. Preferably, there are also connected units for manifolding the document 8, which may range from simple laser printers to digital four-colour laser printers. A digital printing machine relates to, for example, such a four- colour laser printer, but it could actually also be a simple laser printer. These hardcopy output devices can equally well be located in the same organisation as the user, as be located at an external supplier, such as a printing office. In order to be able to ensure the correctness of colour balance when printing, there is a col- our profile for each printing unit stored in the server 2 which is used to adapt the printout to the selected printing unit. One example of a colour profile is an ICC profile.

When a user desires to print a document 8, he or she provides an order which is sent to a connected hardcopy output device. The device suitably has reception control functionality where an operator can accept the order. If the order is placed with an external supplier, the order could contain login information which is necessary if the supplier is to have access to the first part of the server containing the actual document 8 which is to be printed. The login information can then be in the form of a non-recurrent password or a password with a short period of validity.

It will be understood that a large number of modifications of the above-described embodiment are possible within the scope of the invention, for example, the client 1 which the producer uses for publishing documents may be a thin client, such as a web browser. In other cases, the server 2 could grant the users access by means of other software than a web server. In addition, the system is not limited to be used for publishing printed matter, but is also suited for publishing other documents, such as pieces of music stored in sound files or films. Such variants and related variants must be considered to be comprised by the invention as limited by the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method for publication of at least one copy of at least one of a client's (1) documents (3) on a server

(2) , which server (2) has a first part (7) on which published copies (8) are accessible to users connected to the server (2), c h a r a c t e r i s e d by the steps of creating an instruction file (5) in the client (1) , the instruction file comprising instructions to publish the document (3) , transferring a copy each of the document (3) and the instruction file (5) to a second part (6) of the server (2), automatically creating , in the server (2) , program code in a page description language, such as HTML, containing at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the in- struction file (5) , and moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part (7) of the server (2) .

2. A method for publication of at least one copy of at least one document (3) on a server (2) , which server (2) has a first part (7) on which published copies (8) are accessible to users connected to the server (2), c h a r a c t e r i s e d by the steps of receiving in a second part (6) of the server (2) a copy each of the document (3) and an instruction file (5) comprising instructions to publish the document (3) , automatically creating program code in a page description language, such as HTML, comprising at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the instruction file (5) , and moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part (7) of the server (2) .

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2 , further comprising the step of verifying, in the server (2) , that the properties of the transferred copy correspond to information in the instruction file (5) with respect to at least one property of the document and, if correspondence is not achieved, postponing carrying out the steps of automatically creating program code and of moving the transferred copy and the program code until further instructions are given.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising the step of reading the introductory part of the transferred copy and verifying that the transferred copy is of a document type indicated in the instruction file (5) .

5. A method as claimed in claim 3 or 4 , further comprising the step of deleting the instruction file (5) on the client (1) if, and only if, correspondence is achieved in the verifying step/steps.

6. A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which the first part (7) of the server (2) is public and its second part (6) is non-public.

7. A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, further comprising the step of processing the copy that is found on the second part (6) of the server (2) by means of instructions in the instruction file (5) in order to obtain several copies suited for different purposes to be moved to the first part (7) of the server (2) .

8. A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which the document (3) to be published is an original intended for a unit for manifolding prints and the transferred copy on the first part (7) of the server (2) is used as input data to said unit.

9. A system comprising a server (2) and a client (1) for publication of at least one copy of at least one of the client's documents (3) on the server (2), which server (2) has a first part (7) on which published copies (8) are accessible to users connected to the server (2) , c h a r a c t e r i s e d in that the client (1) comprises means for creating an instruction file (5) comprising instructions to publish the document (3) , the system has a transfer means adapted to transfer a copy each of the document (3) and the instruction file (5) to a second part (6) of the server (2) , the server (2) has means for automatically creating program code in a page description language, such as

HTML, containing at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the instruction file (5) , and the server (2) has means for moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part (7) of the server (2) .

10. A server (2) for publication of at least one copy of at least one document (3) comprising a first part (7) on which published copies (8) are accessible to users connected to the server (2), c h a r a c t e r i s e d by receiving means for receiving in a second part (6) of the server (2) a copy each of the document (3) and an instruction file (5) comprising instructions for publica- tion of the document (3) , means for automatically creating program code in a page description language, such as HTML, containing at least one reference to the position of the transferred copy according to the instructions of the instruction file (5) , and means for moving the transferred copy and the program code to the first part (7) of the server (2) .