CN112639762A

CN112639762A - Digital document management system

Info

Publication number: CN112639762A
Application number: CN201980041949.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 劳淦尧
Original assignee: Golide Ltd
Current assignee: Golide Ltd
Priority date: 2018-06-22
Filing date: 2019-05-31
Publication date: 2021-04-09
Also published as: GB202019953D0; GB2589254A; WO2019243926A1

Abstract

A method and system for managing digital documents. A plurality of digital documents are received in a specified order, each digital document aggregating at least two consecutive pages and received by a processor of a computing device in a memory storage. At least one index is generated and stored in the memory storage, the index including a separate entry corresponding to each digital document. Maintaining a specified order of the digital documents and their pages when modifying an aggregation of at least some of the pages in one or more of the plurality of digital documents. Further, the original aggregated information of the pages of the digital documents is maintained while the specified order of the digital documents is modified.

Description

Digital document management system

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to an improved digital document management system particularly suited for managing a plurality of individual electronic documents.

Background

With the advent of personal computers, documents that once had to be laboriously hand typed on a manual typewriter can be produced quickly, professionally, and in a variety of file formats.

PDF (portable document format) is a file format that has become the international open standard (ISO) for royalty-free document transport. The purpose of PDF evolution is to capture a document from any application for electronic transmission to any location in a form that allows a user to view and print the document on any machine. Thus, PDF documents are intended to be independent of the application software, hardware and operating system that created them.

PDF documents are typically a combination of graphical (vector/raster/multimedia) and text elements that are combined according to: a programming language specifying the layout; embedded fonts transmitted with the document; and a structured storage hierarchy for managing all information in the document.

Fundamentally, a PDF document is a container of individual page units that are aggregated together in a particular order to form a single document, and may include bookmarks that facilitate navigation through the PDF document.

PDF documents, however, are not particularly well suited for certain applications, such as legal specialties, preparation of bundled documents for court submissions, and the like.

In such an environment, it is necessary to manage a plurality of documents, each document having a plurality of pages; where each document (and thus the pages making up the document) needs to be presented in a particular user-specified order.

In some organizations, given the difficulties presented by managing multiple documents, recourse must be had to traditional techniques for preparing bundles of documents, such as by printing and manually pagating the documents.

Digital document management solutions are also implemented. Typically, a plurality of documents (such as PDF documents) in a document bundle are digitally managed by: naming each individual pdf document to obtain a particular ordering in the directory; or merge/combine individual PDF documents into a single combined PDF document.

In the case where multiple PDF files are combined to produce a single larger PDF document, the original source PDF documents will no longer be addressable as separate subsets of the larger single PDF document. In contrast, a single large PDF document consists of a (large) number of usually individually addressable page units constituting a PDF file. Thus, within a single large document, it is difficult for a user to modify the document (e.g., introduce later discovered documents) between previously separated source documents, unless done page by page. The only navigation option available is through the use of chapter marks on the previously separated source document.

Alternatively, if multiple PDF documents are kept in a separated state in a particular directory, it is difficult to ensure proper pagination across documents, document order (except for limited sort options (including file names or creation dates that are alphabetically specified by the user)).

Problems can arise in such environments, including particularly where paging must be performed (manually or electronically applied) across multiple documents or within a single larger PDF document.

Furthermore, there is limited flexibility to accommodate situations where additional documents need to be included — either inserting additional documents into a larger PDF document or performing appropriate file renaming and structuring in the structure of separate PDFs. Both methods are highly likely to cause page numbering, inadvertent errors in order, or other problems in the document(s), particularly because such document management is typically performed by papermen under great time pressure.

Accordingly, there is a need to address at least some of the above problems and deficiencies, or to at least provide the public with a useful choice.

Disclosure of Invention

Features and advantages of the present disclosure will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the principles disclosed herein. The features and advantages of the disclosure may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for managing digital documents; the method comprises the following steps:

receiving, in a memory coupled with a processor of a computing device, a plurality of digital documents in a specified order, each digital document aggregating at least two consecutive pages;

generating and storing at least one index comprising a separate entry corresponding to each digital document in the specified order,

wherein the aggregation of at least some of the pages in one or more of the plurality of digital documents is modified despite the modification;

but still maintaining: a specified order of the digital documents; original aggregation information of pages of the digital document and corresponding index entries thereof.

Preferably, the digital document is a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

Alternatively, modifying the specified order of the digital documents may initiate an update to its corresponding index entry.

The aggregation of at least some pages within the at least one digital document may be selected from the group consisting of: combining at least some of the pages in the first document with the pages of the second document, and extracting at least some of the pages in the first digital document to create at least one or more new digital documents.

The aggregated modifications to at least some of the pages within the at least one digital document may be user-specified. Optionally, the user-specified modifications to the aggregation of at least some of the pages in the existing document create a new document that includes the aggregated selected pages and corresponding index entries.

Optionally, the at least one generated index is a first index comprising a first plurality of entries corresponding to a first plurality of documents; and further comprising: creating a second index comprising a second plurality of entries corresponding to a second plurality of documents; and inserting an entry and a corresponding document in the other index in at least one of the first index and the second index.

Advantageously, the method may comprise exporting all documents in the document index as a combined PDF file up to a predetermined maximum number of pages. Alternatively, the predetermined maximum value may be 250 pages. The page number of each page of each document of the plurality of documents having a corresponding entry in the document index may be automatically sequentially incremented.

Advantageously, the successive increments of page number are user specified, automatic, or a combination thereof.

For each document of the plurality of documents, a plurality of pagination marks may be independently appended at predetermined locations on each page, wherein each pagination mark is separately and independently incremented.

The automatically increasing page number of successive pages of a document in the plurality of documents may be determined by the successive order of pages of the digital document and the order in which the document is received.

Advantageously, the file name of each document of the plurality of documents determines an entry in the document index.

Optionally, there is also provided a computer-implemented system for managing digital documents; the system comprises:

a non-transitory memory storage coupled with a processor of a computing device to receive a plurality of digital documents in a specified order, each digital document aggregating at least two consecutive pages;

a processor configured to generate and store at least one index in non-volatile memory storage, the at least one index including a separate entry corresponding to each digital document added to the processor in the specified order,

wherein the processor is configured such that the aggregation of at least some of the pages in one or more of the plurality of digital documents is modified despite being modified;

In a further aspect of the disclosure, there is also provided a computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium containing the following:

instructions stored in the non-transitory storage medium that are executable by a processor of a computing device to receive a plurality of digital documents into the non-transitory storage medium in a specified order, each digital document aggregating at least two consecutive pages;

and wherein the instructions stored in the non-transitory storage medium are also executable by the processor for generating and storing at least one index comprising a separate entry corresponding to each digital document in the specified order, wherein the instructions are configured such that the aggregation of at least some of the pages in one or more of the plurality of digital documents is modified despite being modified; but still maintaining: a specified order of the digital documents; original aggregation information of pages of the digital document and corresponding index entries thereof.

Drawings

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the disclosure can be obtained, a more particular description of the principles briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the principles herein will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings.

Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure will be explained in further detail below by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which a user-friendly application and method for managing a plurality of electronic documents is provided.

The present disclosure provides an intuitive user-friendly application,

FIG. 1 shows a schematic representation of an exemplary computing system on which aspects of the present disclosure may be executed.

Fig. 2a (i) and 2a (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation, respectively, of an embodiment of the disclosure demonstrating how pages of one document may be combined into another document.

Fig. 2b (i) and 2b (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation, respectively, of an embodiment of the disclosure demonstrating how pages of one document may be split into multiple documents.

Fig. 3a (i) and 3a (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation, respectively, of an embodiment of the present disclosure, wherein a plurality of digital documents are included in the application.

Fig. 3b (i) and 3b (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation, respectively, of an embodiment of the present disclosure in which a document has been derived from an exemplary application in accordance with an aspect of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a schematic representation of an aspect of the present disclosure in which an index is generated from a document.

Fig. 5a (i) and 5a (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation, respectively, of an exemplary manner in which a user may interact with items and documents by "copy and paste" between two instances of an exemplary application of the present disclosure.

Fig. 5b (i) and 5b (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation of an exemplary manner in which a user may interact with items and documents using "cut and paste" between two instances of an exemplary application of the present disclosure.

Fig. 6a (i) and 6a (ii) depict an initial schematic representation and a modified schematic representation of the manner in which additional items are included in an embodiment of an application according to the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

Various embodiments of the present disclosure are discussed in detail below. While specific embodiments are discussed, it should be understood that this is done for illustrative purposes only. A person skilled in the relevant art will recognize that other components and configurations may be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

The disclosed technology addresses the need in the art for a user-friendly, intuitive application for managing multiple digital documents, where each digital document includes containers of individual page units that are aggregated together in a particular order to form a single document.

By providing customizable document level groupings and specific page level controls for such aggregations, users can operate the methods and software of the present disclosure to more efficiently manage documents and their pages.

The present disclosure is particularly suited to legal environments, particularly in view of optional additional features of the disclosure. Particularly to facilitate preparation of electronic bundles, pages of legal documents may be consecutively numbered in place, where the consecutive numbering is maintained through use of the methods and or software of the present disclosure, even if changes are made to the document order and/or the pages making up the documents.

Alternatively, the document may be a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, although other similar formats including text and/or graphical elements may be utilized without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the systems and methods of the present disclosure may be executed on an apparatus and/or system that may be specially constructed for the desired purposes, or that may comprise a general purpose computing system selectively activated or configured by a program stored in the device. Such a program may be stored on a storage medium or on a part of a memory device connected to such a computing system.

For example, referring now to FIG. 1, a computing system 110 is illustrated that may be used to implement one or more of the disclosed embodiments. It will be appreciated that various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the desired method.

The computing system 110 in the exemplary embodiment can comprise a computing system suitable for executing software instructions to perform one or more processes described herein. The system 110 may include a processor 112 coupled to a bus 114, and an electronic display device 116 also coupled to the bus 114.

The memory 118 coupled to the bus may include one or more of the following devices: any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), Random Access Memories (RAMs), electrically programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), Electrically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memories (EEPROMs), flash memory, magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and capable of being coupled to a system bus for a computing device or other information handling system.

The system 110 may further include an input/output (I/O) interface 118 capable of transmitting and/or receiving information to the display 116, including from one or more types of input/output devices 122, such as a pointing device or keyboard, for processing by the processor 112 in accordance with instructions stored in the memory 118.

Optionally, the computer system 110 may be communicatively coupled to a network (such as the internet) via the communication interface 126, wirelessly or by wire, without limitation.

The representations depicted in fig. 2-6 subsequently herein may be displayed on a display 116 on a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI may be configured to receive one or more inputs from the computing system 110, such as by using the input/output device 122. Additionally, the display device 116 may be capable of displaying a visual representation of one or more files and/or one or more electronic documents, and the visual representation may include viewable documents, as will be explained in more detail subsequently.

It will be understood that, as used herein, a digital document may include content such as digital images, audio, video, graphics, or text, which may include formatting. These elements may be combined according to: a programming language specifying the layout; embedded fonts transmitted with the document; and a structured storage hierarchy for managing all information in the document. For example, the formatting may include a layout within the digital document, and may be consistent across multiple pages of the document, such as having a common header and/or footer on each page in the document. PDF (portable document format) is an exemplary digital document that has become the international open standard (ISO) for royalty-free document transport. The purpose of PDF evolution is to capture a document from any application for electronic transmission to any location in a form that allows a user to view and print the document on any machine. Thus, PDF documents are intended to be independent of the application software, hardware and operating system that created them. Fundamentally, a PDF document is a container of individual page units that are aggregated together in a particular order to form a single document, and may include bookmarks that facilitate navigation through the PDF document.

Alternatively, the software applications described herein may utilize multiple pre-existing software libraries and/or frameworks in performing the disclosed methods and steps.

For example, the application may utilize a.net framework or similar framework without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Alternatively, the application software may be coded in the C # language, but other languages may be used.

NET components, such as Apitron PDF Rasterizer, can be used to render, create, combine, split, edit PDFs (specifically to add page numbers). It will be understood that other similar PDF modifying components may also be utilized without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

The user interfaces and embodiments depicted herein are exemplary only and may be created using packages, frameworks, and methodologies familiar to those skilled in the art. Advantageously, in creating embodiments of the present disclosure, as discussed in more detail below.

The docking window control AvalonDock for a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) environment enables the use of a fully functional window docking system to create a customizable layout. Drag functionality (and control of such interaction) in a Windows Presentation environment may be coordinated by libraries such as Gongsolutions drag, as known to those skilled in the art. The presentation environment may utilize controls and styles (such as modern Ul) to present the elements that make up the user interface in a customizable format. Customization of the various controls may be facilitated by software such as WPFCustomMessageBox or the like, providing additional buttons and functionality for native message boxes of Windows software.

In a variant of the model-view-controller model familiar to those skilled in the art, the separation of the model (from which the data is extracted) from the actual view presented can be managed by a library such as MVVM light. This facilitates: testing and developing the basic data structure independent of the user interface; and the appearance can be customized without significant modification to the underlying data.

Open XML SDK or other similar application or library may be used to facilitate writing index information from an XML data source to Microsoft Windows

Compatible file formats.

The PDF document may be rendered on the screen of the. NET app using a Pdfium viewer.

The iText Sharp PDF library allows documents to be created, adjusted, verified, and maintained in a Portable Document Format (PDF), thereby adding PDF functionality. The functions used in this application include: generating documents and reports based on data from an XML file or database; adding bookmarks, page numbers, watermarks and other features in the existing PDF document; and splitting or merging the pages of the existing PDF file.

It will be appreciated that the underlying data structure on which the exemplary files, information, and index entries discussed below are located may be any data structure suitable for these purposes; the data structure includes: basic generalized data structures/containers (such as arrays, linked lists, records, classes, graphs, binary trees, etc.) and variations thereof; and proprietary versions thereof, such as those implemented in libraries of related programming frameworks and languages utilized and discussed above.

Referring now to fig. 2A-6, an exemplary schematic representation of an embodiment of an application screen according to the present disclosure is provided in which a window 10 includes a left pane 12 and a right pane 14.

As depicted, the left pane includes a plurality of

index entries

20, 22, 24 that link to a first page of corresponding

documents

30, 32, 34.

Regardless of the order of the index entries, the links between the index entries and the documents (or more specifically the document pages associated with the index entries) are maintained during subsequent operations. In an embodiment, the index entry may be automatically generated based on the file name of the document to which the index entry corresponds. It will be appreciated that such a user may or may not be user-editable, depending on the particular controls that may be set in the application.

The three

documents

30, 32, 34 are depicted as each having two pages (30a, 30b), (32a, 32b), (34a, 34b) in the right pane 14; and have been arranged in the order of presentation. However, it will be understood that any number of pages may be included in any of these documents; and the documents may be arranged in any particular order without departing from the scope of this disclosure. The dashed lines 31 indicate the grouping of pages in a document, for clarity purposes only; and may/may not be present in practical applications, depending on the needs.

In the arrangement depicted in FIG. 2A (i), the user desires to combine the

index entries

20, 22 into a new index entry 20a and to combine the document pages (i.e.,

pages

30a, 30b, 32a) corresponding to these index entries into a new document 30 b); as shown by the left pane 12 in the arrangement depicted in fig. 2a (ii).

Thus, the user selects the entry or page desired to be combined (by mouse, cursor or shortcut, or any combination thereof) and generates an updated association of the page (with the index entry if available).

This is reflected in FIG. 2A (ii), which shows that the pages 32a, 32B (previously document B) have now been combined with the pages 30a, 30B of document (A + B1); the document is still accessible via link 20 a. It will be appreciated that some combination of portions of the pages in the document (not shown) may also be implemented.

In the depicted embodiment, the order of the documents remains the same, and the pages in these documents remain the same, but which pages are associated with which specified documents changes. It will also be appreciated that the order of pages of a single document may change; and then the subsequent resulting document may be further merged with another document as disclosed in the previous example without departing from the disclosure.

Similarly, reverse operation is also possible, as depicted in fig. 2b (i) and fig. 2b (ii).

As shown in the schematic representation of FIG. 2B (i), there is an index entry 20 for document "A"; the document includes

pages

30a and 30 b. Upon activation of the "split" command (e.g., by activation of a predetermined shortcut or menu command), the user may manually place separators (represented by lines 40) between the pages using a cursor, mouse, or other key to "split" document a between

pages

30a and 30 b. Executing the split command may create: a new document including page 30 b; and a corresponding index entry 23; as depicted in the schematic representation of fig. 2b (ii). Corresponding updates to the used data structures will be performed in the memory under control of the processor.

Referring to fig. 3a (i) and 3a (ii), an exemplary schematic representation of one manner in which the

index entries

20, 22, 24 may be generated is depicted; which show the initial and final states, respectively.

As shown, the index entries are generated in the order in which the documents are dragged into the application's (initially empty) right pane; the order represents the order in which the software contains the documents in the memory storage device under operation of the processor. It will be appreciated that this sequence can be readily changed by the user in a conventional manner, for example by: the index entries in the left pane or the corresponding documents in the right pane are sorted, dragged, and dropped or otherwise modified alphabetically with a user-operable device such as a mouse or touch pad. If the order of the documents is changed in this way, the order of the index entries will be changed accordingly.

Advantageously, as discussed in further detail below, index entries may be used to navigate to the first page of a document as a quick "handle" to rearrange the order of the documents (and the pages that make up the documents) and as a basis for a directory.

Referring now to fig. 3b (i) and 3b (ii), the documents in the application may be exported as a single document that conforms to the well-known Portable Document Format (PDF). Advantageously, the index entries (representations of various documents) (20, 22, 24) may be converted to chapters or "bookmarks" in this format (50, 52, 54). Optionally, successive page numbers (as depicted by 60, 62, 64) may be presented at various locations on the page, as needed for the details of the particular application of the document.

Referring now to FIG. 4, another optional feature of the present disclosure is depicted in which

index entries

10, 12, 14 may be derived from an application, such as

Word or similar programs. Advantageously, this may be performed by exporting the information from the data structure to a text format for inclusion in a word processing application.

Referring to fig. 5a (i) and 5a (ii), there is depicted a schematic representation of copying index entries and corresponding documents between two instances of an

application

10a, 10b in an initial state and a subsequent state, respectively.

When the user selects an

entry

20, 22 or

corresponding document page

30a, 30b, 32a, 32b and activates an appropriate trigger, these pages can be copied between the two instances of the application using a known "drag" function.

Thus, as depicted by the lower right-hand example (10b) shown, the initially empty instance 10b of the application is easily filled with corresponding index entries (and associated pages arranged into the document) in a specified order. The original entry in the first instance 10a is retained and is retained in that instance for future modification/export.

In contrast, referring to fig. 5b (i) and 5b (ii), a similar "move" function is depicted, whereby the pages in the selected document (and the document and corresponding index entries) are moved from the first instance of the application 10(a) to the second (initially empty) instance 10 b.

As shown in the rest of the situation after the operations already carried out in fig. 5b (ii); the pages (30a, 30B, 32a, 32B) and corresponding index entries (20, 22) of documents A and B no longer appear in the first instance 10a, but in the second instance 10B. The only remaining document ("C") with

pages

34a, 34b and corresponding index entries 24 is still in the first instance of the application 10 a.

Advantageously, the techniques of this disclosure may also provide the ability to automatically increment the page number in succession, spanning all pages of a document in the order in which the document is arranged. Optionally, the page number may be configured to be automatically updated if: when changes are made to the order of documents (and corresponding index entries); and also when modifying the order of pages within a specified document.

In one aspect of the disclosure, automatically incremented page numbers are made possible by: individually incrementing the page number in an exemplary data structure (such as an array, stack, or other data structure); storing successive pages of the final order page (successive pages indicated by the final order document and user operations) into another data structure, such as another array, stack, or appropriate data structure; and at the same time (using other data structures) maintaining the association of the page with the document. In this manner, the page number information is separate from the page and document and can be updated automatically (or manually upon user request).

Alternatively, the page number may be configured to increment up to a maximum number of pages, which may be based on particular usage environment requirements. Advantageously, in a legal environment, this maximum value may be set to 250 pages, or sometimes to some other value as dictated by the court rules.

In embodiments of the present disclosure, a user may specify a format, a page position, a starting value of a page number, and a type of sequentially increasing ordinal.

In still further aspects, the plurality of page number tags may be independently appended to the page at separate locations and independently incremented. Advantageously, in the case of automatic incrementing of the page number, the order of the document and of the pages constituting the document determine the (incremented) page number applied.

Referring now to fig. 6a (i), an optional aspect of the disclosure is provided.

As shown, the user may need to include additional documents 20b between other documents. This may be because the latter document is already at a later stage than all other documents that may have been submitted (e.g., to a court). The additional document may require the application of a special page number, which makes it clear that the additional document is complementary to the originally provided document. Thus, rather than including a document and corresponding index entry as shown in the exemplary arrangement in FIG. 6A (i), the additional document may be imported as discussed above but with a special number applied manually. The additional document may then be selected and marked and the page numbered to reflect that the additional document is an additional or supplemental document to the original document as schematically shown in fig. 6a (ii). As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, such information may be stored in the underlying data structure in a variety of ways, including by linked references to further and additional separate data structures.

The above embodiments have been described by way of example only. Many variations are possible without departing from the scope of the disclosure as defined in the appended claims.

The present disclosure provides a convenient way to store and arrange digital documents, and is particularly applicable to legal environments that require modification of digital document "bundles" and include pagination.

Advantageously, the techniques of this disclosure provide a digital way in which a user can interact with document pages or the documents themselves grouped within a document bundle.

The present disclosure provides a significant improvement over the physical way in which a user must interact with physical documents and with digital documents that are "bundled" in a catalog.

Using physical documents located in a physical bundle, a user can interact with documents contained in multiple folders or lever arch folders (document groupings or document bundles). Using physical documents, while somewhat cumbersome, can merge documents (e.g., by rebinding), add documents, divide documents, and move documents between each folder/file. The use of digital documents generally lacks this capability.

However, the present disclosure teaches a convenient way in which reorganization of documents in a document bundle can be performed digitally. This approach represents a significant advance in the processing of digital documents, where the techniques of the present disclosure facilitate numerous and varied operations, including adding documents to folders/files, dividing documents, and reorganizing document pages and document locations between various folders/files. In addition, in a further aspect, the paging aspect of the disclosure can then be applied to the reorganized file in its entirety and conveniently, using the unique addressability of individual pages of the document provided by the method of the disclosure to increment successive pages across a bundle of documents.

Further, the present disclosure teaches a convenient way to create new documents based on grouping of old document pages. Copying and pasting document pages to new locations within documents and document bundles is also facilitated by the techniques of this disclosure. As will be appreciated and as disclosed above, documents in digital format may be rendered into physical documents (including optional pagination) by printing as disclosed above.

For clarity of explanation, in some instances the present technology may be presented as including functional blocks comprising apparatus, apparatus components, steps or routines in a method implemented in software, or a combination of hardware and software.

The methods according to the examples described above may be implemented using computer-executable instructions stored on or otherwise available from computer-readable media. These instructions may include, for example, instructions and data which cause or otherwise configure a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions. Part of the computer resources used may be accessible via a network. The computer-executable instructions may be, for example, binaries, intermediate format instructions, such as assembly language, firmware, or source code. Examples of computer readable media that may be used to store instructions, information used, and/or information created during a method according to the described examples include magnetic or optical disks, flash memory, Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices provided with non-volatile memory, networked storage devices, and so forth.

An apparatus implementing methods in accordance with these disclosures may include hardware, firmware, and/or software, and may take any of a variety of form factors. Typical examples of these form factors include laptop computers, smart phones, small form factor personal computers, personal digital assistants, and the like. The functionality described herein may also be implemented in a peripheral device or add-on card. As another example, such functionality may also be implemented on circuit boards of different chips, or may be implemented on different processes executing in a single device.

Instructions, media for communicating the instructions, computing resources for executing the instructions, and other structures for supporting the computing resources are means for providing the functionality described in the disclosures.

Although various examples and other information are used to explain aspects within the scope of the appended claims, no limitations to the claims should be implied based on the particular features or arrangements in the examples, as one of ordinary skill in the art will be able to use the examples to derive various embodiments. Further, and although certain subject matter may have been described in language specific to examples of structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the described features or acts. For example, such functionality may be distributed differently or performed in components other than those identified herein. Rather, the described features and steps are disclosed as examples of component parts of systems and methods within the scope of the appended claims.

The claims (modification according to treaty clause 19)

1. A method for managing digital documents; the method comprises the following steps:

generating and storing at least one index comprising a separate entry corresponding to each digital document in the specified order;

wherein the specified order of the digital documents, the original aggregation information for the pages of the digital documents, and their corresponding index entries are maintained despite a modification to the aggregation of at least some of the pages in one or more of the plurality of digital documents.

2. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 1, wherein the digital document is an electronic document in a Portable Document Format (PDF).

3. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 1, wherein modifying said specified order of said digital documents initiates an update to its corresponding index entries.

4. A method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the aggregated modifications to at least some of the pages within at least one digital document are selected from the group comprising: combining at least some of the pages in the first document with the pages of the second document, and extracting at least some of the pages in the first digital document to create at least one or more new digital documents.

5. A method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the aggregated modifications to at least some of the pages within at least one digital document are user-specified.

6. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 5, wherein said user-specified modification to the aggregation of at least some of the pages in the existing document creates a new document comprising the aggregated selected pages and corresponding index entries.

7. The method for managing digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said at least one index is a first index comprising a first plurality of entries corresponding to a first plurality of documents;

and wherein the method further comprises: creating a second index comprising a second plurality of entries corresponding to a second plurality of documents; and

inserting an entry of the other index and a corresponding document in at least one of the first index and the second index.

8. A method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising exporting all documents in the document index as a combined PDF file up to a predetermined maximum number of pages.

9. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 8, wherein said predetermined maximum value is 250 pages.

10. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the page number of each page of each document of said plurality of documents having a corresponding entry in said document index is automatically incremented consecutively.

11. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 10, wherein the successive increments of page number are user specified, automatically generated, or a combination thereof.

12. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein for each document of said plurality of documents a plurality of pagination marks are independently attached at predetermined locations on each page, and wherein each pagination mark is individually and independently incremented.

13. A method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the automatically increasing page number of successive pages of a document in said plurality of documents is determined by the successive order of pages of said digital document and the order in which said document is received.

14. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the file name of each document of said plurality of documents determines an entry in said document index.

Claims

9. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 7, wherein said predetermined maximum value is 250 pages.

11. The method for managing a plurality of digital documents according to claim 8, wherein the successive increments of page number are user specified, automatically generated, or a combination thereof.