[1]
Generating summary documents for a variable-quality PDF document collection
Document analysis I
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Hughes, Jacob
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Brailsford, David F.
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Adams, Clive E.
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2014-09-16
p.49-52
© Copyright 2014 ACM
Summary: The Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Register of studies details all aspects
of the effects of treating people with schizophrenia. It has been gathered over
the last 20 years and consists of around 20,000 documents, overwhelmingly in
PDF. Document collections of this sort -- on a given theme but gathered from a
wide range of sources -- will generally have huge variability in the quality of
the PDF, particularly with respect to the key property of text searchability.
Summarising the results from the best of these papers, to allow
evidence-based health care decision making, has so far been done by manually
creating a summary document, starting from a visual inspection of the relevant
PDF file. This labour-intensive process has resulted, to date, in only 4,000 of
the papers being summarised -- with enormous duplication of effort and with
many issues around the validity and reliability of the data extraction.
This paper describes a pilot project to provide a computer-assisted
framework in which any of the PDF documents could be searched for the
occurrence of some 8,000 keywords and key phrases. Once keyword tagging has
been completed the framework assists in the generation of a standard summary
document, thereby greatly speeding up the production of these summaries. Early
examples of the framework are described and its capabilities illustrated.
[2]
Revisiting a summer vacation: digital restoration and typesetter forensics
Digital humanities
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Kernighan, Brian W.
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2013-09-10
p.3-12
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: In 1979 the Computing Science Research Center ('Center 127') at Bell
Laboratories bought a Linotron 202 typesetter from the Mergenthaler company.
This was a 'third generation' digital machine that used a CRT to image
characters onto photographic paper. The intent was to use existing Linotype
fonts and also to develop new ones to exploit the 202's line-drawing
capabilities.
Use of the 202 was hindered by Mergenthaler's refusal to reveal the inner
structure and encoding mechanisms of the font files. The particular 202 was
further dogged by extreme hardware and software unreliability.
A memorandum describing the experience was written in early 1980 but was
deemed to be too "sensitive" to release. The original troff input for the
memorandum exists and now, more than 30 years later, the memorandum can be
released. However, the only available record of its visual appearance was a
poor-quality scanned photocopy of the original printed version.
This paper details our efforts in rebuilding a faithful retypeset replica of
the original memorandum, given that the Linotron 202 disappeared long ago, and
that this episode at Bell Labs occurred 5 years before the dawn of PostScript
(and later PDF) as de facto standards for digital document preservation.
The paper concludes with some lessons for digital archiving policy drawn
from this rebuilding exercise.
[3]
No need to justify your choice: pre-compiling line breaks to improve eBook
readability
Document layout & presentation generation II
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Pinkney, Alexander J.
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2013-09-10
p.237-240
© Copyright 2013 ACM
Summary: Implementations of eBooks have existed in one form or another for at least
the past 20 years, but it is only in the past 5 years that dedicated eBook
hardware has become a mass-market item.
New screen technologies, such as e-paper, provide a reading experience
similar to those of physical books, and even backlit LCD and OLED displays are
beginning to have high enough pixel densities to render text crisply at small
point sizes. Despite this, the major element of the physical book that has not
yet made the transition to the eBook is high-quality typesetting.
The great advantage of eBooks is that the presentation of the page can
adapt, at rendering time, to the physical screen size and to the reading
preferences of the user. Until now, simple first-fit line-breaking algorithms
have had to be used in order to give acceptable rendering speed whilst
conserving battery life.
This paper describes a system for producing well-typeset, scalable document
layouts for eBook readers, without the computational overhead normally
associated with better-quality typesetting. We precompute many of the complex
parts of the typesetting process, and perform the majority of the 'heavy
lifting' at document compile-time, rather than at rendering time. Support is
provided for floats (such as figures in an academic paper, or illustrations in
a novel), for arbitrary screen sizes, and also for arbitrary point-size changes
within the text.
[4]
Automated conversion of web-based marriage register data into a printed
format with predefined layout
Demos and posters
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2011 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2011-09-19
p.61-64
© Copyright 2011 ACM
Summary: The Phillimore Marriage Registers for England were published in the period
1896 to 1922 and have defined a standard layout format for the typesetting of
marriage data. However, not all English parish churches had their marriage
registers analysed and printed by the Phillimore organisation within this time
period.
This paper tells the story of Wirksworth, a town in Derbyshire with a large
church, licensed for marriages, yet whose marriage data was not released to the
Phillimore organisation. Hence there is no printed Phillimore Marriages volume
for Wirksworth. However, in recent years, a Wirksworth web site, created by
John Palmer, has become famous as being probably the most comprehensive record
of a parish's activities anywhere on the Web.
Within a total of 120 MB of data on the web site, covering events in
Wirksworth from medieval times to the present, is a set of data recording
births, marriages and deaths transcribed from the original hand-written church
register volumes.
The work described here covers the software tools and techniques that were
used in creating a set of awk scripts to extract all the marriage records from
the Wirksworth web site data. The extracted material was then automatically
re-processed, typeset and indexed to form an entirely new Phillimore-style
volume for Wirksworth marriages.
[5]
Reflowable documents composed from pre-rendered atomic components
Flowing content into layout
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Pinkney, Alexander J.
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2011 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2011-09-19
p.163-166
© Copyright 2011 ACM
Summary: Mobile eBook readers are now commonplace in today's society, but their
document layout algorithms remain basic, largely due to constraints imposed by
short battery life. At present, with any eBook file format not based on PDF,
the layout of the document, as it appears to the end user, is at the mercy of
hidden reformatting and reflow algorithms interacting with the screen
parameters of the device on which the document is rendered. Very little control
is provided to the publisher or author, beyond some basic formatting options.
This paper describes a method of producing well-typeset, scalable, document
layouts by embedding several pre-rendered versions of a document within one
file, thus enabling many computationally expensive steps (e.g. hyphenation and
line-breaking) to be carried out at document compilation time, rather than at
'view time'. This system has the advantage that end users are not constrained
to a single, arbitrarily chosen view of the document, nor are they subjected to
reading a poorly typeset version rendered on the fly. Instead, the device can
choose a layout appropriate to its screen size and the end user's choice of
zoom level, and the author and publisher can have fine-grained control over all
layouts.
[6]
Optimized reprocessing of documents using stored processor state
Document systems
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Ollis, James A.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Bagley, Steven R.
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2010-09-21
p.135-138
Keywords: SVG, VDP, XSLT, document authoring, document editing, partial re-evaluation,
variable data documents
© Copyright 2010 ACM
Summary: Variable Data Printing (VDP) allows customised versions of material such as
advertising flyers to be readily produced. However, VDP is often extremely
demanding of computing resources because, even when much of the material stays
invariant from one document instance to the next, it is often simpler to
re-evaluate the page completely rather than identifying just the portions that
vary.
In this paper we explore, in an XML/XSLT/SVG workflow and in an editing
context, the reduction of the processing burden that can be realised by
selectively reprocessing only the variant parts of the document. We introduce a
method of partial re-evaluation that relies on re-engineering an existing XSLT
parser to handle, at each XML tree node, both the storage and restoration of
state for the underlying document processing framework. Quantitative results
are presented for the magnitude of the speed-ups that can be achieved.
We also consider how changes made through an appearance-based interactive
editing scheme for VDP documents can be automatically reflected in the document
view via optimised XSLT re-evaluation of sub-trees that are affected either by
the changed script or by altered data.
[7]
Automated re-typesetting, indexing and content enhancement for scanned
marriage registers
Experiments and methodology
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2009 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2009-09-16
p.29-38
Keywords: GEDCOM, OCR, genealogy, hyper-linking, indexing, re-typesetting, troff
© Copyright 2009 ACM
Summary: For much of England and Wales marriage registers began to be kept in 1537.
The marriage details were recorded locally, and in longhand, until 1st July
1837, when central records began. All registers were kept in the local parish
church. In the period from 1896 to 1922 an attempt was made, by the Phillimore
company of London, using volunteer help, to transcribe marriage registers for
as many English parishes as possible and to have them printed. This paper
describes an experiment in the automated re-typesetting of Volume 2 of the
15-volume Phillimore series relating to the county of Derbyshire. The source
material was plain text derived from running Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) on a set of page scans taken from the original printed volume. The aim of
the experiment was to avoid any idea of labour-intensive page-by-page
rebuilding with tools such as Acrobat Capture. Instead, it proved possible to
capitalise on the regular, tabular, structure of the Register pages as a means
of automating the re-typesetting process, using UNIX troff software and its tbl
preprocessor. A series of simple software tools helped to bring about the
OCR-to-troff transformation. However, the re-typesetting of the text was not
just an end in itself but, additionally, a step on the way to content
enhancement and content repurposing. This included the indexing of the marriage
entries and their potential transformation into XML and GEDCOM notations. The
experiment has shown, for highly regular material, that the efforts of one
programmer, with suitable low-level tools, can be far more effective than
attempting to recreate the printed material using WYSIWYG software.
[8]
Tracking sub-page components in document workflows
Variable documents
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Ollis, James A.
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2008-09-16
p.86-89
Keywords: COGs, DocBook, PDF, VDP, XSL-FO, XSLT, document components, document
workflows, education
© Copyright 2008 ACM
Summary: Documents go through numerous transformations and intermediate formats as
they are processed, in a workflow, from abstract markup into final printable
form. Unfortunately, it is common to find that ideas about document components,
which might exist in the source code for the document, become completely lost
within an amorphous, unstructured, page of PDF prior to being rendered. Given
the importance of a component-based approach in Variable Data Printing (VDP) we
have developed a collection of tools that allow information about the various
transformations to be embedded at each stage in the workflow, together with a
visualization tool that uses this embedded information to display the
relationships between the various intermediate documents.
We demonstrate these tools in the context of an example workflow using
DocBook markup but the techniques described are widely applicable and would be
easily adaptable to other workflows and for use in teaching tools to illustrate
document component and VDP concepts.
[9]
Extracting reusable document components for variable data printing
Variable data printing
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Ollis, James A.
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2007-08-28
p.44-52
Keywords: PDF, SVG, content extraction, graphic objects, PostScript, variable data
printing
© Copyright 2007 ACM
Summary: Variable Data Printing (VDP) has brought new flexibility and dynamism to the
printed page. Every printed instance of a specific class of document can now
have different degrees of customized content within the document template.
This flexibility comes at a cost. If every printed page is potentially
different from all others it must be rasterized separately, which is a
time-consuming process. Technologies such as PPML (Personalized Print Markup
Language) attempt to address this problem by dividing the bitmapped page into
components that can be cached at the raster level, thereby speeding up the
generation of page instances.
A large number of documents are stored in Page Description Languages at a
higher level of abstraction than the bitmapped page. Much of this content could
be reused within a VDP environment provided that separable document components
can be identified and extracted. These components then need to be individually
rasterisable so that each high-level component can be related to its low-level
(bitmap) equivalent. Unfortunately, the unstructured nature of most Page
Description Languages makes it difficult to extract content easily.
This paper outlines the problems encountered in extracting component-based
content from existing page description formats, such as PostScript, PDF and
SVG, and how the differences between the formats affects the ease with which
content can be extracted. The techniques are illustrated with reference to a
tool called COG Extractor, which extracts content from PDF and SVG and prepares
it for reuse.
[10]
Speculative document evaluation
Variable data printing
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Macdonald, Alexander
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Brailsford, David
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Bagley, Steven
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Lumley, John
Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2007-08-28
p.56-58
Keywords: PPML, SVG, VDP, document layout, optimisation, speculative evaluation
© Copyright 2007 ACM
Summary: Optimisation of real world Variable Data printing (VDP) documents is a
difficult problem because the interdependencies between layout functions may
drastically reduce the number of invariant blocks that can be factored out for
pre-rasterisation.
This paper examines how speculative evaluation at an early stage in a
document-preparation pipeline, provides a generic and effective method of
optimising VDP documents that contain such interdependencies.
Speculative evaluation will be at its most effective in speeding up print
runs if sets of layout invariances can either be discovered automatically, or
designed into the document at an early stage. In either case the expertise of
the layout designer needs to be supplemented by expertise in exploiting
potential invariances and also in predicting the effects of speculative
evaluation on the caches used at various stages in the print production
pipeline.
[11]
Evaluating invariances in document layout functions
Document layout
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Macdonald, Alexander J.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Lumley, John
Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2006-10-10
p.25-27
Keywords: SVG, XML, XSLT, document layout, optimisation
© Copyright 2006 ACM
Summary: With the development of variable-data-driven digital presses where each
document printed is potentially unique there is a need for pre-press
optimization to identify material that is invariant from document to document.
In this way rasterisation can be confined solely to those areas which change
between successive documents thereby alleviating a potential performance
bottleneck.
Given a template document specified in terms of layout functions, where
actual data is bound at the last possible moment before printing, we look at
deriving and exploiting the invariant properties of layout functions from their
formal specifications. We propose future work on generic extraction of
invariance from such properties for certain classes of layout functions.
[12]
The COG Scrapbook
Posters
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2005-11-02
p.31
Keywords: COGs, FormXObject, PDF, graphic objects
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary:
Creating truly dynamic documents from disparate components is not an easy
process, especially for untrained end users. Existing packages such as Adobe
InDesign or Quark XPress are designed for graphic-arts professionals and even
these are not optimised for the process of integrating disparate components.
The 'COG Scrapbook' builds on our PDF-based Component Object Graphics (COGs)
technology to create a radically new 'drag and drop' software approach to
creating dynamic documents for use in educational environments.
The initial focus of the COG Scrapbook is to enable groups of people to
collaboratively create material ranging from smaller-sized (e.g. A4) personal
scrapbooks through to large (e.g. A0) posters. Some examples scenarios where
the technology could be utilized are:
- university students producing posters for class assignments;
- school teachers and students jointly creating classroom wall displays;
- creation of a scrapbook of annotated digital photographs resulting from school field trips and museum visits
The poster illustrating the present state of this work will itself have been
constructed using COG Scrapbook software.
[13]
Encapsulating and manipulating component object graphics (COGs) using SVG
Making use of document standards and models
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Macdonald, Alexander J.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Bagley, Steven R.
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2005-11-02
p.61-63
Keywords: PDF, SVG, XML, component object graphics, parameterization
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) has an imaging model similar to that of
PostScript and PDF but the XML basis of SVG allows it to participate fully, via
namespaces, in generalised XML documents.
There is increasing interest in using SVG as a Page Description Language and
we examine ways in which SVG document components can be encapsulated in
contexts where SVG will be used as a rendering technology for conventional page
printing.
Our aim is to encapsulate portions of SVG content (SVG COGs) so that the
COGs are mutually independent and can be moved around a page, while maintaining
invariant graphic properties and with guaranteed freedom from side effects and
mutual interference. Parallels are drawn between COG implementation within
SVG's tree-based inheritance mechanisms and an earlier COG implementation using
PDF.
[14]
Enhancing composite digital documents using XML-based standoff markup
Document authoring, markup and manipulation 2
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Thomas, Peter L.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2005-11-02
p.177-186
Keywords: MathML, MusicXML, PDF, XBL, XML, composite documents, standoff markup
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary: 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.
[15]
The COG scrapbook
Demonstrations
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2005-11-02
p.233-234
Keywords: COGs, FormXObject, PDF, graphic objects
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary: The COG Scrapbook technology is an attempt to by the authors to convert
their COG technology into a usable suite of software for typical end-users,
rather than Document Engineering specialists.
This demonstration illustrates the four major components of this software
suite, the COG Manipulator; COG Encapsulator; COG Extractor; and COG Creator.
These four components provide the user with the tools required to manipulate
COG PDF documents within the Adobe Acrobat environment.
[16]
Creating structured PDF files using XML templates
Document creation I
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Hardy, Matthew R. B.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Thomas, Peter L.
Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2004-10-28
p.99-108
Keywords: PDF, XML, logical structure insertion
© Copyright 2004 ACM
Summary: This paper describes a tool for recombining the logical structure from an
XML document with the typeset appearance of the corresponding PDF document. The
tool uses the XML representation as a template for the insertion of the logical
structure into the existing PDF document thereby creating a Structured/Tagged
PDF. The addition of logical structure adds value to the PDF in three ways: the
accessibility is improved (PDF screen readers for visually impaired users
perform better) media options are enhanced (the ability to reflow PDF documents
using structure as a guide makes PDF viable for use on hand-held devices) and
the re-usability of the PDF documents benefits greatly from the presence of an
XML-like structure tree to guide the process of text retrieval in reading order
(e.g. when interfacing to XML applications and databases).
[17]
Page composition using PPML as a link-editing script
Document creation II
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2004-10-28
p.134-136
Keywords: PDF, PPML, form Xobjects, graphic objects, link editing
© Copyright 2004 ACM
Summary: The advantages of a COG (Component Object Graphic) approach to the
composition of PDF pages have been set out in a previous paper [1]. However if
pages are to be composed in this way then the individual graphic objects must
have known bounding boxes and must be correctly placed on the page in a process
that resembles the link editing of a multi-module computer program. Ideally the
linker should be able to utilize all declared resource information attached to
each COG.
We have investigated the use of an XML application called Personalized Print
Markup Language (PPML) to control the link editing process for PDF COGs. Our
experiments though successful have shown up the shortcomings of PPML's resource
handling capabilities which are currently active at the document and page
levels but which cannot be elegantly applied to individual graphic objects at a
sub-page level. Proposals are put forward for modifications to PPML that would
make easier any COG-based approach to page composition.
[18]
Creating reusable well-structured PDF as a sequence of component object
graphic (COG) elements
Document formatting
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Bagley, Steven R.
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Brailsford, David F.
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Hardy, Matthew R. B.
Proceedings of the 2003 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2003-11-20
p.58-67
Keywords: PDF, form Xobjects, graphic objects, tagged PDF
© Copyright 2003 ACM
Summary: Portable Document Format (PDF) is a page-oriented, graphically rich format
based on PostScript semantics and it is also the format interpreted by the
Adobe Acrobat viewers. Although each of the pages in a PDF document is an
independent graphic object this property does not necessarily extend to the
components (headings, diagrams, paragraphs etc.) within a page. This, in turn,
makes the manipulation and extraction of graphic objects on a PDF page into a
very difficult and uncertain process.
The work described here investigates the advantages of a model wherein PDF
pages are created from assemblies of COGs (Component Object Graphics) each with
a clearly defined graphic state. The relative positioning of COGs on a PDF page
is determined by appropriate 'spacer' objects and a traversal of the tree of
COGs and spacers determines the rendering order. The enhanced revisability of
PDF documents within the COG model is discussed, together with the application
of the model in those contexts which require easy revisability coupled with the
ability to maintain and amend PDF document structure.
[19]
Using SVG as the rendering model for structured and graphically complex web
material
Document formatting
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Mong, Julius C.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2003 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2003-11-20
p.88-91
Keywords: PDF, SVG, XML, vector graphics
© Copyright 2003 ACM
Summary: This paper reports some experiments in using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics),
rather than the browser default of (X)HTML/CSS, as a potential Web-based
rendering technology, in an attempt to create an approach that integrates the
structural and display aspects of a Web document in a single XML-compliant
envelope.
Although the syntax of SVG is XML based, the semantics of the primitive
graphic operations more closely resemble those of page description languages
such as PostScript or PDF. The principal usage of SVG, so far, is for inserting
complex graphic material into Web pages that are predominantly controlled via
(X)HTML and CSS.
The conversion of structured and unstructured PDF into SVG is discussed. It
is found that unstructured PDF converts into pages of SVG with few problems,
but difficulties arise when one attempts to map the structural components of a
Tagged PDF into an XML skeleton underlying the corresponding SVG. These
difficulties are not fundamentally syntactic; they arise largely because
browsers are innately bound to (X)HTML/CSS as their default rendering model.
Some suggestions are made for ways in which SVG could be more totally
integrated into browser functionality, with the possibility that future
browsers might be able to use SVG as their default rendering paradigm.
[20]
Mapping and displaying structural transformations between XML and PDF
Structure and transformation of documents
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Hardy, Matthew R. B.
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Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2002-11-08
p.95-102
Keywords: PDF, XML, document structure transformation
© Copyright 2002 ACM
Summary: Documents are often marked up in XML-based tagsets to delineate major
structural components such as headings, paragraphs, figure captions and so on,
without much regard to their eventual displayed appearance. And yet these same
abstract documents, after many transformations and 'typesetting' processes,
often emerge in the popular format of Adobe PDF, either for dissemination or
archiving.
Until recently PDF has been a totally display-based document representation,
relying on the underlying PostScript semantics of PDF. Early versions of PDF
had no mechanism for retaining any form of abstract document structure but
recent releases have now introduced an internal structure tree to create the so
called 'Tagged PDF'.
This paper describes the development of a plugin for Adobe Acrobat which
creates a two-window display. In one window is shown an XML document original
and in the other its Tagged PDF counterpart is seen, with an internal structure
tree that, in some sense, matches the one seen in XML. If a component is
highlighted in either window then the corresponding structured item, with any
attendant text, is also highlighted in the other window.
Important applications of correctly Tagged PDF include making PDF documents
reflow intelligently on small screen devices and enabling them to be read out
in correct reading order, via speech synthesiser software, for the visually
impaired. By tracing structure transformation from source document to
destination one can implement the repair of damaged PDF structure or the
adaptation of an existing structure tree to an incrementally updated document.
[21]
Vector graphics: from PostScript and Flash to SVG
Hypermedia and Graphics 2
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Probets, Steve
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Mong, Julius
/
Evans, David
/
Brailsford, David
Proceedings of the 2001 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
2001-11-09
p.135-143
Keywords: Flash, PDF, PostScript, SVG, SWF
© Copyright 2001 ACM
Summary: The XML-based specification for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), sponsored by
the World Wide Web consortium, allows for compact and descriptive vector
graphics for the Web.
This paper describes a set of three tools for creating SVG, either from
first principles or via the conversion of existing formats. The ab initio
generation of SVG is effected from a server-side CGI script, using a PERL
library of drawing functions; later sections highlight the problems of
converting Adobe PostScript and Macromedia's Shockwave format (SWF) into SVG.
[22]
Experience with the Use of Acrobat in the CAJUN Publishing Project
Technical Briefings
/
Brailsford, David F.
Proceedings of the ECHT'94 European Conference on Hypermedia Technologies
1994-09-18
p.228-232
© Copyright 1994 Association for Computing Machinery
Summary: Adobe's Acrobat software, released in June 1993, is based around a new
Portable Document Format (PDF) which offers the possibility of being able to
view and exchange electronic documents, independent of the originating
software, across a wide variety of supported hardware platforms (PC, Macintosh,
Sun UNIX etc.).
The fact that Acrobat's imageable objects are rendered with full use of
Level 2 PostScript means that the most demanding requirements can be met in
terms of high-quality typography and device-independent colour. These
qualities will be very desirable components in future multimedia and hypermedia
systems. The current capabilities of Acrobat and PDF are described; in
particular the presence of hypertext links, bookmarks, and 'yellow sticker'
annotations (in release 1.0) together with article threads and multimedia
'plug-ins' in version 2.0.
This article also describes the CAJUN project (CD-ROM Acrobat Journals Using
Networks) which has been investigating the automated placement of PDF
hypertextual features from various front-end text processing systems. CAJUN
has also been experimenting with the dissemination of PDF over e-mail, via
World Wide Web and on CD-ROM.
[23]
Electronic Publishing -- Practice and Experience
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Brailsford, David F.
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Evans, David R.
/
Granger, Geeti
Proceedings of the International Conference on Electronic Publishing,
Document Manipulation & Typography
1990-09-18
p.169-182
Keywords: Journal production, Computer aided refereeing system, Remote file access
© Copyright 1990 Cambridge University Press
Summary: Electronic Publishing -- Origination, Dissemination and Design ('EP-odd') is
an academic journal which publishes refereed papers in the subject area of
electronic publishing. The authors of the present paper are, respectively,
editor-in-chief, system software consultant and senior production manager for
the journal. EP-odd's policy is that editors, authors, referees and production
staff will work closely together using electronic mail. Authors are also
encouraged to originate their papers using one of the approved text-processing
packages together with the appropriate set of macros which enforce the layout
style for the journal. This same software will then be used by the publisher
in the production phase. Our experiences with these strategies are presented,
and two recently developed suites of software are described: one of these makes
the macro sets available over electronic mail and the other automates the flow
of papers through the refereeing process. The decision to produce EP-odd in
this way means that the publisher has to adopt production procedures which
differ markedly from those employed for a conventional journal.
