WO2007141113A2

WO2007141113A2 - Electronically displaying content

Info

Publication number: WO2007141113A2
Application number: PCT/EP2007/054628
Authority: WO
Inventors: Angel Ancin Roldan; Johannes Van De Kamer; Johannes Brons
Original assignee: Irex Technologies B.V.
Priority date: 2006-06-08
Filing date: 2007-05-14
Publication date: 2007-12-13
Also published as: WO2007141113A3

Abstract

A method of displaying data which comprises content items to be displayed as display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages. The content items of a particular display page are arranged in a particular layout. The navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages. The alternative view has another layout than the particular layout. The navigation commands are retrieved from the data. User input is received and it is checked whether the user input is the particular user command, and if yes, the alternative view is displayed.

Description

ELECTRONICALLY DISPLAYING CONTENT.

Field of the invention

The invention relates to a method of displaying data, a display device for displaying the data, and a method for generating the data.

Background of the invention

Usually, large paper sizes (e.g. A4, A3 or larger) are used to present the content in conventional printed paper media such as for example newspapers. Electronic display apparatuses, such as for example PDA's laptops, or electronic paper readers (further also referred to as e-readers) have a display which has a size smaller than these large paper sizes. If the original content is resized to fit the screen size much information is lost. Usually, most of the content can not be read anymore.

Summary of the invention

It is an object of the invention to provide a method which converts the large size content into a smaller size allowing easy readability.

A first aspect of the invention provides a method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1. A second aspect of the invention provides a display device as claimed in claim 22. A third aspect of the invention provides an e-reader as claimed in claim 26. A fourth aspect of the invention provides a method of generating data as claimed in claim 27. A fifth aspect of the invention provides a data signal as claimed in claim 32. A sixth aspect of the invention provides a content providing unit as claimed in claim 33. Advantageous embodiments are defined in the dependent claims.

In the method of displaying data, the data comprises content items to be displayed as display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages. The content items of a particular display page are arranged in a particular page layout. The content items may be an article, or an advertisement. The navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages. The alternative view has another layout than the particular layout. For example, the other layout has different mutual positions of the content items, or has a subset of the content items zoomed-in. The navigation commands are retrieved from the data. Received user input is checked whether it is the particular user command which is associated with the particular alternative view, and if yes, the alternative view is displayed. Thus, in the data, a navigation command is present which is coupled to a particular user input. If this particular user input is received by the e-reader, the e- reader changes from the particular display page to the particular alternative display page. The particular user input may, for example, be inputted via a specific "alternative view" button provided on the e-reader.

In an embodiment, the method of displaying data representing content comprising a plurality of content items comprises the step of receiving the data which comprises: content items which are, for example, articles of a newspaper, an indication of a relative position of the content items on the page, and enlarge tags indicating which content items should be enlarged if a enlargement request is inputted by the user. The method further comprises the step of providing a user selection between displaying the data in the page layout, or displaying the data in a zoomed layout comprising a enlarged version of the content items indicated by the zoom tags as being enlargeable, and the step of displaying the page layout or the zoomed layout.

Thus, dependent on the desires of the user, the content is displayed in the original content layout, thus in fact the original content layout is shrinked to fit the display dimensions. However, usually this leads to too small letters such that the content items are not readable anymore. Preferably, the headings or titles of the content items should still be readable. Therefore, the original content layout data may be slightly changed such that the headings of at least those content items of which the publisher wants them to stay readable are kept readable. For example, these content items may have a special tag indicating that there headings should be readable. The method may select a letter font for these headings of which is known that readability is ensured. Preferably the dimensions and the relative positions of the content items are kept. For example, the letter font of the content item is decreased to provide space for the larger header within the boundaries of the content item as displayed. The content to be displayed may be a page of a newspaper or a book, the content items may be articles present on the page of the newspaper. The articles may comprise textual and/or image information.

On the other hand, if the user indicates that he wants the zoomed display mode, for example by pushing a hard or a soft button, those articles which are tagged as enlargeable are enlarged such that at least part of the article becomes readable.

In an embodiment, the step of displaying the zoomed version comprises displaying in the page layout an enlarged version of the content items indicated by the zoom tags as being enlargeable. Due to enlarging the tagged content items such that at least part of them becomes readable, at least part of the content items indicated as being not enlargeble will be covered. This approach has the advantage that still the original content layout is kept intact as much as possible. The content provider may indicate which content items should be enlarged if the user requests the zoomed display mode. There is no need for the user to select the articles he would like to know more about one by one to see whether their content is really interesting. Such a selection requires cumbersome manipulation of a pointing device or multiple buttons. The user only needs to provide a single input, for example by pressing a button, and in response to its single action the zoomed display is displayed in which the content items with a enlarge tag are enlarged and the other articles not. The articles which will be enlarged in response to the user input may be predetermined by the content provider. The content provider may select these enlargeable content items for all subscribers, but alternatively may keep track of the reading behavior of a particular user or a group of users and tailor the selection of enlargeable articles correspondingly. The enlarge tags may also be determined by the method based on preferences separately inputted by the user or by tracking the user's interest.

In an embodiment, the enlarged content items keep their relative positions. This has the advantage that the position in the original content layout is still visible to the user which eases the navigation through the content. In an embodiment, the zoomed version comprises a list of headlines and optionally associated leads or summaries of the corresponding content item. Preferably, the leads at least comprise one sentence of the text of the article.

These and other aspects of the invention are apparent from and will be elucidated with reference to the embodiments described hereinafter.

Brief description of the drawings In the drawings: Fig. 1 shows an example of a page layout of a conventional newspaper, - A -

Fig. 2 shows an example of a hierarchical display structure for use in an e- reader,

Fig. 3 shows a zoomed layout while keeping the page layout as much as possible intact, Figs. 4A and 4B show alternative views for a particular article,

Fig. 5 shows a textual list of articles,

Fig. 6 schematically shows a front view of an example of an e-reader, Fig. 7 shows a high level block diagram of the e-reader, Fig. 8 schematically shows a format of the data, Fig. 9 shows an example of a content item divided in subsections,

Figs. 1 OA and 1OB shows two alternative views created from the same content items by using style sheets, and

Fig. 1 1 shows a block diagram of the e-reader.

It should be noted that items which have the same reference numbers in different Figures, have the same structural features and the same functions, or are the same signals. Where the function and/or structure of such an item has been explained, there is no necessity for repeated explanation thereof in the detailed description.

Detailed description

Fig. 1 shows an example of a page layout of a conventional newspaper. This page layout is referred to as the original page layout as intended by the publisher. Such a page comprises a plurality of content items which usually each have a heading or title, a lead or lead-in, and a body text. For example, the content items may be articles, advertisements or images. The content items have predefined relative positions with respect to each other to form together the original page layout. The articles comprise text and may comprise images. The publisher is also referred to with the broader term content provider. Usually, display screens of display apparatus have dimensions which are smaller than the page of a paper newspaper. This is especially true for mobile display apparatuses such as PDA's, laptops, electronic paper displays (e-readers, such as the iREX iLiad ePaper eReader). Digital content which is presented on such a relatively small display screen usually is presented in a very abstractive manner which does not fit the visual impression reached by the conventional layout of the newspaper. Therefore, the user easily looses track of the position on a page, or of the page where he or she is reading in the newspaper, book or other document. However, if the original page layout of the document is kept unaltered, due its cropped display on the display screen, most parts of the document displayed will not be readable anymore. The display on the display screen is referred to as the display page. The layout of the display page may be identical to the original page layout. Alternatively, the layout of the display page may differ from the original page layout to present the information in more readable form. A new user interface is required to handle the display of the document in the e-reader in a manner that the user can read the relevant parts of at least an interesting subset of the articles without loosing track of the relative position of this information.

One of the problems is the emulation of overviews allowing the user to visually judge at a glance the importance of an article by its size and/or position on the page while at the same time keeping the readability of at least part of the articles by presenting this at least part of the articles in a readable font. Therefore, one option is to select the font of the headings/titles of the articles in the original paper layout such that after shrinking for display on the display screen these headings/titles are readable. Another option is to tag all headings in the data provided by the content provider

(usually the publisher) which should stay readable. The display apparatus then takes care to select a font for these headings which is readable. The original layout may be kept as much as possible intact. Thus, if the heading is enlarged, the rest of the article has to be shrinked, for example by taking a smaller font, or by deleting part of the anyhow unreadable text being displayed. Yet another option is to rearrange the original page layout such that at least part of the display page is better readable. Alternatively, if the content items are subdivided in smaller content parts, such as for example, a header or title, a lead-in, and a body text, a display page may be generated which only uses part of the content items, thus only a subset of the content parts. Such alternative views of the original page layout may be pre-defined by the publisher and can be selected by the user. Alternatively, these alternative views may be generated in the e- reader from the data received. Thus, the data has to be structured to allow the e-reader to generate alternative views. This allows the user to select between different alternative layouts for the same information. Fig. 2 shows an example of a hierarchical display structure for use in an e-reader. On the highest level an index is displayed. Alternative views may be provided for this index, for example one view may contain a text list, and another view may show a thumbnail representation of all or a part of the pages of the document. The text list for example may show the type of information on this page. For example: page 1 international news, page 2 sport, and so on. Clicking on one of the items of the list or one of thumbnails opens a next view S1 or S2 as described on the next lower level of views in the hierarchy.

The views S1 and S2 may be alternative views of the same information. For example the view S1 shows the selected page in its original layout while the view S2 shows a zoomed layout as shown in Fig. 3. The user may toggle between these alternative views by activating a button of the display device. Another alternative view is a text file only without any images. The space used by the images may be filled by enlarging the text. A yet alternative view shows only the images. Alternatively, the sections S1 and S2 may be directed to different sections of content, for example section S1 displays national news items, and section S2 sport.

Selecting a heading or an article in the view S1 may provide the text of this article as indicated by A1 of which an example is shown in Figs. 4A or 4B, or may provide an overview showing the title and the lead-in of the selected article and of related articles as indicated by the view A2 of which an example is shown in Fig. 5. Selecting an enlarged (part of an) article in the view S2 may provide an overview (see Fig. 5) showing the title and the lead of all the zoomed articles of the view S2. The selecting may be performed by pushing with a stylus or by moving a pointer and clicking a button when the pointer is on the item selected. The switch over to the next view may be obtained in a similar manner as in internet browsers, when activated a (hyper)link in the present view directs to the file, or folder of files, which comprises the data for the next view.

Fig. 3 shows a zoomed layout while keeping the page layout as much as possible intact. This zoomed layout is also referred to as the overlay view because due to the zooming of a number of articles other articles will be at least partly covered. With zooming an article is meant that at least a portion of the article is enlarged such that it is readable on the display screen. Preferably, the portion comprises the header and at least part of the first sentence.

It is important to note that the articles which are zoomed are not indicated by the user with a pointing device. The user only needs to provide a single input to switch between the views S1 and S2. For example, the content provider may indicate with zoom tags which articles should be zoomed if the user requests the zoomed view S2. Thus, there is no need for the user to select the articles he would like to know more about one by one to see whether their content is really interesting. Such a selection requires cumbersome manipulation of a pointing device or multiple buttons. The user only needs to provide a single input, for example by pressing a button. Alternatively, the zoom tags may also be determined locally in the display apparatus based on preferences inputted by the user or by tracking the user's interest. For example, the user may input that he is particularly interested in sports and national news. Now, only those articles on the page which cover these interest areas of the user are enlarged. Alternatively, the provider or the display apparatus may keep track of the reading behavior of the user. For example, it may be checked for which subjects the views A2 are requested by the user and a list of requested views per interest area is stored. If the user indicates that he wants to view the zoomed view S2, the articles corresponding to the highest ranking interest areas of the list are enlarged.

It is not required that the content provider provides zoom tags indicating which content items should be enlarged. The content provider may provide the zoomed layout of which an example is shown in Fig. 3 as an alternative view. If the user is looking to a non-zoomed page as shown in Fig. 1 , and requests an alternative view, the page shown in Fig. 3 is retrieved and displayed. With retrieved is meant that a (hyper)link is associated with a particular user input. When this user input is activated the file or files forming the Fig. 3 page are retrieved by following the link. The enlarged part of the articles may be defined locally by the e-reader, or may be provided by the content provider.

The user can easily navigate through this hierarchy using buttons on the display apparatus without requiring a pointing device. Consequently, the documents must be authored by the content provider such that the navigation structure is included. Or said differently, if the user provides a navigation command it must be clear how to jump through the data already present in the e-reader. If the data requested has still to be provided by the content provider, the user navigation command should be sent to the provider server which knows how to interpret it consequently provides the correct requested information. Examples of such user navigation commands are: previous page, next page, overview or top page, or an alternative view of the present page.

Figs. 4A and 4B show alternative views for a particular article. Fig. 4A shows a view which resembles the original layout of the article optimally, see the original article at the bottom of Fig. 1. Usually, a scaling is required to fit the article on the display screen of the e-reader. However, with this view, the reader looses all information on where he or she is in the document. Fig. 4B shows an alternative view which shows the text and image of the article on the e-reader. The article may now be split in several views which are requested one after the other. At the right side of the article other articles are shown which describe related topics. The user may toggle through these related articles with a single hard or soft button activation. At the left side of the article other interesting content items such as an advertisement, news, personal message or personalized text or images may be added. The user may obtain more information of the item by selecting it, for example, an enlarged/in-zoomed version of this content item may appear. A title bar shows the name of the newspaper (or the title of the book), the page number on which this article is present, and the date. The specific advertising items can be designed according to an agreement between the publishers, the users and the advertising companies. In addition, an article number may be indicated on the screen for example at the bottom of the page, for articles interesting for the presently displayed content page.

Fig. 5 shows a textual list of articles. The example shows contains a list of the important articles on the first page. This selectively enlarged representation of the information on the first page may comprise the headings of the important articles with a short summary or lead-in of the articles. The summary or lead-in is optional. The enlarged view of the articles on page 1 is an alterative view for the overlay view of Fig. 3. The articles to be listed in this view of Fig. 5 may be determined or obtained in the same manner as discussed with respect to Fig. 3. Fig. 6 schematically shows a front view of an example of an e-reader. The e-reader DD comprises a display device Dl with a display screen DS, and user buttons B1 , B2, B3. Before discussing the operation of the e-reader, first the data format will be elucidated.

Fig. 7 shows a high level block diagram of the e-reader. The e-reader comprises a processing unit PU and a display device Dl. The processing unit PU receives the data DA representing the document to be displayed on the display screen DS of the display device Dl. The information displayed on the display screen DS is called the display page. The processing unit PU further receives user input Ul and supplies display data DD to the display device Dl. As will be discussed the data format of the data DA has to be selected to allow the e-reader to both display predefined display pages or display pages assembled by the e-reader from the received data.

Fig. 8 schematically shows a format of the data. The data DA of a document comprises a manifest folder or file MF which comprises manifest data and a content folder or file CON which comprises the content data. The document is, for example, a newspaper or a book. The manifest data and the content data may be parts of a single file.

The manifest MF comprises metadata MD on the document and the index IN which indicates where in the data the index, and/or overview and/or summary pages are to be found. For example, the index IN provides the names of these pages. In the following example the metadata MD comprises Dublin Core metadata elements and e-reader metadata elements.

The Dublin Core metadata elements may be:

Element: Description of element

Title Title of the publication

Description One line textual description of the content of the publication

Date Date of the publication

IdentifierUnique identifier of the content item

Format Media type of the content item Type Description of general category, for example: book, newspaper

The e-reader metadata elements may be: Element: Description of element:

Language Language of the content item

File size Size in bytes of content item package

Unpacked size Size in bytes of unpacked content item Image Filename of thumbnail image of content item Start page Filename of the initial page to open

Version Integer number identifying an update to the content item Source identifier Unique identifier of initial version of the content item

The manifest MF, which for example is the file manifest.xml is called by the e-reader program each time a file is opened in order to show the number of pages declared in the manifest.

The index IN includes elements which provide the relationship between the page number, the type of display page and the current displayed page. It indicates the type of document, the number of pages in the document, and starting views to be displayed as display pages. The index further comprises links to index pages which should be displayed at the index level shown in Fig. 2. These index pages or starting views may be an index file, such as for example index.html, which is displayed as a list of items in the style shown in Fig. 5. Alternatively, the index pages may be an overview page such as for example shown in Fig. 1 , or a summary page as for example shown in Fig. 3. An example of a manifest file is:

<dc-metadata> <Title>Name of the document</Title>

<Description>of Monday April 10, 2006</Description> <Date>2006-04-10T16:38:56-01 :00</Date> <Format>text/x-ereader-document</Format> <ldentifier>urn:uuid:dde46e5c-c8aθ-1 1da-9cba- 001422726cc4</ldentifier> <Language>englisch/nla</l_anguage> <Type>newspaper</Type> </dc-metadata> <y-metadata>

<FileSize>OOO</FileSize> <ltemSize>OOO</ltemSize> <startpage>001 /index. html</startpage> <image>001/grayimages/page.png</image> <version>000</version>

</y-metadata> </metadata> <index>

The block <metadata> comprises the Dublin Core metadata <dc- metadata> and the e-reader metadata <y-metadata>. In this example, the index indicates that 3 types of starting pages are present which are called: "paper", "layout", "articles". The index for each of this type of pages provides the file names of the associated files i/index.html, i/overview.html and i/summary.html, respectively. The "i" indicates the number of the page. The e-reader uses this information to determine which pages have to be displayed at the index level. For example, when starting up, the page 001/index.html is displayed. If the user indicates that the next page is desired, the page 002/index.html is displayed, if the user indicates that an alternative view is desired, the page 001/overview.html is displayed.

In each of these files (hyper)link(s) may be present to other files which should be displayed when the user activates the link. For example, if a view as shown in fig. 1 or 3 is displayed and the user indicates, for example by pressing with a stylus on one of the articles or on the enlarged part of an article, the link indicates the page which shows the details on this article.

In each page which is displayed, it should be possible to navigate to other pages in a logical manner. This navigation may be included in the form of the already mentioned links. It is possible to display links in the display pages for the previous, next, alternative view of the present page. When activated the page corresponding with this link is displayed. Alternatively, each display page has a data format which incorporates links to other display pages which should be displayed when the associated user input is detected.

For example, the user input is provided by buttons referred to as: previous, next, alternative view, top view. Thus, when reading a present display page, the activation of the previous or next button should open the display page preceding or succeeding the present display page. The activation of the top view button caused the top view page to open, in the example shown in the manifest file, this is the page 001/index.html. The activation of the alternative view button should open a display page which opens an alternative view of the present display page. For example, if the present display page is showing the information shown in Fig. 1 , the alternative view may be the display page shown in Fig. 3. The button may be a hardware or software generated button. These buttons are also referred to as navigation buttons.

The display pages which support this navigation should comprise a header section indicating the display pages associated with the navigation buttons. An example of a header section is: <head>

<title>Title of document</title>

The word after "link rel=" indicates the navigation button, and the file after "href=" is the file (or folder of files) which will be displayed when the associated navigation button is activated by the user. In the example shown, the alternative view is a predefined view already present as a page in the data.

Alternatively it is possible to create an alternative view from content items present in the data. The content items which form the present display page have subsections which are ordered in a predefined manner or according to a predefined style sheet. For example, if the document is a newspaper and the present display page is the view shown in Fig. 1 , the data format is selected to contain the subsections and the positions of the subsections on the display page. The subsections may for example be: the header of the article, the lead-in of the article, the body text of the article, and an image belonging to the article. An example of subsections of the content section CON is shown in Fig. 9. The content provider may indicate which one of the subsections should be displayed how and on which position. For example, the content provider may indicate in the data forming the file or folder for a display page that all the subsection should be displayed giving rise to the view shown in Fig. 1. The data forming the display page comprises the subsections and position information. Alternatively, the content provider may provide the data forming the display page such that it comprises the subsections and a style sheet information. The predefined style sheet indicates which subsections should be displayed, how and where. The style sheet information should be understood by the e-reader such that it is possible to create the intended display page from the subsections in the data and the style sheet information. An example of the use of a style sheet is: <head>

<title>Title of document</title>

In the paper newspaper industry the editors have several options to present the articles. These options are based on a set of styles which form a page layout. For example, a non exhaustive list of style definitions is given in the now following. The "logotype" defines the specific design and way a title or company name is displayed. A "title" or "headline" is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it. The "subhead" is a small, one-line headline inserted in the body of a story to break up the monotony of a column of text. The (story) "lead" or "lead-in" is the first sentence or two of a newspaper story . The lead sums up the story. It tells what is covered in the story, giving the basic information and creating an expectation of what the article is about. The "byline" on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name, and often the position, of the writer of the article. Bylines are traditionally placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines place bylines at the bottom of the page, to leave more room for graphical elements around the headline. The style definition "dropcap" increases the size of a letter and adjusts the space for it. The "body text" is the main text of the article. "Box" refers to information that is framed in a border to give it prominence. The box is sometimes "filled" with a shaded area. The "caption", also called a "cutline", is the headline or text accompanying a picture or illustration. The "credit line" is a photographer's byline which provides the name of the person or organization responsible for making or distributing a photograph, usually appearing in a small font under the reproduced picture. The "folio" is the newspaper name, date, and page number that appear at the top of each page. The "kicker" is a small headline, often presented in italics and usually underlined, and positioned above and slightly to the left of the main head.

In a paper edition of a newspaper this style elements are used to present a nice layout of a newspaper page to the reader. In electronic paper e-publishing, it is not interesting to apply a fixed layout (like in PDF or paper) to the text and the article, because in that case the user could never benefit of using a bigger display screen. The problem is that in electronic paper applications, scrolling is not desired. Consequently, a special technique to drill down into the content step by step has been provided to present the content in different ways.

To simplify the description, an (X)HTML viewer or reader (browser) is used in the following as an example. In order to solve this problem a set of XHTML tags is defined that link one to one to the existing styles in the paper publishing industry and in combination with a set of dynamic page layout rules using the content, or part of it, to create display pages presenting the content or part of it in a way that is appealing for the electronic newspaper reader. Examples of this approach are described with respect to Fig. 8. The XHTML tags may be provided by the content provider directly or in a style sheet to indicate how the display page should look like. A standard definition of these tags is required such that the content provider knows how to tag the information provided to obtain on the e-reader the desired display page layout. An example of a definition of the different tags is as follows:

A style sheet may use these tags to indicate which content items or their subsections should be displayed how at which positions. For example for a particular article, the font size of the body text can be defined by indicating it after the word "body" in the definition of the style sheet.

In an (X)HTML viewer/browser, the standard HTML format may be used. For example, the first content item will usually start from the left-upper corner of the display and the next content item will follow according to the pre-defined style sheet and headlines. So, a relative position or fixed position may be used for a content item as determined in style sheets (general) or HTML (specific) documents. More than one frame may be displayed on a display, and in each one of the frames the same rule is followed as in a single frame. Fig. 9 shows an example of a content item divided in subsections. The content section CON of the item A1 , which may be an article of a newspaper, comprises the header section HS which comprises the headline of the article, the lead-in section which comprises the lead-in section of the article, and the body section BS which comprises the body text of the article.

Figs. 1 OA and 1OB shows two alternative views created from the same content items by using style sheets. A first style sheet indicates how the content items or the subsections of the content items A1 , A2, A3 have to be arranged to obtain the view of Fig. 10A, a second style sheet indicates how the content items or the subsections thereof A1 , A2, A3 have to be arranged to obtain the view of Fig. 10B.

Fig. 1 1 shows a block diagram of the e-reader. The e-reader comprises an input circuit IC1 to receive the data at an input IN1 , an input circuit IC2 coupled to receive user commands, a controller/driver DR and the display device Dl. The input circuit IC1 may comprise circuitry to communicate via a wired or wireless connection with a content provider. The communication may be performed via internet with a server of the content provider. The retrieved data is supplied to the controller/driver DR. The retrieved data usually comprises the content of the content items and metadata. The input circuit IC2 may receive the user commands from the buttons B1 , B2, B2. The user input may also be provided in other ways, for example by touching a touch screen (not shown) in front of or integrated in the display device Dl. The input circuit IC2 provides the detected user input to the controller/driver DR. The controller/driver DR receives the user input, and the data of the content items and supplies drive signals to the display device Dl to obtain a desired display of the content items and/or subsections of the content items on the display screen DS. Possible desired displays are discussed with respect to Figs. 1 to 5.

The e-reader may support XHTML complemented with support for style sheets (CSS2). The e-reader has internal memory to store documents, for example at least the newspaper of one day. The internal memory may be a memory chip, a harddisk, or any other storage medium. The internal memory may be formed by memory insertable in a slot, such as for example flash memory. Inside a document links may be present to jump between display pages. Additionally, links may be present between different documents. In order not to break the links between linked documents, care must be taken to uniquely identifying the document itself and the edition of the document.

The user should be able to easily navigate through the pages of the document using the buttons B1 , B2, B3. Therefore, the documents must be authored such that the navigation instructions are included. This navigation may be embedded in the "link rel" commands in the header of the display page, for example, the navigation code in the article page "page_02.html may be authored as: <head>

Thus, if the previous button is activated, the page "page_01.html" is displayed. If the next button is activated, the page "page_03.html" is displayed. If the index button is activated, the "index. html" page is displayed. If the alternate view button is activated, the "index_alt.html" page, which is an alternate view of the index.html page is displayed.

It is not required to actually have four different buttons, functions may be combined in a single button for example by pressing during a short or during a long period in time.

To conclude, in an embodiment of the present invention the method converts two dimensional content suitable to be printed on a large format, such as a newspaper page to hierarchical oriented content allowing easy navigation and readability on a matrix display device such as the iREX e-paper reader iLiad which has a smaller format than the large format of the newspaper page.

In another embodiment a method of displaying data is provided. The data comprises content items to be displayed as display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages. The content items of a particular display page are arranged in a particular layout. The navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages. The alternative view has another layout than the particular layout. The navigation commands are retrieved from the data. User input is received and it is checked whether the user input is the particular user command, and if yes, the alternative view is displayed.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments illustrate rather than limit the invention, and that those skilled in the art will be able to design many alternative embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims. Although all embodiments are illustrated with respect to a newspaper, the present invention can advantageously used for any other content, such as for example a book, or a scientific publication. Although all embodiments are illustrated with respect to HTML viewer, the present invention can advantageously be used for any other viewers/browsers, such as for PDF, Mobipocket, Apabi or other readers.

In the claims, any reference signs placed between parentheses shall not be construed as limiting the claim. Use of the verb "comprise" and its conjugations does not exclude the presence of elements or steps other than those stated in a claim. The article "a" or "an" preceding an element does not exclude the presence of a plurality of such elements. The invention may be implemented by means of hardware comprising several distinct elements, and by means of a suitably programmed computer. In the device claim enumerating several means, several of these means may be embodied by one and the same item of hardware. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.

Claims

1. A method of displaying data, the method comprises: receiving the data comprising content items to be displayed as display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages, retrieving the navigation commands from the data, the navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages, receiving user input, detecting whether the user input is the particular user command, and displaying the alternative view if the particular user command is detected.

2. A method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the alternative view comprises the same content items as the particular one of the display pages.

3. A method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1 , wherein at least part of the content items in the alternative view have different mutual positions than in the particular one of the display pages.

4. A method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1 , wherein at least part of the content items in the alternative view are enlarged.

5. A method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1 , the method comprises: receiving the data further comprising tags indicating how the content items are arranged in a content page layout to obtain a display page layout, and wherein the content items comprise content parts, and displaying an alternative view of the display page layout in response to the user input by arranging a sub-set of the content parts in the display page.

6. A method of displaying data as claimed in claim 1 , the method comprises: receiving the data further comprising tags indicating the content items of the display page which content items should be presented differently in an alternative view, and displaying the alternative view of the content items indicated by the tags in response to the user input.

7. A method of displaying as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the particular user command is an alternate view command.

8. A method of displaying as claimed in claim 1 , the method comprises: receiving the data comprising the content items, an indication of a relative position of the content items in the content layout, and enlarge tags indicating enlargeable content items, providing a user selection between displaying the content items in the content layout, or displaying the content items in a zoomed layout comprising an enlarged version of the content items indicated by the enlarge tags as enlargeable, and displaying the page layout or the zoomed layout.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the displaying the zoomed version comprises displaying in the content layout an enlarged version of the content items indicated by the enlarge tags as being enlargeable, wherein the enlarged content items cover at least part of the content items indicated as being not enlargeable.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the enlarged content items keep their relative positions.

1 1. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the enlarged content items comprise a headline.

12. A method as claimed in claim 1 1 , wherein the enlarged content items further comprise a lead comprising one sentence of the content item or a summary of the content item.

13. A method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the displaying the zoomed version comprises displaying a list of headlines.

14. A method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the zoomed version further comprises for the headlines associated leads or summaries of the corresponding content items.

15. A method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the displaying the data in the content layout is arranged for showing a complete page of content.

16. A method as claimed in any of the preceding claims wherein the content comprises a newspaper page, and wherein the content item is an article, an advertisement, or an image.

17. A method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the zoomed version comprises pre- coded zoom blocks for at least part of the content items indicated as being enlargeable.

18. A method as claimed in claim 8, further comprising enlarging headings/titles of the content items if required for readability.

19. A method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the enlarge tags are part of the data.

20. A method as claimed in claim 8, further comprising receiving user input indicating user interests of the user for providing enlarge tags to content items fitting the user interests.

21. A method as claimed in claim 8, further comprising tracking user input on selection of content items read by the user to determine a user interest profile for providing enlarge tags to content items fitting the user interest profile.

22. A display device for displaying data, the display device comprises: a data input for receiving the data comprising content items to be displayed as a display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages, a processing unit for retrieving the navigation commands from the data, the navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages, a user input for receiving user input, a detector for detecting whether the user input is the particular user command, and a display for displaying the alternative view if the particular user command is detected.

23. A display device for displaying data representing content comprising a plurality of content items arranged in a content layout, the display device comprises: the data input for receiving the data comprising: the content items, an indication of a relative position of the content items in the content layout, and enlarge tags indicating which content items are enlargeable, the user input for receiving user input defining a user selection between display modes, a display for displaying the data in the content layout, or in a zoomed layout comprising an enlarged version of the content items indicated by the enlarge tags as being enlargeable, and a processor for receiving the data and the user selection for displaying the page layout or the zoomed layout dependent on the user selection.

24. A display device as claimed in claim 23, comprising a user activatable button for providing the user selection to the input for receiving the user input.

25. A display device as claimed in claim 24, comprising a controller receiving the user input from said button for changing between display modes if the button is activated by the user during a first time period being longer than a second time period, wherein the controller is constructed for performing another user controlled activity if said button is activated during a period in time shorter than the second time period.

26. An e-reader comprising the display device of claim 22.

27. A method of generating data, the method comprises generating the data comprising content items to be displayed as a display pages, and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages, the navigation commands comprise code for indicating an association between a particular user command and a particular alternative view for a particular one of the display pages.

28. A method of generating data as claimed in claim 27, wherein the generating the data comprises providing: the content items, an indication of a relative position of the content items in a display page layout of a particular one of the display pages, and enlarge tags indicating a number of content items being enlargeable, the number being larger than one.

29. A method as claimed in claim 27, wherein the data comprises all content items required for showing a complete page of the content.

30. A method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the page is a newspaper page.

31. A method as claimed in claim 28, wherein the zoomed version comprises precoded zoom blocks covering at least part of the content items indicated as being not enlargeable.

32. A data signal comprising content items to be displayed as display pages and navigation commands for navigation between the display pages, wherein the navigation commands comprise code for indicating for a particular one of the display pages that an alternative view should be displayed of this particular one of the display pages in response to an activation of the particular user input.

33. A content providing unit comprising a processor unit for generating the data signal as claimed in claim 32.