Dynamic layout adjustment for reflowable content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11295061-B2
Application number	US-202016782659-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 5, 2020
Priority date	Feb 5, 2020
Publication date	Apr 5, 2022
Grant date	Apr 5, 2022

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for laying out reflowable content for display, such as content of an electronic book, in a manner that may differ from spacing properties originally defined in a corresponding reflowable file. When an amount of spacing that the reflowable file indicates should be included in a given line exceeds a threshold that is set based at least in part on the available line display length, the layout may be adjusted to decrease the total spacing for the line without adjusting the display size of reflow objects within the line. The adjusted layout may include utilizing a scaled down amount of space relative to the spacing properties defined in the reflowable file, or applying a different alignment type than is indicated by the reflowable file.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a non-transitory data store that stores an electronic book, wherein the electronic book is stored as one or more files comprising displayable content and formatting information, wherein the displayable content comprises a plurality of reflowable objects, wherein each reflowable object of at least a subset of the plurality of reflowable objects is represented in one of the one or more files by a character;
at least one computing device configured with computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one computing device to:
receive a request to display a portion of the displayable content of the electronic book;
determine an available line display length representing an amount of width or height available for laying out content for a current line, wherein the available line display length is one of (a) a width of a display area if in a horizontal writing mode or (b) a height of the display area if in a vertical writing mode;
determine, based at least in part on spacing properties defined in the electronic book, an amount of spacing that the electronic book indicates should be included in the current line when laying out the portion of the displayable content for display, wherein the spacing properties comprise one or more of a padding, a margin, a border or an indent, wherein the amount of spacing represents one or more portions of the current line to be displayed as white space or blank space rather than visible text or image content;
identify that the amount of spacing that the electronic book indicates should be included in the current line exceeds a threshold percentage of the available line display length, wherein the threshold percentage is a predetermined percentage that is less than one hundred percent;
in response to identifying that the amount of spacing exceeds the threshold percentage, determine that the current line should be laid out in a different manner than is indicated by the spacing properties defined in the electronic book, wherein the different manner does not alter a display size of individual reflow objects to be displayed;
select whether the different manner should be scaling down the spacing properties for the current line based on a scaling factor or changing an alignment property for the current line, wherein selection of the different manner is based at least in part on a comparison of the amount of spacing that the electronic book indicates to a minimum value, wherein the minimum value is previously associated with a rule to trigger one of (a) right alignment if in a horizontal writing mode or (b) bottom alignment if in a vertical writing mode;
determine layout positions of one or more reflow objects from the portion of the displayable content in accordance with the selected different manner for laying out the current line, wherein an additional reflow object appearing subsequent to the one or more reflow objects in the displayable content are assigned to a position in a next line that follows the current line; and
render the one or more reflow objects for display in accordance with the layout positions.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the layout positions are arranged with reference to a grid, wherein relative positions of reflow objects in the grid represent respective relative display positions for rendering reflow objects for display.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein each of the one or more reflow objects is represented by a glyph when displayed.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the current line is displayed in a vertical reading mode in which a first character in the current line is placed above a second character in the current line.

5. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a request to display displayable content of a reflowable file;
determining an available line display length for a current line to be displayed, wherein the available line display length is one of (a) a width of a display area if in a horizontal writing mode or (b) a height of the display area if in a vertical writing mode;
determining, based at least in part on spacing properties defined in the reflowable file, an amount of spacing that the reflowable file indicates should be included in the current line, wherein the spacing properties comprise one or more of a padding, a margin, a border or an indent, wherein the amount of spacing represents one or more portions of the current line to be displayed as white space or blank space rather than visible text or image content;
identifying that the amount of spacing that the reflowable file indicates should be included in the current line exceeds a threshold that is set based at least in part on the available line display length, wherein the threshold is set to be less than the available line display length;
in response to identifying that the amount of spacing exceeds the threshold, determining that the current line should be laid out in a different manner than is indicated by the spacing properties defined in the reflowable file, wherein the different manner does not alter a display size of individual reflow objects to be displayed;
selecting whether the different manner should be scaling down the spacing properties for the current line based on a scaling factor or changing an alignment property for the current line, wherein selection of the different manner is based at least in part on a comparison of the amount of spacing that the reflowable file indicates to a minimum value, wherein the minimum value is previously associated with a rule to trigger one of (a) right alignment if in a horizontal writing mode or (b) bottom alignment if in a vertical writing mode;
determining layout positions of one or more reflow objects from the portion of the displayable content in accordance with the selected different manner for laying out the current line, wherein an additional reflow object appearing subsequent to the one or more reflow objects in the displayable content are assigned to a position in a next line that follows the current line; and
rendering the one or more reflow objects for display in accordance with the layout positions.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the available line display length is based on one of (a) a width of a display area if in a horizontal writing mode or (b) a height of the display area if in a vertical writing mode.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the available line display length is determined based at least in part on a size of a display area and a size of an em unit, wherein the size of the em unit is associated with a display size of an individual character at current reading settings.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the layout positions are arranged with reference to a grid, wherein each individual entry in the grid is assigned a single reflow object, wherein relative positions of reflow objects in the grid represent respective relative display positions for rendering reflow objects for display.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein each of the one or more reflowable objects rendered for display is an individual Asian language character identified in the reflowable file and that is rendered as a glyph representing the individual Asian language character.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the alternative amount of spacing is selected as the different manner in which to lay out the reflowable content for the current line, wherein the computer-implemented method further comprises:
determining the alternative amount of spacing based on a predefined scaling factor and the spacing properties for the current line.

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Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Liu Wenqiong
• Vargis Prannoy Chacko
• Wang Zhixuan
• Chhabra Aayush

Classifications

• G06F40/106 Primary

  Display of layout of documents; Previewing · CPC title

• G06F40/103 Primary

  Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents (automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191) · CPC title

• G06V30/414

  Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text · CPC title

• G09G5/34

  for rolling or scrolling · CPC title

• G09G2380/14

  Electronic books and readers · CPC title