The PressDisplay.com Portal And underlying PrintToScreen Technology
Table of contents Abstract......................................... 3 About NewspaperDirect......................... 3 PressDisplay.com................................ 3 Product Overview................................... 3 Technology overview................................ 4 PressDisplay.com Objectives............................ 5 PrintToScreen Technology............................. 6 PressDisplay.com Features............................. 9 Summary........................................ 12 PrintToScreen Applications............................. 13 Contact information............................. 14 2
Abstract This document introduces NewspaperDirect s online newspaper portal PressDisplay.com and provides an overview of the company s workflow architecture and technology platform. It describes the PressDisplay.com service, the underlying PrintToScreen technology, and its design, application, and features. About NewspaperDirect NewspaperDirect has offices in the United States, Canada and Europe. The company is an independent provider of same day out-of-market newspapers from around the world. NewspaperDirect aggregates time sensitive content from publishers and within minutes makes it available in the original design and page layout to readers around the world. The content is simultaneously deployed for online reading at PressDisplay.com, and for demand printing via the global network of NDprintstations. PressDisplay.com Product overview PressDisplay.com offers a large selection of newspapers from around the world for reading in a browser without requiring additional software, reader, or client installation. It offers a full set of user-friendly tools for convenient newspaper handling and reading: dynamic navigation, floating dynamic zoom lens, and a drag & read full screen mode. 3
Technology overview NewspaperDirect s technology platform supports the automated collection of various types of documents and media; optimized content assembly in the original design and page layout, and end user delivery. The Data collection process includes a capacity for retrieving various documents such as newspapers, books and magazines from the publishers using different upload and download protocols. At Processing, the content is assembled in the original design and page layout, cropped, merged, and optimized for printing and online presentation. 4
PressDisplay.com Objectives The objective for PressDisplay.com is to provide a complete solution for the timely presentation of daily newspapers in their original design and page layout for easy and convenient reading online on most computer screens. Technical Challenges: Display large pages on a small computer screen Low resolution of computer monitors Platform dependency Rich client hardware requirements Special software or viewer installation requirements High bandwidth requirements Single viewer incompatibilities with multiple content providers Service Challenges: Most newspapers are not available online in the original layout Limited or inadequate newspaper selection Late or partial newspaper availability Numerous content providers Numerous bills and invoices Inconvenient customer service High cost of software and content acquisition PressDisplay.com addresses and resolves most of these problems providing a significant overall improvement to the end user experience. 5
PrintToScreen Technology PressDisplay.com is powered by proprietary technology developed at NewspaperDirect. The key components of the technology are described in the following section. Document Display architecture The underlying technological platform provides content collection, processing, aggregation and delivery. Original newspapers placed in Document Storage in PDF format. When a reader requests a newspaper, the cover page of the PDF file is rasterized on-the-fly, previewed, and deposited to Image Cache Storage to increase the performance of the subsequent requests. The Document Server retrieves the full-page preview image and forwards it for display to the end user screen. When the user selects an area on the Preview Scale Image for high quality detail viewing or reading, the PrintToScreen technology employs a Sector Layout Grid to request a detailed image of the sectors within the focal region of the lens. 6
The Document Server forwards the request to the Image Rasterization Server to perform dynamic rasterization of each sector on the PDF image. After rasterization is complete, the Document Server deposits the images to the Image Cache Storage and forwards them to the Document Server for display in the lens. When a user drags the lens across the page or pans the page in full screen mode, the dynamic rasterization and transfer are repeated for all sectors covered by the lens, providing seamless magnification of the document detail. With the PrintToScreen implementation, only the information requested by the reader is processed in high resolution and transferred to their browser, reducing data transfers and system load. 7
Article Display Architecture (under development) In the process of preparing an electronic document for printing (e.g. as PostScript or PDF), the geometrical properties of its elements are computed and saved with most semantic structure or higher-level modeling of the data discarded. For example, software routines will compute glyph coordinates, curve parameters, colors, etc. but discard information about the grouping of characters to make up words, sentences, and stories; whether words represent author, title, caption, date or content; whether they are structured as TOC, index, list or table; what diagrams are associated with what stories; etc. 8
The system enhances the user experience with the Article Lens Tool. The PrintToScreen Processing Module uses advanced recognition algorithms and artificial intelligence to reconstruct missing semantic structure for PDF documents, stores this as XML, and provides sophisticated text search, classification, delivery and presentation mechanisms based on the stored structure. The result is that the Article Layout Grid is embedded in PDF document. When the user moves the cursor over the Preview Image, the PrintToScreen technology uses the Article Layout Grid to highlight the whole Article Preview Image. If the user clicks in the highlighted area, the system requests a detailed image of the whole article from the Document Server. The Document Server forwards the request to the Image Rasterization Server to perform dynamic rasterization of the article image. After rasterization is complete, the Document Server deposits the image to the Image Cache Storage and forwards it to the end user for display in the Article Lens. PressDisplay.com Features Platform independence PressDisplay.com is an object-oriented, platform independent solution compatible with a wide range of hardware including PC, Macintosh, Laptops, and Tablet PC. Newspapers can be displayed in the browser of choice. No additional client software or reader is required. Current editions Newspapers are available on Press- Display.com minutes after printing in their local market. Newspapers are always current and with time differences, tomorrow s editions from a number of countries are often available. Newspaper menu The newspaper menu is organized by country, language, and alphabet. It provides easy access to all newspapers of particular country or language and a one-click title selection. 9
Original design and page layout All newspapers are displayed in their original design and page layout. PressDisplay.com does not modify the content and layout of the original document provided by the publisher. Search The keyword search provides quick access to specific pages and articles in the current newspaper. The searched words or phrases are highlighted in the result. Drag and read With the full screen zoom lens, the page is moved on screen with a mouse, PC pen, or finger. With the Navigator enabled in full screen mode, a user can jump to any area on the page with a single click. 10
Magnifying Lens PressDisplay provides one stroke reading, area selection, and magnifying. Drawing a line across a selected area on the page brings up the Magnifying Lens. The size of the lens is determined by the user selection and is adjustable. The Magnifying Lens provides seamless magnification of the document detail within the focal region of the lens. The reader then drags the lens across the page to view adjacent content. The Navigator dynamically tracks the position of the lens and can be used to move the lens quickly within the page. Navigator The Navigator window tracks the reader s position on the page and provides single click navigation within the page. Bookmarks Bookmarks save selected pages on NewspaperDirect server for printing, reading or sharing. Bookmarked pages can be shared with nonsubscribers. 11
Summary PressDisplay.com provides a large and comprehensive newspaper selection, a simple and powerful set of tools for reading and page handling. It can be used on most standard computers online. Highlights of the PrintToScreen Technology: Platform independent Provides thin client support Efficient bandwidth utilization Compatible with PC, laptops, MAC and Tablet PC Accessible from any computer with standard operating system 24/7 Does not require client software installation or external viewer The PressDisplay.com interface provides: High resolution quality picture and text Newspaper menu by language, country, alphabet Dynamic Navigation within pages Dynamic variable size zoom lens Drag and read full screen display Personal newspaper rack The PressDisplay.com service model: Single vendor for content and service Aggregated all-you-can-read solution 180 same day newspapers from 45 countries in 29 languages (as of December, 2003) Newspaper library updates by 2-3 new titles monthly One stop customer service 12
PrintToScreen Applications The PrintToScreen technology is applicable for the display of a variety of document types in various formats and layouts: Newspapers Magazines E-Books Photographs and pictures Maps Various technical documents: charts, instructions, and manuals 13
Contact information NewspaperDirect 204-10451 Shellbridge Way, Richmond, BC, Canada, V6X 2W8 Tel.: +1 604.278.4604 US/Can.: 1.877.980.4040 Email: PressDisplay@NewspaperDirect.com Website: www.newspaperdirect.com 14