From Hypertext to Flat Text: A Tool for Document Construction
Jian Yang, Dept of Computer Science, University College, UNSW,
Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra ACT 2600,
Email: jian@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au
Wanli Ma, Computer Sciences Laboratory, RSISE,
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200,
Email: ma@cslab.anu.edu.au,
Home Page
Richard P. Brent,Computer Sciences Laboratory, RSISE,
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200,
Email: rpb@cslab.anu.edu.au,
Home Page
Abstract
The hyperlinked nature of documents on the World Wide Web (WWW) gives users great
freedom for browsing and authoring. However it becomes awkward when
a user wants to print a document with such a hierarchical structure,
for example, the on-line Netscape Handbook. In this case,
the user has
to fetch and print each piece of the interesting documents separately
and then assemble them together
manually. Even worse, the assembling-together could not be possible without
physically cutting and pasting when a piece of document is linked from the
middle of its parent text. In this paper, we present a flexible tool
which can automatically follow the hyperlinks of a main document and
replace each link with the actual sub-document content. In other word, it
transforms a hierarchically structured hypertext to a flat form in its
final output so that hard-copy printing is possible.
Keywords
WorldWideWeb, Hypertext, Internet, Hypertext Printing, Document Construction
AusWeb96 The Second Australian WorldWideWeb Conference
"ausweb96@scu.edu.au"