From Hypertext to Flat Text: A Tool for Document Construction

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

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@discus.anu.edu.au

Richard P. Brent Computer Sciences Laboratory, RSISE, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200.