A Set of Software Tools for a Document Workstation

SUPERDOC - 2170

Keywords document handling, document modelling, automated document production, document production software tools

Start Date: 05-DEC-88 / Duration: 42 months

[ contact / participants ]

Objectives and Approach

The production of documents is the basic activity of almost all offices. In particular, there are domains, such as banks, in public administration and in legal practices, where:

• the documents produced follow predefined patterns (that is, they cannot be created freely, but have to follow precise rules)
• a large amount of data may be included in a document, and very often the same data are used in a variety of closely related documents.

Many documents of an official nature, such as legal papers, contracts, official letters, forms etc, exhibit these features. For this relatively large class of applications, the tools currently available for document production are largely inadequate. The creation of these documents is therefore still largely unautomated, with a consequent expenditure of time and qualified staff resources.

The technical approach of the project was based on the assumption that the characteristics of a given class of documents can be modelled by schemas. These schemas describe the structure of the document class and define all the variants (such as data and sentences) which can be included in documents. When a user selects a schema, a semantic filter captures the data to be included in the document and transforms them into concepts (eg, the datum "Mr Smith" is associated with the concept "seller"). The collection of all these concepts is called a "conceptual document". A specialised engine executes the schema, using the "conceptual document" to generate a composed document, where the proper variants have been selected.

Progress and Results

The SUPERDOC project succeeded in producing a set of software tools for the automated production of these documents. This technology is being exploited in real-life applications.

Two marketing strategies are being followed: to use the tools in existing applications as an add-on for document production, and to develop specific applications that embed the SUPERDOC tools.

Exploitation

The industrialisation of the marketing and product activities is assured by the participation in the consortium of partners who are either large manufacturers or software companies with a stake in the market of interest.

CONTACT POINT

Mr Nikos Damianakis
EPSILON SOFTWARE LTD
Syngrou Ave. 377
GR - 17564 ATHINAI
tel: + 30/ 1-9421707
fax: + 30/ 1-9427719
telex: 218798 EPS GR

Participants

EPSILON SOFTWARE LTD - GR - C
INESC - P - P
LOMBARDIA INFORMATICA SPA - I - P
ADDAX SA - GR - A
TESEO SPA - I - A
STRATEGIC INTERNATIONAL LTD - GR - A
SELISA - F - A
SMD SA - P - A
BULL ITALIA SPA - I - A

SUPERDOC - 2170, December 1993

please address enquiries to the ESPRIT Information Desk

html version of synopsis by Nick Cook