Patent ID: 7430714

Claim:
In an electronic document handling system, a method of manipulating documents comprising the steps of: displaying a first list of documents, wherein the first list of documents lists the documents that are selected for inclusion in an open stack; displaying a second list of documents, wherein the second list of documents list documents that have not been selected for inclusion in the open stack; displaying a user interface control operative to obtain selections from a user of documents from the second list for inclusion in the open stack; generating a staple data object representing an association of selected pages of at least two selected documents; generating an electronic cover sheet for the staple data object, wherein the electronic cover sheet includes a visual indication that the existence of the association of selected pages and selected documents together at one time has been cryptographically secured by the staple data object; accepting from the user a list of at least one page of at least two electronic documents; referencing each page or each electronic document in the list as an item of the staple data object; prompting for the staple instruction by presenting the user with a stapler icon which, when selected, represents a staple instruction; accepting the staple instruction from the user when the user selects the stapler icon, wherein for each of the at least two selected documents, if a document is not stored in a permanent storage, the document is copied to the permanent storage to create the permanent copy of the document and the staple data object is updated to refer to the permanent copy of the document; and cryptographically securing the combination of the pages of the at least two electronic documents of the staple data object in response to receipt of the staple instruction, thereby creating an unalterable indicator of the existence and integrity of the association of selected pages and selected documents together at one time.