Patent ID: 7017108

Claim:
A method of creating a document suitable for hard copy reproduction, said method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving information from at least one electronic source document, the information including a plurality of referential links establishing corresponding referential paths between components of the information; (b) defining a physical structure of the document suitable for hard copy reproduction and sufficient to reproduce the information; (c) defining a plurality of document links associated with the physical structure and corresponding to the referential links; (d) generating a functional link associated with each said document link, wherein each functional link forms a user interpretable and traversable physical path in the document between components of the information thereby corresponding to the received referential links; and (e) grouping a number of the functional links in the document for hard copy reproduction by arranging plural ones of the document links to at least an individual one of the functional links, wherein the physical structure comprises at least one single printable page and the functional links comprise at least one indicium printable onto a single page, and step (e) comprises merging plural ones of the document links to form a single indicium associated with a component on the page.