Patent ID: 7036076

Claim:
A digital document processing system, comprising an application dispatcher for receiving a plurality of input bytestreams, each input bytestream representing source data corresponding to a separate, independent digital document in one of a plurality of predetermined data formats, and for associating each input bytestream with one of said plurality of predetermined data formats, a plurality of document agents for interpreting said input bytestreams as a function of said associated predetermined data formats and for parsing the input bytestreams into streams of document objects representative of primitive structures within the input bytestreams, and a core document engine for a) converting a first set of document objects from a first of said parsed bytestreams into an internal representation data format; b) storing said converted first set of document objects in an internal representation, c) converting a second set of document objects from a second of said parsed bytestreams into the internal representation format; d) adding said converted second set of document objects to the stored internal representation, thereby creating a collective internal representation including content from each of the first and second bytestream; and e) mapping converted document objects stored in said internal representation from each of the first and second bytestreams to locations on a display.