Patent ID: 7266761

Claim:
A method for inserting an image into a document stored in memory of a computer, comprising the steps of: (a) making an image source device active with an application program used to create a text content of said document, wherein the image source device is in communication with the computer and the computer is executing the application program; (b) using a special application programming interface (API) module accessed from within the application program, for interfacing the application program with a TWAIN module that is used for acquiring an image with the image source device that is active, the special API module being entirely separate and distinct from the TWAIN module and providing a user interface that is presented to a user within and under control of the application program, said API module isolating a user from directly interacting with the TWAIN module and thereby simplifying the step of acquiring the image; (c) causing the application program to employ the special API module for negotiating with the image source device that is active to determine a set of image capture parameters that control said image source device when acquiring the image; and (d) communicating data representing said image from the image source device into the memory of the computer so that the data representing said image comprises a portion of the document stored in the memory of the computer, all without saving said data to any permanent file prior to communicating the data into the document stored within the memory of the computer.