Patent ID: 7904807

Claim:
A document formatting system comprising: a server device including a processing unit, a memory, and an input-output unit, the memory comprising instructions which when executed by the processing unit implement: an extraction system in the server device that extracts from a source page selected based on an operator input (a) a first set of formatting information that is interpreted by a markup format interpreter and (b) a first set of formatting templates embedded in a code of the source page; and a formatting system in the server device that replaces in a target page selected based on an operator input (a) a portion of a second set of formatting information in the target page that is interpreted by a markup format interpreter with a corresponding portion of the first set of extracted formatting information and (b) at least one formatting template in a second set of formatting templates in the target page associated with at least one formatting template in the first set of extracted formatting templates, wherein each of the formatting templates includes at least one formatting rule, wherein the source page and the target page include at least one of the formatting rules that is embedded in comments that are ignored by the markup format interpreter, wherein the formatting rules control how data items defining at least a portion of content on the source page and the target page are formatted, wherein the formatting system reformats each data item associated with one of the formatting templates that has been replaced in the second set of formatting templates, and wherein the first set of formatting templates comprises at least one formatting template comprising at least one string of formatting code including at least one of a set of tags and a type attribute for regulating a type of information that a user can provide and a type of form elements the user will be presented with to provide the information.