Patent ID: 6993209

Claim:
A computer implemented method for preparing a page description language version of an electronic document having one or more lines of characters entered by a document preparer such that, when the page description language version is used to create a printed version of the document, the printed version will be consistent with the appearance of the electronic document as it was displayed to the document preparer, the method comprising: (a) for each of the lines of characters in the document entered by a document preparer, determining a spacing adjustment for the line by (i) determining the width of the line if displayed on a computer display, (ii) determining the width of the line if converted to a page description language version using one or more initial character spacing parameters, and (iii) determining an adjustment to be applied to one or more of the initial character spacing parameters that is sufficient to cause the page description language version of the line created using the one or more adjusted spacing parameters to have an adjusted line width that is substantially equal to the width of the line if displayed on a computer display, and (b) making the adjustments for the lines available to a conversion program for creating a page description language version of the document such that, when the conversion program is used to create a page description language version of the document, the spacing of each line of characters in the page description language version is adjusted according to the adjustment determined for that line.