Patent ID: 7685157

Claim:
A method of extracting a portion of a structured document having a corresponding tree structure stored in memory, said method comprising the steps of: displaying the structured document on a screen; detecting a position of the structured document indicated by a user on the screen; detecting an end node of the tree structure that corresponds to the position indicated by the user on the screen; obtaining a series of nodes of the tree structure stored in the memory by successively detecting next higher nodes from the end node; superimposing a rectangular area corresponding to a given node of the obtained nodes of the structured document displayed on the screen; prompting the user to change the rectangular area by enlarging or reducing a size of the rectangular area through user operation of operation buttons displayed on the screen for requesting enlargement or reduction, respectively, so as to display the enlarged rectangular area or reduced rectangular area on the structured document displayed on the screen without enlarging or reducing the displayed structured document, the enlarged rectangular area corresponding to one of the obtained nodes higher than the given node, and the reduced rectangular area corresponding to one of the obtained nodes lower than the given node; prompting the user to perform a select operation to select using the operation buttons of the desired rectangular area on the structured document when the desired rectangular area is displayed through the user operation for requesting selection enlargement or reduction; extracting, in the tree structure stored in the memory, a portion of the structured document that corresponds to one of the obtained nodes corresponding to the desired rectangular area selected by the user; and providing the user with the extracted portion of the structured document.