Patent ID: 7257540

Claim:
A document processing apparatus comprising: document obtaining means for obtaining a document written in a predetermined markup language from a designated source; rule identification information extraction means for extracting a first attribute value of a first predetermined tag in the document obtained by said document obtaining means as rule identification information; rule selecting means for selecting a rule corresponding to the extracted rule identification information from among a plurality of rules stored in a rule memory, each of the plurality of rules specifying respective sections of voice output contents and voice input candidates in the obtained document, and said rule selecting means selecting a predetermined one of the plurality of rules if the first predetermined tag is not contained in the obtained document; document analyzing means for analyzing the document obtained by said document obtaining means based on the rule selected by said rule selecting means to extract voice output contents, voice input candidates, and designation information for designating a next processing object corresponding to each voice input candidate, from the respective sections of the obtained document specified by the rule selected by said rule selecting means, said document analyzing means extracting a second attribute value of the first predetermined tag as the voice output contents and text surrounded by second predetermined tags as the voice input candidates if the selected rule is a first rule, and extracting text in a range from a head to a third predetermined tag in the document as the voice output contents and anchors in the range as the voice input candidates if the selected rule is a second rule; voice output means for voice-outputting the voice output contents extracted by said document analyzing means; voice recognizing means for voice-recognizing a voice input by a user; and control means for checking the result of recognition by said voice recognizing means against the input candidates extracted by said document analyzing means to control obtaining of a new document by said document obtaining means or next analysis by said document analyzing means based on a next processing object designated by designation information corresponding to an input candidate matching the recognition result.