Patent ID: 7886235

Claim:
A method to process a document on a data processing system, the method comprising: receiving a first input indicating a change in a position of a user interface element against a displayed scale rendered by the data processing system; and generating a first document summary for the document according to a current position of the user interface element against the scale in response to the first input, the first document summary providing a synopsis of the document's content, the first document summary's amount of text established by the current position of the user interface element against the scale, the generating of the first document summary including: i) generating a respective score for different portions of the document that measures the respective portions ability to describe the document's contents as a whole; ii) selecting for inclusion in the first document summary one or more portions having stronger scores relative to other portions and not selecting for inclusion in the first document summary portions having weaker scores relative to other portions, wherein, the number of portions selected for inclusion in the first document summary is determined from the current position of the user interface element.