Editing of customised documents
A method of generating a second customised document incorporating amendments made to a previously generated first document, where the customised documents include one or more selected predetermined portions of document content, comprises the steps of: determining which portions of document content are comprised in the first document but which are not comprised in the second document; deleting the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the first document; determining which portions of document content are comprised in the second document but which are not comprised in the first document; and copying the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the second document to the first document.
1. A method comprising:
generating a first customized document including conditional and non-conditional content;
generating a second customized document including conditional and non-conditional content; and
generating an amended second customized document incorporating amendments made to the first customized document resulting in an amended first customized document, including the steps of:
determining which portions of document content are comprised in the amended first customized document but which are not comprised in the second customized document;
deleting the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the amended first customized document;
determining which portions of document content are comprised in the second customized document but which are not comprised in the amended first customized document;
copying the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the second customized document to the amended first customized document; and
outputting the resulting amended first customized document as the amended second customized document.
2. The method of claim 1 in which the amended first customized document and the second customized document are associated with inclusion information indicating whether each portion of document content is included in, or excluded from, the respective document.
3. The method of claim 2 in which the step of determining which portions of document content are comprised in the amended first customized document but which are not comprised in the second customized document comprises the step of comparing the inclusion information associated with each document.
4. The method of claim 3 comprising the further step of modifying the inclusion information associated with the amended first customized document to indicate that the portions of document content which have been deleted are excluded from the amended first customized document.
5. The method of claim 2 in which the step of determining which portions of document content are comprised in the second customized document but which are not comprised in the amended first customized document comprises the step of comparing the inclusion information associated with each document.
6. The method of claim 5 comprising the further step of modifying the inclusion information associated with the amended first customized document to indicate that the portions of document content which have been copied from the second customized document are included in the amended first customized document.
7. The method of claim 2 in which each portion of document content is associated with one or more identification tags.
8. The method of claim 7 in which each identification tag comprises information uniquely identifying the portion of document content associated with each identification tag.
9. The method of claim 7 in which the inclusion information is comprised in the identification tags.
10. The method of claim 7 in which the location information is defined by the location of the identification tags within a document.
11. The method of claim 7 in which the span information is represented by a pair of identification tags, the pair of identification tags defining the span of the portion of document content associated with the identification tags.
12. The method of claim 1 in which each document is associated with location information indicating the location of each portion of document content within the document.
13. The method of claim 12 in which the step of deleting the portions of document content from the amended first customized document comprises the step of using the location information associated with the amended first customized document to locate the portions of document content in the amended first customized document to be deleted.
14. The method of claim 12 in which the step of copying the portions of document content from the second customized document to the amended first customized document comprises the step of using the location information associated with the second customized document to locate the portions of document content in the second customized document to be copied.
15. The method of claim 12 in which the step of copying the portions of document content from the second customized document to the amended first customized document comprises the step of using the location information associated with the amended first customized document to determine the location in the amended first customized document to which the portions of document content should be copied.
16. The method of claim 1 in which the amended first customized document and the second customized document are associated with span information indicating the span of each portion of document content within the respective document.
17. The method of claim 16 in which the step of deleting the portions of document content from the amended first customized document comprises the step of using the span information associated with the amended first customized document to determine the spans of the portions of document content in the amended first customized document to be deleted.
18. The method of claim 16 in which the step of copying the portions of document content from the second customized document to the amended first customized document comprises the step of using the span information associated with the second customized document to determine the spans of the portions of document content in the second customized document to be copied.
19. The method of claim 1 in which the documents are legal contracts.
20. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon program instructions which when run on a computer causes the computer to perform the steps comprising:
generating a first customized document including conditional and non-conditional content;
generating a second customized document including conditional and non-conditional content; and
generating an amended second customized document incorporating amendments made to the first customized document resulting in an amended first customized document, including the steps of:
determining which portions of document content are comprised in an amended first customized document but which are not comprised in a second customized document;
deleting the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the amended first customized document;
determining which portions of document content are comprised in the second customized document but which are not comprised in the amended first customized document;
copying the portions of document content determined in the preceding step from the second customized document to the amended first customized document; and
outputting the resulting amended first customized document as an amended second customized document.