Extrapolating tabular structure in a freeform document

摘要

Various embodiments of systems and methods for extrapolating tabular structure to facilitate manipulation of elements in the freeform document are described herein. The freeform document includes an unstructured canvas providing users the ability to place one or more elements in the canvas. A primary column is determined by the selection of at least one element in the freeform document. Further, one or more secondary columns in the freeform document corresponding to the primary column are determined. A tabular structure in the freeform document is extrapolated based on the determined primary column and the one or more secondary columns to facilitate manipulation of elements in the freeform document, such as reordering, resizing and deleting the one or more elements, and inserting one or more new elements in the freeform document.

主权项

1. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer readable storage medium to store instructions, which when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:
receive a selection of at least one element in a freeform document; determine a primary column for the selected at least one element, wherein the primary column comprises:
the at least one element; andone or more additional elements identified based on a left side border of the at least one element, a right side border of the at least one element and whether the left side border and the right side border exceeds width of the one or more additional elements by a tolerance; determine one or more secondary columns corresponding to the determined primary column based on a top border or a bottom border corresponding to elements in the primary column, and a tolerance corresponding to the top border or the bottom border; extrapolate a tabular structure in the freeform document based on the determined primary column and the one or more secondary columns to facilitate manipulation of one or more elements in the freeform, wherein manipulating one or more elements in the freeform document comprises dragging and releasing one or more columns in a desired location within the freeform document; and update a computer display including the freeform document to include the tabular structure.