AUTHORING, ALTERING, INDEXING, STORING AND RETRIEVING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS EMBEDDED WITH CONTEXTUAL MARKUP

摘要

The invention provides a method, computer-readable instructions and a system for generating and indexing context sensitive HTML documents. A context sensitive HTML document is generated by inserting an opening contextual markup tag before an item of character data (or other computer-readable data) within an HTML document and by inserting a closing contextual markup tag after the item of character data. A predefined prefix for identifying contextual information is included in both the opening and closing contextual markup tags. At least one contextual term identifying a context within which the item of character data is used is also included in both the opening and closing contextual markup tags. Each contextual markup tag is marked with HTML delimiters. Context sensitive HTML documents generated in this way form hybrid HTML documents which remain compatible with HTML and which can be processed and incorporated into a context sensitive database that may be searched by users. A hybrid HTML document is processed by scanning it in search of character data marked with the contextual markup tags. The character data and associated contextual terms are retrieved from the hybrid HTML documents and added to a context sensitive database. When the character data is added to the database, the associated contextual terms and the character data are linked, and the character data is linked to an address identifying a location of the hybrid HTML document from which originated the character data and associated contextual terms.