Review of automatic document formatting

Abstract

We review the literature on automatic document formatting with an emphasis on recent work in the field. One common way to frame document formatting is as a constrained optimization problem where decision variables encode element placement, constraints enforce required geometric relationships, and the objective function measures layout quality. We present existing research using this framework, describing the kind of optimization problem being solved and the basic optimization techniques used to solve it. Our review focuses on the formatting of primarily textual documents, including both micro-and macro-typographic concerns. We also cover techniques for automatic table layout. Related problems such as widget and diagram layout, as well as temporal layout issues that arise in multimedia documents are outside the scope of this review.

Automatic Generation of User Interface Layouts for Alternative Screen Orientations

“…This technique has also been used to improve the usability and aesthetics of UIs created in a sketching tool [22] as well as for automatic document formatting [23]. Sears [24] proposed an objective function for UI layouts which accumulates the expected time required to perform common tasks.…”

Quantifying Aesthetics of Visual Design Applied to Automatic Design

“…We believe that color semantics is a legitimate challenge to be addressed in various venues of HCI: in automatic design [107][108][109][110][111][112], design by example [113][114][115][116], design grammar [117], design of user interaction [118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125], quantifying aesthetics of design [26,28,99], user experience design [126][127][128][129][130][131][132], and color design [40,[133][134][135][136][137][138]. For instance, in design by example, although users are supported by a pool of designs and some mechanisms help them choose their preferred designs [116], there is no well-defined interaction to understand the user's purpose of designs or what color combinations should be selected from their preferred designs.…”

“…Lok et al [107] and Hurst et al [109] provide surveys of automated document layout techniques. Most of the related work is based on the concept of grids in design.…”

“…Our motivation in this work is to model visual balance. Learning visual balance from the work of professionals in design and photography may help to enable the automatic design applications in layout creation [109,110,112,151,[221][222][223][224][225][226][227][228][229][230][231][232][233][234], content retargeting [235][236][237][238][239], cropping [220,238,240,241], photo composition [238,242]and quantifying aesthetics of layouts [22,28,48,198,[243][244][245]. Nevertheless, there is no rigorous model to describe visual balance.…”

Interactive furniture layout using interior design guidelines

“…Researchers have applied this optimization approach to circuit board layout [Sarrafzadeh and Lee 1993], graph layout [Tollis et al 1998], component layout in product design [Cagan et al 2002], document layout [Jacobs et al 2003;Hurst et al 2009], UI layout [Lok and Feiner 2001;Gajos et al 2010], label layout [Christensen et al 1995;Vollick et al 2007], and architectural floor plan layout [Merrell et al 2010]. Most of these approaches were developed for off-line layout and do not support direct manipulation or generation of multiple high-quality alternatives.…”