Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Matthew Charles Gauthier

Wentao Chen

Tyson Murray

Justin Michael Maguire

Tuan Huynh

Terri L Sorge

Robert R McCaughey

Carol Lining Liu

Ramakrishnan NataraJan

Andy Verprauskus

Jesse Raymond Bedford

Yaniv Inbar

Richard Jacques

Robert G Hawking

Anna Timasheva

Marcella C S Rader

Andrew L Kwatinetz

Alberto Swett

Vamshidar Rawal

Michael J Kelly

Glenn L Frankel

Jennifer L Jones

Eric M Lawrence

Nadja J Haldimann

Warren Lee Burch

Nicholas Michael Simons

Marcella Rader

Margaret G Hudson

Christopher Todd Seitzinger

Hein Anh Bui

Bogdan Farcasanu

Mitali Madhumita Pattnaik

Hien Anh Bui

Content returned by a search query is specific to a version of a product installed on or associated with the computer system requesting the search. Upon receipt of the search query, a search system accesses a persistent descriptor corresponding to a detected version of the product. The persistent descriptor may be a cookie file stored on the requesting computer system. A product detection module interrogates the computer system to identify the associated products, including the particular versions of those products. The search of a repository of general content related to the product is scoped using the persistent descriptor as a search filter in order to provide version-specific content.

Receiving a version-specific result responsive to a query

Version-specific content searching

A system and method for retrieving, storing and displaying featured content. In one embodiment, featured content is queried from a database storing a list of featured content items. The featured content items stored in the database may include any type of data, such as text data, hyperlink text data, markup document data, computer code, or other types or combinations of data related to a particular topic. Responsive to the query, a set of featured content items is stored in a cache file. A predetermined number of featured content items stored in the cache file are selected and stored in a system registry. Upon receipt of a display command, featured content items are read from the system registry and displayed on an interface. The displayed featured content items can be used to display hyperlinks, announcements, or other information, without inhibiting the efficiency of the boot process of a software application.

System and method for processing featured content

Automatically republishing native data from a native data file into a published file. In response to initially publishing the native data into the published file, a publish object is created that corresponds to the published data and the native data. The publish object is associated with the native data file and indicates whether the native data is to be automatically republished upon resaving of the native data file. The publish object further indicates the location of the published file, a reference to the location of the native data within the native data file, and an alert string. The publish object is identified by a unique identifier that is also stored in the published file to indicate the location of the published data. In response to resaving the native data, the publish object is examined to determine whether the native data is to be automatically republished.

Automatic republication of data

The invention, in one embodiment, is a method and system for reporting the status of external references, or links, of a spreadsheet workbook. In an Edit Links dialog box, the user may view a list of links and their status. The user may select a Check Status button in the Edit Links dialog box to check the status of the links without updating the links because updating the links may require considerable time. A textual status message is displayed for each link in the Edit Links dialog box. The textual status message indicates to the user whether there is s possible problem with the link. As part of checking the status of a link, an analysis is made to determine whether any problems with the source file exist. For instance, it is determined whether the source file is open and whether it is valid. The results of this analysis determine what is displayed in the status column of the Edit Links dialog box.

Reporting status of external references in a spreadsheet without updating

Importing data from a source document into a destination document that is displayed within an application program associated with the destination document includes displaying a user interface region as part of the user interface of the application program. Importing the data also includes indicating in the user interface region at least a portion of external data within the accessed source document that is available for insertion into the destination document; and inserting a selected portion of external data into the destination document in response to user input selecting the portion of external data.

Importing data from a source document into a destination document

The present invention allows a user to graphically create a refreshable Web Query by selecting tabular data displayed in a Web page. When the user invokes the refreshable Web Query command, an Internet browser module is launched within a Web Query dialog box open in the spreadsheet program. The user then graphically selects at least one instance of tabular data to import to the spreadsheet program. The invention also makes Web queries more accessible to a user and is embedded in a software utility, known as a Web query Smart Tag (WQST) utility. The WQST utility allows a user to create Web queries directly from an Internet browser module in one of several methods.

Integrated method for creating a refreshable web query

The present invention is directed to a method, system, and computer-readable medium for providing a dynamic paging control that selects the type of paging control to be displayed for use with paged content. Paging controls are used to navigate the paged content. Paging parameters describing the number of pages to be represented by the paging control and a description of the paging control's display environment are used to select the paging control type. If the paging parameters specify a type of paging control to use, that paging control type is used. If no paging control type is specified, the dynamic paging control automatically determines a paging control type based on the paging parameters. The page and the paging control type is then presented for display.

Dynamic paging control system and method

The invention is a software module configured for sending a pre-selected portion of an electronic spreadsheet document to a mail client or recipient via e-mail. The module includes a publish engine for receiving a sender's pre-selected portion of a spreadsheet document from an application program. The publish engine determines content in the pre-selected portion of the document, and in response to the content of the pre-selected portion, the publish engine changes a user interface to correspond with the content. When the publish engine receives a command through the user interface to send the pre-selected portion to a mail client via electronic mail, the publish engine codes the pre-selected portion for transmission via electronic mail. The publish engine launches an electronic mail application program, and inserts the coded pre-selected portion into an e-mail message. If the publish engine detects a user command through the user interface to apply an interactive control to the pre-selected portion, the publish engine codes an interactive control for the pre-selected portion. The publish engine inserts the coded interactive control into the e-mail message with the coded pre-selected portion so that the mail client or recipient can apply the interactive control to the pre-selected portion. Then, the publish engine sends the coded pre-selected portion and the coded interactive control to the mail client or recipient via electronic mail. The mail client or recipient can view and manipulate the pre-selected portion with electronic spreadsheet functionality similar to that available to the sender.

Sending a range

The invention is a method for Web authors to include a redirection tag in an HTML data object tag that redirects an application program to an alternative source file that stores underlying data associated with an HTML data object that a user has selected to import into the application program. Typically, HTML data objects in Web page are stored in HTML format. However, when a user selects an HTML object to import, they generally expect to import the data in the format that it was originally created in, such as XML. The redirection tag 'redirects' the application program to an alternative source file where the underlying data is stored in a rich format, such as XML. The application program then imports the underlying data of the HTML data object from the alternative source file.

Method for redirecting the source of a data object displayed in an HTML document

The present invention provides a system, method, and computer readable medium for retrieving full media resources in an online environment by manipulating media resource summaries. Media resource summary copy requests are intercepted and instructions to retrieve a corresponding full media resource substituted. The full media resource, rather than the summary, is placed on a computer clipboard, which allows the full media resource to be inserted by a software application into a document. In varied aspects of the present invention, the types of copy events that may be intercepted include keystroke events, copy events, menu copy events, and 'drag and drop' copy events.

System and method of copying a media resource

Automatically republishing native data from a native data file into an published file. In response to initially publishing the native data in to the published file, a publish object is created that corresponds to the published data and the native data. The publish object is associated with the native data file and indicates whether the native data is to be automatically republished upon resaving of the native data file. The publish object further indicates the location of the published file, a reference to the location of the native data within the native data file, and an alert string. The alert string may comprise a single alert to be displayed when the native data is republished. The publish object is identified by a unique identifier that is also stored in the published file to indicate the location of the published data. Subsequent to initially publishing the native data, the native data file may be resaved. In response to resaving of the native data, the publish object is examined to determine whether the native data is to be automatically republished. If the native data is to be automatically republished, the published file is retrieved and the native data is republished into the published file. Republishing the native data into the published file comprises translating the native data into a published file format, locating the published data within the published file by way of the unique identifier and replacing the published data with the translated native data.

The present invention allows a user to graphically create a refreshable Web Query by selecting tabular data displayed in a Web page. When the user invokes the refreshable Web Query command, an Internet browser module is launched within a Web Query dialog box open in the spreadsheet program. The user then graphically selects at least one instance of tabular data to import to the spreadsheet program. The invention also makes Web queries more accessible to a user and is embedded in a software utility, known as a Web Query Smart Tag (WQST) utility. The WQST utility allows a user to create Web queries directly from an Internet browser module in one of several methods. The first method, known as a 'Copy-Paste Web Query,' begins when a user pastes the tabular data into the spreadsheet program and determines whether the Web Query command should be presented to the user. If the decision is made to present the Web Query command to the user, a Web Query option appears on a special drop-down menu. The second method is embedded in a module known as the 'Export to Microsoft Excel' module, which allows a user to create a refreshable Web Query in the MICROSOFT EXCEL 2002 spreadsheet program directly from the MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER browser program. The last method is known as the &#x201c;Edit with Microsoft Excel&#x201d; method, which allows a user to open the entire file or choose a portion of the file to import into the MICROSOFT EXCEL 2002 spreadsheet program as a refreshable Web Query.

Growing community of inventors

Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Matthew Charles Gauthier