System and method for creating a unified printable collection of hyperlinked documents

摘要

The present invention relates to a method for creating a meta-document. The method collects at least one hyperlinked document based on a seed document and cross-references the documents within the collection. Cross-referencing includes resolving an anchor and an object, and indexing the resolved anchor and object based on respective locations within a meta-document. The method organizes the collected documents and seed documents. The method also publishes the meta-document including the cross-referenced documents. Preferably, the method of collecting includes accepting the seed document having an anchor pointing to an object, and adding a document containing the object to the collection. In addition, collecting includes the step of manually modifying the collection. The meta-document is a collection of the seed document and the hyperlinked document. Further, the index is one of a footnote, an end note, a table of contents, and an appendix.