A printing and publishing system which generates a printing plate-ready file from data provided remotely in real time using a communication network is disclosed herein. The printing and publishing system includes a central service facility and an end-user facility and/or a printing company facility. The end user facility provides page building operations allowing the design and construction of pages from images, text, and data available via said communication network. The central service facility provides storage, file processing, remote access, and content management operations. File processing operations include generating a plate-ready file from pages designed at said end user facility. The plate-ready file has a file format capable of high resolution and is ready for creation of a printing plate. The printing company facility provides printing operations for producing a printing plate from said plate-ready file.

A service provider such as a physician or an automobile mechanic is identified from a wireless communicator based on categories of service providers such as physicians or automobile mechanics. In particular, a radiotelephone call is initiated from the wireless communicator to a first telephone number that corresponds to a first service provider of a first category, for example a first physician. The wireless receiver then detects that the radiotelephone call is not successfully completed, for example by detecting that a busy signal is obtained from the first telephone number, by detecting that a radiotelephone call to the first telephone number is repeatedly initiated during a predetermined time and/or by detecting that radiotelephone calls to multiple telephone numbers corresponding to service providers of the first category are initiated during a predetermined time. If the radiotelephone call is not successfully completed, a listing is obtained at the wireless communicator of at least a second telephone number that corresponds to at least a second service provider of the first category. At least part of the listing is displayed on the wireless communicator, so that a radiotelephone call may be initiated from the wireless communicator in response to selection of the second service provider of the first category. Thus, in the example where the service provider is a physician, if a radiotelephone call to a first physician is initiated and is not successfully completed, a listing of physicians may be displayed on the wireless communicator display so that other physicians may be called.

A method to retrieve data in a information processing unit. The method comprises: creating a pointer into a database based on a category for data to be retrieved, determining if an application running on the information processing unit is running in an online mode where the information processing unit is coupled to a database server or if the application is running in an offline mode where the information processing unit is not coupled to the database server; and retrieving at least part of the data using the pointer to the database when the application is running in an online mode. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a computer readable medium can include instructions to program data processing apparatus to carry out the above method.

This invention intends to provide a system which makes it easy to search an object by making a number of a procedure of input as less as possible in a case that a factor of an area is regarded as important in searching an object. In order to attain this object an object to be searched is stored in advance together with information on an area relating to the object and the object is output which belongs to the specified area when a condition which is to be the object to be searched is input. If the corresponding information does not exist in a searched area or if the corresponding information is desired to search in an area broader than the searched area, receive an input of a button B of "broaden searching area" so as to broaden the searching area and an area to be searched is broadened from a level of a city, town or village to a level of a country gradually.

A method for identifying one file in a plurality of files facilitates a user rapidly selecting the file. In an input operation, at least one character that was input by a user is received. In a find file operation, the method compares an input character string that is, or that includes, the at least one character with each individual data file name of a plurality of data file names. The find file operation identifies individual data files names that include a character string that corresponds to, i.e., matches, the input character string. A send to display operation sends at least one of the identified individual data file names to a display unit, which in turn displays the sent information to the user, i.e., suggests an individual data file name to the user. If the user accepts the suggested individual data file name via one input order action forwarded, the selected file is processed as desired by the user. Alternatively, the user can scroll through the identified individual data file names and selected the desired file, or input another character in which case the autocomplete process is automatically repeated.