A document processing system and method are disclosed which are capable of performing inverse retrieval in response to a request issued by a user and providing retrieved document data to the user. Characteristic information indicating a specified electronic document or category is transmitted from a terminal device to a document providing device. The document providing device retrieves electronic documents related to the characteristic information from electronic documents stored in a database. Information about the retrieved electronic documents, such as electronic documents themselves or a list of the retrieved electronic documents, is transmitted from the document providing device to the terminal device.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This patent application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/706,170, filed on Nov. 3, 2000, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference.
Priority Data
Nov 18, 1999 [JP] P11-328726 Nov 18, 1999 [JP] P11-328727 Nov 18, 1999 [JP] P11-328728
A document taking-over system includes a terminal device provided with an electronic pen which gets information written by hand on a document prepared to be able to specify a kind thereof together with kind information of the document as electronic data and for transmitting the electronic data, a document taking-over apparatus for processing the electronic data to produce it as document information of XML format, a correspondence retrieval apparatus for transmitting connection information to the document taking-over apparatus to the terminal device, and a system disposed at a latter stage to utilize the document information processed by the document taking-over apparatus, which are connected to one another through a network.
