The user is enabled to move smoothly between viewing an entire document in a word by word display, through views that display only elements of increasing
landmark value, to an overview of the document in a single display window. A document is parsed into a hierarchy, of which each node at every level (from chapter to
sentence, clause or long word) has a display state (invisible, tokenized or open) for the way it is shown as part of an expandable view of the document. The contents opted for display within a tokenized view may be prioiritized according to a
system of
landmark values. The view is modified by
user input using an explicit
data structure of nodes and states within the device controlling the display, or by structuring in another
system the underlying logic of the arrangement of code that is acted upon by a
web browser. The section hierarchy may be explicitly coded in the
document format, or reconstructed from typographical evidence. The user may grasp the overall structure of a document, and move quickly to examine details. The display can provide a structured contextual response to a search, or a unified view of non-local changes in editing. It can be provided by the user's
local machine, by a
web site maintaining the document, or by a portal via which the user accesses the document, allowing incremental download to begin with a
usable overview and to avoid un-needed material. Hyperlinks can be used to embed all or part of another document, opening in a tokenized view, within a document currently displayed. Fullness of the view with which the document opens can adapt to the user's choices, to available display space, to a search term, or to detailed specifications contained in a
hyperlink.