JPH07129686A - Business form preparing method for bushing preparing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the load of a computer for transmitting business form data to the business form preparing device. CONSTITUTION:Business form data constituted of a character-string prepared for the purpose of printing and a format overlay source code for preparing a format overlay are transmitted to the business form preparing device 1 from a computer 10. The business form preparing device 1 changes the received data to data for a display by a business form data converting part 20 and a format overlay converting part 26, and displays a business form on the display screen of a display device.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a form creating method for a form creating apparatus for receiving and displaying form data from a large-scale computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of form device, a form overlay such as ruled lines to be described in a form is created in advance, and various form data whose contents fluctuate depending on the month and day are displayed so as to match the form overlay. is doing.

Recently, the amount of forms output is also enormous. Therefore, a system for transmitting format data from a large computer to a form creating apparatus has also appeared.

As a method for creating a form for this purpose, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 1-222372, 2-2052, and 4-
No. 369023 has been proposed. These proposals relate to the correspondence between the form overlay and the printing position of the variable data, and they are effective when a new form is created by using the form creation method of these proposals. Further, there is also proposed a form processing system (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-105669) in which a form can be read by a form reading device (scanner) and saved to correct the data.

[0005]

Conventionally, in this type of document creating apparatus, the user himself / herself creates a format overlay in which information does not change by using a document processing function, and receives only form data whose contents change from a large computer. Often. Since the large-sized computer that transmits the form data transmits the form data by a program, the large-sized computer side must separately prepare the form data transmission program and the printing program for printing on the large-sized computer side.

Further, there has been a problem that the form creating apparatus side must create a form overlay. Note that the print data sent to the printing device contains a character code indicating the character string written in the form, a control code that regulates the operation of the printing device, and graphic image data. There is a technical problem to be solved that the form cannot be displayed on the display device even if the data itself is used.

Therefore, in view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to print a form using print-related data created by the sending computer in order to ease the effort of creating the sending program of the form data sending computer. It is to provide a form creating method of a form creating apparatus capable of performing.

[0008]

In order to achieve such an object, the present invention provides print-related data prepared for printing a form in a computer connected to a form creating apparatus,
The correspondence relationship between the form and the display-related data for displaying the form having the same content in the form device is stored in advance in the storage device of the internal form creating device, and the form creating device is transferred from the computer. The print-related data is received, the received print-related data is converted into display-related data by an internal information processing device based on the correspondence relationship stored in advance in the storage device, and the converted display-related data is used. The form is displayed on the display screen.

[0009]

In the present invention, print-related data used for printing and
Only the control data for operation control differs from the display-related data used for display, paying attention to the fact that the format overlay and the character string indicating the contents of the form are common, and by associating the non-common part for display, It can be displayed on the form creation device side using print-related data prepared on the calculation device side.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 and 2 show the basic construction of an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, reference numeral 10 denotes a computer which is a source of creating form data to be sent to the form creating apparatus. 1
Reference numeral 2 denotes a communication control unit that takes in the form-related data sent from the computer 10 into the device. Reference numeral 14 is form-related data (received data file) that is taken into the device and saved in the storage device. In this embodiment, two types of print-related data, form data and form overlay data, are received as the form-related data.

The form data is so-called text data composed of a character code and a control code for instructing a line feed or the like. The format overlay data is format overlay source code in which a drawing command and the like are described. Reference numeral 16 is a received data discriminating unit which discriminates the type of the received data file. Reference numeral 18 is a reception determination definition file which describes criteria for determining the type of received data stored in the storage device. Reference numeral 22 is a conversion condition for converting the print form data into the display form data (correspondence relationship predetermined according to the present invention).
This is a file of the form data conversion definition that defines

Reference numeral 20 is a form data conversion unit for converting the received form data into the display form data 24 as the received data file 14 using the form data conversion definition. Two
Reference numeral 6 denotes a format overlay conversion unit that creates a display format overlay 28 by using the correspondence between the received print format overlay source code as the received data file 14 and the display format overlay (object).

The display form data 24 and the display format overlay 28 are stored in the storage device and transferred to the display device 32 by the form data display unit 30. Reference numeral 40 is an input device for inputting operation instructions.

The above is the functional configuration of this embodiment.
A concrete system configuration is shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 shows a concrete system configuration of the form creating apparatus to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 3, the computer 10
The host computer 200 corresponding to is connected to the form creation device 100 via the LAN 150. The form creation device 100 is composed of the following circuits.

The CPU 101 executes the control of the entire apparatus based on the system program stored in the ROM 102. Based on the control procedure shown in FIGS. 7 and 10, the CPU 101 also displays the display form data 24 and the display format overlay 28 developed in the image in the system RAM 10.
3 is displayed on the CRT 108. As will be described later, C
The PU 101 operates as the received data discriminating unit 16, the form data converting unit 20, and the format overlay converting unit 26 of FIGS. The ROM 102 stores and stores a program (control procedure) executed by the CPU 101, as well as parameter values used for device control.

The system RAM 103 temporarily stores data used for information processing by the CPU 101 and information processing results of the CPU 101. The system RAM 103 has an image storage area and also stores image data to be displayed on a CRT (display device) 108. This image data storage area operates together with the CPU 101 as the form data display unit 30 of FIG.

A hard disk (storage device) 104 stores form data and form overlay data. The hard disk 104 corresponds to a storage device that stores files of the received data 14, the received data discrimination definition 18, the form data conversion definition 22, the display form data 24, and the display format overlay data 28 in FIG. 1.

The printing device 105 prints the form created by the CPU 101. The communication interface 106 performs information communication with the host computer 200 via the LAN 150 as the communication control unit 12 of FIG.

From the keyboard 107, the input device 3 of FIG.
As an item 4, an operation instruction to the CPU 101 and various information are input. The CRT 108 displays a form image (an image in which form data and format overlay data are combined) read from the system RAM 103 by the CPU 101 (or display controller). CRT10
8 operates as the display device 32 of FIG.

The operation of the system configuration of FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 thus configured will be described below.

The computer 10 performs the processing shown in FIG. 4 and outputs the form in the form of text. That is, the host computer 10 executes the form application program 500 to create the print file 502. An example of the structure of the print file is shown in FIG. The print file 502 is stored in the host computer as one record (name indicating one set of codes) of the character code and control code for each line forming the form.

The code in the record is, for example, a Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) Kanji code or a binary coded decimal number (EBCD).
IC) code is mixed. The print position information indicating the print position of the print information is included in the file of the form format definition 504.

The computer 10 uses the output program 506 to print the print file 502 and the form definition 5
04 is input to create the edited and converted file 508.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the structure of the edited and converted file 508. Similar to the print file 502, the post-edit conversion file 508 has one record as one record, and a channel control code for determining a print line is stored at the head of the record. After that, a function code and subsequently print data are stored. The function code is a code for instructing the character type and font size of the subsequent print data.

The computer 10 converts the format overlay source code 516 of the drawing command into the format overlay object 510 instructing the actual print operation for drawing by the format overlay creating program 518.
The form overlay source code 516 is created when the form is designed. The computer 10 outputs the created format overlay object 510 and the edited and converted file 508 to a printer (not shown) by the printer output program 512.

The edited and converted file 508 and the format overlay source code 516 are sent from the computer 10 to the form creating apparatus 1. At this time, the data type, the identifier indicating the record length, and the data additional information are added to the transmission data for data communication. The data attached information is the form conversion definition 22 if the transmission data is the converted file 508. If the transmission data is the format overlay source code 116, the data attached information is the display format overlay file name.

When the form creation device 1 receives the transmission data from the computer 10 via the communication control unit 12 (communication interface 106 in FIG. 3), the transmission data is stored in the internal storage device (hard disk 10 in FIG. 3) as the reception data file 14.
4). The CPU 101 operating as the reception data discrimination unit 16 discriminates whether the transmission data is the converted file 508 or the format overlay source code 516 based on the reception data discrimination definition 18. More specifically, the type determination is performed according to the determination definition of whether the transmission data has the display format overlay file name.

As a result of the determination, when "the received data is the converted file 508" is obtained, the control is passed to the form data conversion unit 20. Form data conversion unit 20
(CPU 101 in FIG. 3) uses the form data conversion definition 22 and follows the converted file 50 according to the processing procedure in FIG.
8 is converted into display form data 24. The detailed procedure of FIG. 7 is actually described in a programming language that can be executed by the CPU 101, but is expressed functionally for convenience of explanation.
The control procedure of FIG. 10 is also the same. In the processing procedure of FIG. 7, the form data conversion unit 20 executes the conversion process using the form data conversion definition 22 specified by the reception data determination definition 18 of reception according to the instruction of the reception data determination unit 16.

That is, the form data conversion unit 20 sets a read address in the first line of the first page of the received file (file after edit conversion 508) and sequentially reads the records. In this process, the print line position of the record is calculated by counting the channel code described in the record (S80).

When the channel code is the page change code, the page position is updated and the read line is initialized to the first line (S50 → S60 → S70). After that, the form data conversion unit 20 reads it. Based on the function code in the record, it is converted into a character code corresponding to the code with a predetermined character size (S90 → S100, S10).
5). Hereinafter, the form data conversion unit 20 performs character code conversion of the received edited and converted file 508 by repeating the loop processing of S30 to S110. When the code conversion for all the records is completed (S40), the form information is added to the end and the processing procedure of FIG. 7 is completed (S45).

The contents of the display form data file 24 thus created are shown in FIG. In the form header added as the form information, a form name for identifying the form type, a form conversion date / time, the number of pages of the form, a start address of the page address part, a format overlay name, etc. are described.

The page address section indicates a storage start address of each page in which character data is described. The storage start address is used to access the designated page data to speed up the data access. The form overlay name is paired with the form and is given separately. In the page data section, code-converted print data is described together with print position information.

Returning to FIG. 1, when the received data file is determined by the format overlay source code 516 (see FIG. 4) and the received data determination section, the format overlay conversion section 26
The CPU 101 takes over the control and converts the format overlay source code 516 into the display overlay object 28.

This detailed procedure is shown in FIG. The format overlay program for the CPU 101 to function as the format overlay conversion section 28 is composed of a format overlay source code conversion section program 202 and a format overlay object code creation section program 206. The form overlay source code 516 is converted into the display form overlay source code file 204 by the form overlay source code converting unit program. Thereafter, the CPU 101 executes the format overlay object code creation unit program 206 to convert the display format overlay source code file 204 into the format overlay object code file 28. By this conversion processing, for example, a line drawing command for displaying a ruled line or the like is converted into a drawing display drawing command corresponding to the size of the display screen, and then the line is actually displayed by this drawing command. A motion instruction command or a linear image itself is created.

When the display form data file 24 and the display format overlay file 28 are created in this manner, the CPU 101 serves as the form data display unit 30 so that the two files 26 and 28 become one display screen. To synthesize.

The detailed procedure for this is shown in FIG. The form data display unit 30 displays a list of form names on the display device 32, and receives an instruction of the form name to be displayed from the input device 34 (S200 → S210). Form data display section 30
Acquires the display format overlay file 28 from the form header section of the display form data file 24 corresponding to the specified form name, and displays the display format overlay file 28 (system RAM 103
Image storage area).

Further, the data of the first page in the page address portion is converted into an image and combined with the image of the format overlay in the display memory. As a result, the composite image is transferred to the display device 32 and displayed on the display screen (S220 to S260). Hereinafter, every time a page is designated from the input device 34, a screen display process for the designated page is performed (loop process of S270 to S310).

As described above, in this embodiment, the printing format overlay source code file which the computer 10 holds for printing and the printing data, that is, the text file are displayed on the form creating apparatus 1 side. Convert to a file and display the same contents as print. For this reason. It is not necessary for the computer 10 side to create two types of data for printing and for the form creation device 1. Also, on the form creation device 1 side,
If a program for converting a form is installed, the data can be always displayed even if the data content on the computer 10 side changes.

In addition to this embodiment, the following example can be carried out.

1) When the form creation device 1 receives text described in PDL language (page description language) in which character codes and graphic images are mixed, the form creation device 1
On the side, the data related to the character code and the data related to the format overlay are separated, and the same image contents can be displayed using the print-related data by performing the above-described image composition processing.

2) Although not described in detail in this embodiment,
If the size of the printing paper and the size of the display screen on the form creation device side cannot be balanced, the display image may be scaled / enlarged vertically or horizontally.

[0045]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It can be displayed on the form creation side by using print-related data used for printing on a computer. For this reason, since it is not necessary for the computer side to create the previously created data for the form creating device, it is possible to obtain the effect of reducing the load on the computer device.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a specific system configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a processing procedure on the computer 10 side.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of a print file.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of an edited and converted file.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the processing contents related to the creation of a form.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of display form data.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing processing contents relating to conversion of a display format overlay.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing processing contents related to display of a form.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Form creation device 2 Communication control unit 10 Computer 12 Communication control unit 16 Received data determination unit 20 Form data conversion unit 20 26 Form overlay conversion unit 32 Display device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Between print-related data prepared for printing a form in a computer connected to the form creation device and display-related data for displaying a form having the same contents as the form in the form device. Is stored in advance in the storage device of the internal form creation device, the form creation device receives the print-related data from the computer, and based on the correspondence relationship stored in advance in the storage device, the reception A form creation method for a form creation device, comprising: converting the print-related data into display-related data by an internal information processing device, and displaying the form on a display screen using the converted display-related data.