JPH0730727A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily store double-sided originals without necessity for a user to performs any special work, and to improve workability and operability in the case of outputting stored image data. CONSTITUTION:This device is provided with a storage/retrieval part 105 for storing image data in a large capacity storage medium 106, double-sided ADF 108 for conveying the double-sided originals, and operation display part 104 for designating a double-sided storage mode showing the storage of double-sided originals. When the double-sided storage mode is designated through the operation display part 104, the double-sided ADF 108 conveys the double-sided originals to the reading position of an image reading part 101, inverts the double-sided originals at this reading position after reading is finished, and conveys them to the reading position again. When the double-sided originals are inverted by the double-sided ADF 108, the image reading part 10 rotates the image data read by the storage/retrieval part 105 at 180 deg. and stored them in the large capacity storage medium 106.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a function of accumulating image data in a large capacity storage medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an image forming apparatus having a function of accumulating image data in a large-capacity storage medium, a scanner with a single-sided automatic document feeder (hereinafter referred to as a single-sided ADF) is used as an image reading means. Has been. In such a device, when a double-sided original is read by a scanner, the double-sided original is once copied to a single-sided original, and the single-sided original is placed on the single-sided ADF and automatically conveyed one by one and read by the scanner. Alternatively, the double-sided originals are placed one by one on the single-sided ADF and the image data on one side is read by the scanner, and then the double-sided originals are turned over and read again by the scanner.

Also, when a book document such as a book or a magazine is read by a scanner, the book document is once copied to a single-sided document, and the one-sided document is placed on the one-sided ADF and automatically conveyed one by one. ， Reading with a scanner.

[0004]

However, according to the above-mentioned conventional technique, when a double-sided original is stored in a large-capacity storage medium, the double-sided original is copied to a single-sided original or the double-sided original is turned over one by one. There is a problem that the operability is poor because the user has to perform special work such as mounting.

On the other hand, as an image reading means, a double-sided automatic document feeder (hereinafter, double-sided ADF) capable of reversing and feeding double-sided originals.
By using a scanner with a), the double-sided originals can be stored in a large-capacity storage medium, so that the double-sided originals can be stored without any special work by the user and the operability can be improved. When a double-sided original is simply conveyed using the double-sided ADF, the top and bottom of the double-sided original are reversed by the reversal of the front and back of the original, and the image data stored in the mass storage medium is reversed. On the odd-numbered page and the even-numbered page, the image data is stored with the top and bottom reversed. Therefore, when the accumulated image data is printed or displayed, the top and bottom are reversed and output for each page, which causes a problem that workability and operability are extremely deteriorated.

Further, according to the above conventional technique, in order to unify the input order and the output order of the image data in a predetermined page order, only the input using the single-sided ADF is applied, so that the image data is placed on the single-sided ADF. There was a problem in that book manuscripts such as impossible books and magazines could not be stored directly.

On the other hand, a method of directly reading a book document from a scanner using a pressure plate may be applied. However, when a pressure plate is used, the user inputs image data sequentially from one page of the document. On the contrary, when inputting image data by single-sided ADF, the image data is read and accumulated in order from the last page of the document stack. Therefore, when the accumulated image data is printed or displayed, the first page The two output states, that is, the case of outputting from the page and the case of outputting from the last page, coexist, resulting in a problem that workability and operability are extremely deteriorated.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and when a user can easily store a double-sided original without performing a special work, and outputs the stored image data. The first object is to improve the workability and operability of the.

Further, the present invention has been made in view of the above, and a user can directly store a book manuscript without performing a special work, and workability at the time of outputting the stored image data. A second object is to improve operability.

[0010]

In order to achieve the first object, the present invention comprises an image reading means for reading image data of a document, an image recording means for recording image data on a recording sheet, and various modes. Operation display means for setting and displaying,
In an image forming apparatus including a storage unit that stores the image data read by the image reading unit in a large-capacity storage medium, the document is conveyed to a reading position of the image reading unit,
Further, the automatic document feeding means is provided with an automatic original feeding means for reversing the original at the reading position and feeding it again to the reading position, and a designating means for designating a double-sided accumulation mode indicating accumulation of double-sided originals. When the double-sided accumulation mode is designated via the means, the original is conveyed to the reading position of the image reading means, and after the reading is completed, the original at the reading position is reversed and conveyed to the reading position again, and the accumulation is performed. The means is
When the document is inverted by the automatic document feeder, the image data read by the image reader is
(EN) An image forming apparatus that rotates once and accumulates in a large-capacity storage medium.

Further, in order to achieve the second object of the present invention, the accumulating means, together with the image data, when the original is conveyed by the automatic original conveying means,
Information that indicates that the image data is image data input using the automatic document feeder is stored in the large-capacity storage medium, and when the image data is read from the large-capacity storage medium, the information is added to the information. Based on this, an image forming apparatus for reading out image data in the order of pages of the original document is provided.

[0012]

In the image forming apparatus of the present invention, when the double-sided accumulation mode indicating the accumulation of double-sided originals is designated, the automatic original conveying means conveys the double-sided originals to the reading position of the image reading means, and the image reading means makes the double-sided originals. Read the image data of. Next, after the reading is completed, the automatic document feeding means reverses the original at the reading position and conveys it again to the reading position, and the image reading means reads the image data of the double-sided original again. On the other hand, the storage means stores the image data read by the image reading means in a large capacity storage medium. At this time, when the document is inverted by the automatic document conveying means, the image data read by the image reading means is rotated 180 degrees and stored in the large-capacity storage medium.

Further, when the original is conveyed by the automatic original conveying means, the accumulating means stores a large amount of information indicating that the image data is the image data input using the automatic original conveying means when the original is conveyed by the automatic original conveying means. Store in storage medium. Further, when the image data is read from the mass storage medium, it is discriminated whether or not the image data is input by using the automatic document feeder based on the information (that is, whether the image data is input by the pressure plate), and the original document is read. By reading the image data in the page order of, the image data input using the automatic document feeder and the image data input using the pressure plate are read in a unified page order.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the image forming apparatus of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a digital copying machine (image forming apparatus) according to the present embodiment. The image reading unit 101 reads image data from an original document and the image data read by the image reading unit 101. An image processing unit 102 that performs various image processing, an image recording unit 103 that records image data on recording paper, an operation display unit 104 that sets and displays various modes, and image data read by the image reading unit 101. A storage / retrieval unit 105 for storing a document as a document in the large-capacity storage medium 106 and searching for a document stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106, an HDD (hard disk device), an ODD (optical disk device), or an FDD (floppy disk device). ) Etc. mass storage medium 106
And a control unit 107 for controlling each of the above units, and a double-sided automatic document feeder (hereinafter, referred to as a double-sided AD) capable of reversing and feeding a double-sided document.
(Denoted as F) 108. Note that 109
Indicates the system bus.

FIG. 2 shows an external view of the operation display unit 104, which is roughly classified into ten keys, a start key, a paper selection key, a variable key, and the like.
1 and a display panel 202 for displaying the number of copies, paper selection display, scaling ratio display, error display, jam display, etc.
And a selection LCD unit 203 on which an LDC display screen (liquid crystal display screen) is arranged. In this embodiment, the selection LCD unit 203 is used to specify the type of document (double-sided document or single-sided document) to be stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106, and to search for documents stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106. Also, operation display such as display of retrieved document is performed.

FIG. 3 shows the configuration of the selection LCD unit 203. The selection LCD unit 203 has a touch panel 301 on the surface.
LCD display screen 301 on which a is arranged, and contrast adjustment knob 3 for adjusting the brightness of LCD display screen 301
02, a guidance key 303 for displaying a help message, a utility key 304 for displaying document identification data (document number, title, etc.) of documents stored in the mass storage medium 106, and LCD display A menu key 305 for returning the screen display of the screen 301 to the menu screen and a scroll key 306 for moving the range of the screen display of the LCD display screen 301 are provided. Note that FIG. 4 shows a menu screen of the LCD display screen 301. In the present embodiment, a document printing process for printing a document stored in the large capacity storage medium 106, a document storing process for storing image data input from the image reading unit 101 as a document in the large capacity storage medium 106, a large capacity storage Three processes of a document search process for searching documents stored in the medium 106 are displayed.

FIG. 5 shows a schematic structure of the double-sided ADF 108 of this embodiment, in which a document table 5 for placing a document stack is placed.
01, a paper feed roller 502 for feeding the originals on the original table 501 one by one, and the originals fed by the paper feed roller 502 are conveyed to a predetermined position on the contact glass 503 which is the reading position of the image reading unit 101. As well as
A transport belt 504 that discharges the document after reading the image data from the contact glass 503, a reversing roller 505 that reverses the document discharged from the contact glass 503 by the transport belt 504, and a document that has been scanned is discharged. Document discharge tray 506 and reversing roller 505 for
By switching the conveyance destination of the document reversed by the above, the document discharge tray 506 or the contact glass 50 again.
3 and a switching claw 507 for transporting the sheet to the sheet. Here, the double-sided ADF 108 is attached by a hinge part (not shown) so that the surface of the contact glass 503 can be opened, and the user can open the double-sided ADF 108 and place an original directly on the contact glass 503 to form a pressure plate. Used.

The operation of the above configuration will be described. When accumulating the image data input from the image reading unit 101 as a document in the large-capacity storage medium 106, the user selects the document accumulation process on the menu screen shown in FIG. When the user touches the document storage process on the screen (touches it with a finger), the control unit 10 selects the document storage process by the touch panel 301a of the LCD display screen 301.
Input to 7.

When the document storage process is selected, the control unit 10
First, in order to determine whether the document to be stored is a one-sided document or a two-sided document, the screen 7 displays the screen shown in FIG. Urge. Here, when the user touches the corresponding display screen to specify the type of the document, the document number and the document creation date and time are displayed on the LCD display screen 301 as shown in FIG. Prompt for keywords to use later in the search).

When the user inputs the title (or keyword) of the document, "Please read the original to be stored. Message appears and waits for the start of reading the document (pressing the start key). At this time, the document number, the document creation date and time, and the document title are transferred from the operation display unit 104 to the accumulation / retrieval unit 105 as document identification data.

Here, for example, if the user has a double-sided ADF 1
When the original is placed directly on the contact glass 503 by using 08 as a pressure plate, in other words, both sides A shown in FIG.
When the DF 108 is opened and the original is placed directly on the contact glass 503, the ADF flag indicating that the original has been fed by the double-sided ADF 108 is set to “0” and transferred to the accumulation / retrieval unit 105. When the user places the original on the double-sided ADF 108 and the original is conveyed to the contact glass 503 by the double-sided ADF 108, the ADF flag indicating that the original is fed by the double-sided ADF 108 is set to “1”. And transfers it to the storage / retrieval unit 105. The ADF flag may be set, for example, by setting "1" when the double-sided ADF 108 is operated and setting it to "0" other than that, or by using a detection sensor that detects opening / closing of the pressure plate. The ADF flag may be set to “0” when the pressure plate is opened and closed.

When the reading of the original is started, the control unit 1
07 transfers the image data input from the image reading unit 101 to the accumulation / retrieval unit 105.

7A to 7C show the order of inputting image data stored in the mass storage medium 106 due to the difference between the order of inputting originals when the pressure plate is used and the order of inputting originals when the double-sided ADF 108 is used. It is explanatory drawing which shows the difference. FIG. 6A shows the order of originals and the order of inputting image data when the pressure plate is used. When the pressure plate is used, the user places the originals from one page on the contact glass 503, so that the accumulated image data is stored. The first sheet is input as page 1, the second sheet as page 2, the third sheet as page 3, and so on. On the other hand, when a document is conveyed and placed on the contact glass 503 using the double-sided ADF 108, the double-sided ADF 108 is used.
Since the document 108 is conveyed in order from the bottom of the document stack,
For example, in the case of a single-sided original, as shown in FIG.
The first page is input in the third page, the second page is input in the second page, and the third page is input in the reverse order of the original page order.

In the case of a double-sided original, as shown in FIG. 3C, the double-sided ADF 108 conveys the original in order from the bottom of the original stack, and the image data is read in the order of the back side and front side of the original. The first page is 6 pages, the second page is 5 pages, the third page is 4 pages, the 4th page is 3 pages, and the 5th page is 2 pages.
The first page and the sixth page are input in the reverse order of the original page.

Therefore, whether the image data input order stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106 is the original page order by determining whether the input is using the pressure plate or the input from the double-sided ADF 108. Alternatively, it can be specified whether the page order of the original is the reverse. Therefore, in this embodiment, the ADF flag is set as described above, and the AD
When the F flag is "0", it can be determined that the image data input order is the page order of the document, and when the ADF flag is "1", the image data input order is the reverse of the document page order.

The accumulation / retrieval unit 105 stores document identification data (document number, document creation date and time and document title), A
When the DF flag and the image data are input, as shown in FIG. 8, the image data of the original input by one document storage process is stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106 as one document and stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106. The start address of the first page and the start address of the last page of the generated image data are associated with the document identification data and registered in a management table (directory) for managing the document. Further, at this time, each document and the ADF flag indicating that the original has been fed by the double-sided ADF 108 are registered in association with each other.

Further, the accumulation / retrieval unit 105 is shown in FIG.
When a double-sided original is designated as the type of original on the screen shown in FIG. 5, when the original inverted by the inversion roller 505 shown in FIG. 5 is again placed on the contact glass 503 by the conveyor belt 504, the original is read at this time. The image data is rotated 180 degrees and the mass storage medium 106 is rotated.
Remember.

Specifically, for example, the image "A",
The top and bottom of the double-sided original with the image "B" on the back is shown in Figure 9.
Assuming that the state is as shown in (a), when this double-sided original is conveyed onto the contact glass 503 by the double-sided ADF 108, the image “B” side on the back surface is in contact with the contact glass 503 as shown in FIG. 9B. The image reading unit 101
Read as image data. As for the top and bottom of the document at this time, as shown in the figure, the left side of the figure is the top and the right side is the ground.

Next, from this state, the double-sided original is reversed by the reversing roller 505 of the double-sided ADF 108 and is conveyed again onto the contact glass 503. As shown in FIG. 9C, the image "A" side of the front surface is the contact glass 503. As shown in the drawing, the top and bottom of the original at this time are the ground on the left side and the top on the right side, which is the reverse of FIG. 9B.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 10A, the image data input by the document reading unit 101 is the image data in which the front image "A" is upside down with respect to the back image "B". Is entered as. If the data is stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106 as it is, the top and bottom of the image data will be stored in reverse. Therefore, in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG.
As shown in (b), in the accumulation / retrieval unit 105, the read image data is rotated by 180 degrees to match the top and bottom sides of the image "B" on the back side and the image "A" on the front side, and a large-capacity storage medium. It is stored in 106.

It should be noted that there is no upside-down reversal as long as normal one-sided originals are stored. That is, even if the documents are stored using the double-sided ADF 108, if only one-sided documents are stored, the upside-down phenomenon does not occur. Therefore, as described above, it is necessary to rotate the image data by 180 degrees and store the image data only for a double-sided original and when the original is reversed.

Document Retrieval Processing Next, retrieval of documents stored in the mass storage medium 106 will be described. When the user touches (touches with a finger) the document search process on the menu screen shown in FIG. 4, L
By the touch panel 301a of the CD display screen 301,
The selection of the document search process is input to the control unit 107.

When the document retrieval process is selected, the control unit 10
7 first displays the screen shown in FIG. 11 on the LCD display screen 301 and prompts the user to input the search condition (search range). Here, as the search range, the document number of the document to be searched, the document creation date and time, the document title, all or at least one of the keywords to be searched can be input.

When "execute" is designated on the screen after designating the search condition, the search condition is transferred from the operation display unit 104 to the accumulation / search unit 105.

The accumulation / retrieval unit 105 retrieves the corresponding document from the management table based on the retrieval condition. next,
The control unit 107 controls the screen display of the LCD display screen 301 based on the search result of the storage / search unit 105 to display the corresponding document.

Document Printing Process Next, the document printing process will be described. User
When the document print processing on the menu screen shown in is touched (touched by a finger), the selection of the document print processing is selected by the touch panel 301a of the LCD display screen 301.
Input to 7.

When the document print processing is selected, the control unit 10
7, first displays the screen shown in FIG. 12 on the LCD display screen 301. Here, after touching (designating) the document to be printed, if "Print" is designated on the screen, the storage / retrieval unit 1
The corresponding document is sent from 05 to the image processing unit 102, subjected to predetermined image processing specified by the operation key unit 201, and then output via the image recording unit 103. In addition,
At this time, the image data of the documents stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106 have the same top and bottom of the image data, and thus the top and bottom of the image output on the recording paper are also the same.

Further, when the document is transferred to the image processing unit 102, the accumulation / retrieval unit 105, based on the value of the ADF flag registered in the management table of FIG. The image data is transferred in order from the first page (first page of the document) according to the page start address. If the ADF flag is "1", the image data is sequentially transferred from the first page (first page of the document) according to the last page start address. Therefore, the image recording unit 10
The image data output from 3 is always output in order from the first page of the document.

Further, when the user designates a document to be printed and then designates "confirmation display" on the screen, the corresponding document is displayed on the LCD display screen 301. When the user confirms and then specifies "print" on the screen, the accumulation / retrieval unit 10
The corresponding document is sent from 5 to the image processing unit 102, subjected to predetermined image processing designated by the operation key unit 201, and then output via the image recording unit 103.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the user automatically conveys the double-sided original directly by using the double-sided ADF 108 without performing the troublesome work such as copying the double-sided original once. ， Because it can be accumulated
Workability and operability can be improved. Also,
When the image data is stored in the large-capacity storage medium 106, a part of the image data of the double-sided document is rotated by 180 degrees and stored, so that the upside-down phenomenon of the odd-numbered page and the even-numbered page can be eliminated and accumulated. It is possible to improve workability and operability at the time of outputting the displayed image data.

Further, since the original is placed directly on the contact glass 503 and the original can be accumulated using the pressure plate, the book original can be directly accumulated.

Since the output order of the image data of the document stored in the mass storage medium 106 is controlled based on the ADF flag, the image data can always be output in the same order as the page order of the stored document. it can.

[0044]

As described above, in the image forming apparatus of the present invention, the original document is conveyed to the reading position of the image reading means, and the original document at the reading position is inverted and conveyed again to the reading position. And a designation means for designating a double-sided accumulation mode indicating accumulation of double-sided originals, and the automatic original document conveying means conveys the originals to the reading position of the image reading means when the double-sided accumulation mode is designated through the specification means. Then, after the reading is completed, the document at the reading position is reversed and conveyed again to the reading position. When the document is reversed by the automatic document conveying unit, the accumulating unit outputs the image data read by the image reading unit to 180 Since the images are rotated once and stored in a large-capacity storage medium, the user can easily store double-sided originals without any special work. Workability and operability can be improved.

Further, when the original is conveyed by the automatic original conveying means, the accumulating means, together with the image data, the image data is image data input using the automatic original conveying means. When the information shown is stored in the large-capacity storage medium and the image data is read from the large-capacity storage medium, the image data is read in the page order of the document based on the information.
The user can directly store the book manuscripts without performing any special work, and can improve the workability and operability when outputting the stored image data.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus of this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an external view of an operation display unit.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of a selection LCD unit.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a menu screen of an LCD display screen.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram of a double-sided ADF.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a screen display example of document storage processing.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a difference in input order of image data stored in a mass storage medium due to a difference between an input order of originals when a pressure plate is used and an input order of originals when a double-sided ADF is used.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a document storage process.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing 180 ° rotation of image data in a storage / retrieval unit.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing 180 ° rotation of image data in a storage / retrieval unit.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a screen display example of document search processing.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram showing a document printing process.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 101 image reading unit 102 image processing unit 103 image recording unit 104 operation display unit 105 accumulation / retrieval unit 106 large-capacity storage medium 107 control unit 108 double-sided ADF 301 LCD display screen (liquid crystal display screen)

Front page continuation (72) Inventor Masato Takahashi 1-3-3 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo Inside Ricoh Co., Ltd.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An image reading unit for reading image data of a document, an image recording unit for recording image data on a recording sheet,
An image forming apparatus comprising operation display means for setting and displaying various modes and storage means for storing image data read by the image reading means in a large-capacity storage medium,
Designation for designating an automatic document transport unit for transporting the original document to the reading position of the image reading unit, further inverting the original document at the reading position and transporting it again to the reading position, and a double-sided accumulation mode indicating accumulation of double-sided originals The automatic document transporting unit transports the document to the reading position of the image reading unit when the double-sided accumulation mode is designated through the designating unit, and is at the reading position after the reading is completed. When the document is inverted and conveyed again to the reading position, and the accumulating unit reverses the document by the automatic document conveying unit,
An image forming apparatus characterized in that the image data read by the image reading means is rotated by 180 degrees and stored in a large-capacity storage medium. 2. The storage means, when the original is conveyed by the automatic original conveying means, the image data together with the image data are image data input using the automatic original conveying means. The image data is stored in the large capacity storage medium, and when the image data is read from the large capacity storage medium, the image data is read in the page order of the document based on the information. Image forming device.