JP2000134405A - Communication terminal with electronic mail function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow the user to enter symbols through a few key operations without increasing number of keys by providing a means that changes over a prescribed key in a data entry key group into a key for code entry to the facsimile terminal. SOLUTION: A main control section 1 changes over a dial option entry key in a key group provided in advance for data entry into a key in order to enter a mail address start symbol that is a code denoting whether a telephone number or a mail address is to be entered in the case that at least a telephone number or a mail address is set. Furthermore, presence of entry of the mail address start symbol is detected to discriminate whether or not a mail address is set. In the case that setting of the mail address is discriminated, a prescribed key in a key group provided in advance for data entry such as a dial option entry key is switched into a key to enter a symbol such as ' ' included in each mail address.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication terminal device such as a facsimile device having a function of transmitting original image data by electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a computer communication network which connects a local computer communication network with a communication line and distributes e-mail via a networked Internet or the like has become widespread. The computer communication network has an excellent error correction function and can communicate with computers not only in Japan but also abroad simply by paying the communication cost to the nearest provider (a connection company to the computer communication network).

[0003] The communication procedure and communication system of the conventional G3 facsimile apparatus are different from those of the computer communication network.
Cannot directly connect to computer communication network. However, even image data such as a transmission original can be transmitted to a computer communication network by converting the image data into an electronic mail format.

[0004] In addition, non-standard functions (non-standard functions) within a range not interfering with standard procedures and standard functions defined by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) -T for facsimile communication, ie, time-specified transmission, confidential transmission, A facsimile machine having an additional function related to communication such as polling, broadcast transmission, and relay broadcast transmission is provided.

[0005] Broadcast transmission is a function for distributing the same data to a plurality of destinations. Relay broadcast transmission means that data is transmitted from a calling device to a called device that becomes a repeater, and then automatically broadcasted to a plurality of other facsimile devices that are registered in advance with the repeater as the calling device. This is the function to send. In this relay broadcast transmission, a plurality of final transmission destination devices are grouped and registered in the relay device, and a broadcast can be transmitted to the devices of the group by specifying a group number or the like.

The above-mentioned non-standard functions are set by operating key switches of various functions provided on the panel of the facsimile apparatus. In broadcast transmission and relay broadcast transmission,
A plurality of destinations are set by separating each destination with a symbol such as “,” (hereinafter referred to as a broadcast symbol).

In a facsimile apparatus capable of performing the above-described electronic mail communication, a destination of such a broadcast transmission is as follows.
A telephone number and an e-mail address can be mixed and set. However, when image data of a transmission document or the like is transmitted by e-mail, processing different from that of facsimile communication, such as conversion to e-mail format, is required as described above. Therefore, when a telephone number and a mail address are mixedly set as the destination of the broadcast transmission, for example, a predetermined code is input at the beginning of the mail address to indicate that the mail address is used. .

In general, to specify an e-mail destination, a user name (aaaa), a @ mark, and a network group to which the user belongs, such as "aaaa@bbbb.co.jp" Domain name (bbbb.co.j
Enter and specify the e-mail address consisting of p).

[0009]

In general, when entering symbols other than numbers and alphabets, a mode switching key is pressed, and a numeric keypad and a character input key are switched to a symbol input mode. Enter the assigned symbol. Therefore, a symbol that must be entered, such as the above-described symbol indicating that the address is a mail address, and the mail address “@”, “.”, The key operation for inputting a symbol having a high appearance frequency such as a symbol such as "" is complicated. However, providing a key dedicated to inputting the symbol to simplify the input of the symbol increases the size of the apparatus. , Leading to price increases.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem. One of the data input keys provided in advance in the apparatus is a symbol such as a symbol indicating a mail address. , As well as symbols that must be entered in the mail address and symbols that appear frequently in the email address, so that the above symbols can be entered without increasing the number of keys and with fewer key operations It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication terminal device with an e-mail function capable of performing the above.

[0011]

A communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to the first invention is capable of e-mail communication. When at least one of a telephone number and a mail address is set as a communication destination, the telephone number and the mail are set. A communication terminal device for inputting a code indicating one of the addresses, comprising: a key group for data input; and means for switching a predetermined key in the key group for inputting the code. It is characterized by having.

In the communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the first invention, when at least one of a telephone number and an e-mail address is set as a communication destination, a code indicating either the telephone number or the e-mail address is used for data input. A predetermined key in a key group provided in advance is switched for inputting a code. As a result, it is possible to input a code that must be input by a small number of key operations without increasing the number of keys.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication terminal device with an electronic mail function, wherein when the input of the code is instructed to be deleted, the code is input together with the telephone number and / or mail address set by the input of the code. Is provided.

[0014] In the communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to the second invention, when the input of the above-mentioned code is instructed to be deleted, this code is input together with the code and the telephone number and / or the set code. Or delete the email address. This makes it possible to easily delete setting data having a large number of characters, such as a mail address, without deleting the setting data one by one.

A communication terminal device with an electronic mail function according to a third aspect of the present invention detects whether or not the code is input, thereby determining whether or not a mail address is set. Means for switching a predetermined key in the key group for inputting a code included in a mail address when the determination is made.

The communication terminal device with an electronic mail function according to the third aspect of the present invention determines whether or not a mail address is set by detecting the presence or absence of a code input, and determines that the mail address is set. Then, a predetermined key in a group of keys provided in advance for data input, for example, the key switched for inputting the code, is switched for inputting the code included in the mail address. As a result, the number of keys is not increased, and “＠” “.” “ Symbols such as "" can be input with few key operations.

[0017]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile apparatus with an electronic mail function according to the present invention. In the embodiment of the present invention, the Internet is used as a computer communication network. Main control unit 1
Not only controls each part of the hardware of the facsimile apparatus through the bus, but also encodes or decodes the image data of the manuscript based on the software stored in the ROM 6 using an encoding method such as MH, MR, and MMR. Encoding / decoding, image (TIFF) conversion described later, binary text conversion, mail editing, modem switching, RS by AT command
Execute software such as communication procedures including 232C control.

When the main control unit 1 sets at least one of a telephone number and a mail address as a communication destination,
A code indicating the telephone number or the mail address (hereinafter referred to as a mail address start symbol) is used for inputting a dial option input key in a group of keys provided in advance for data input for inputting a mail address start symbol. When the deletion of the input e-mail address start symbol is instructed, a computer program for deleting the set e-mail address by inputting this symbol together with this symbol, and further, the e-mail address start symbol By detecting the presence or absence of an input, it is determined whether or not a mail address is set. When it is determined that a mail address is set, a predetermined key in a key group provided in advance for data input is determined. For example, if you include the dial option entry key The "@""."" A computer program for switching to input of a symbol such as "" is executed.

In image conversion, at the time of transmission, G3 format image data is converted into TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), which is a general image format used in computers, and at the time of reception, TIFF to G3 format image data is converted. Convert to TIFF is published by Adobe Systems, and defines various classes that handle not only black and white binary but also black and white multi-valued and full color. One of them
CLASS F defines image data in the G3 format, which is image data of a document in which image data of the document is encoded by an encoding method such as MH, MR, or MMR. Therefore, G3
It can be converted to TIFF by adding CLASS F TIFF header information to the beginning of the format image data.

In the binary text conversion, binary data is converted to text data at the time of transmission, and text data is converted to binary data at the time of reception. There are computers on the Internet that cannot handle binary data e-mail. When transmitting binary data such as TIFF image data, the data is first converted to text data so that the e-mail reaches the destination. Text data handled on the Internet is defined as a 7-bit code in RFC (Request For Comments) 822, which is a document issued by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

Therefore, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mai)
l Extensions) Use base64 etc. for conversion.
According to this, 6-bit binary data is 64 characters (uppercase, lowercase alphabet, numbers, +, /)
And can be converted to text data. MIME is specified in RFC1521.

In the mail editing, at the time of transmission, mail header information is added to the TIFF image data converted to text data to edit the data into an e-mail format. At the time of reception, the mail header information is removed from the data in the e-mail format, Extracts only TIFF image data converted to data. Since it is specified that predetermined header information is added to e-mail on the Internet as e-mail management information, the "From: (user's Internet e-mail address) ) ”,“ To: (Internet e-mail address of the other party) ”,“ Subject: (title) ”, etc.

The reading section 2 reads a document by a CCD or the like and outputs image data of a black and white binary document. The recording unit 3 includes an electrophotographic printer or the like, and records image data of a document received from another G3 facsimile apparatus or the Internet. The display unit 4 includes a liquid crystal display device or the like, and displays an operation state of the facsimile apparatus and image data of a document.

The operation unit 5 includes various types of applied communication necessary for operating the facsimile machine, such as ten keys, speed dial keys, one-touch dial keys, time designation transmission, confidential transmission, polling, broadcast transmission, and relay broadcast transmission. , A function key such as a dial option input key for inputting “−”, “/ (pause)”, and “! (Second dial tone)”.

In this embodiment, the mail address start symbol is defined as "+", and the dial option input key is also used as the input key for the mail address start symbol. After the mail address start symbol "+" is input, "@", "." Switch to input of symbols such as "".

The ROM 6 stores software necessary for the operation of the facsimile machine. The RAM 7 is composed of an SRAM, a flash memory, or the like, and stores temporary data generated when executing software. Image memory 8 is DRAM
And the like, and stores the image data of the document.

The modem 9 has a function for facsimile communication of image data of the document read by the reading unit 2 and a data communication function for communicating image data of the document converted into e-mail via the Internet, for example. Is a modem. The modem 9 is used to connect and disconnect analog lines.
Connected to U11.

Next, the procedure of the mail address start symbol input processing according to the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
Description will be made based on the screen display example of (a). Monitor whether the dial option input key is pressed (step S2-
1) If the dial option input key is pressed,
It is determined whether the cursor position is at the mail address input position, that is, between immediately after the mail address start symbol and the broadcast symbol "," or at a blank position after the mail address start symbol (step S2-2). ).

If the cursor position is not at the mail address input position, the last dial option symbol assigned to the dial option input key (in this example, the mail address start symbol "+") is displayed until the cursor is displayed (FIG. 4A). )
Each time the user presses the dial option input key, the dial option symbol ("-""/""!") Assigned to the dial option input key as shown in FIG.
"+") Are sequentially displayed (steps S2-3, S2-4).

When the last dial option symbol "+" assigned to the dial option input key is displayed and the user decides to input this symbol (step S2-3)
YES), display mail address start symbol (step
S2-5). At this time, if multiple destinations are set as in the case of broadcast transmission and another destination is already set,
A broadcast symbol "," is automatically added before the mail address start symbol (see FIG. 4 (a)).

In this case, when the dial option symbols assigned to the dial option input keys are sequentially displayed, when the dial option input key is pressed when ", +" to which the broadcast symbol is added is displayed. If the destination set immediately before is a direct dial number entered using the numeric keypad, as shown at the bottom of FIG. 4 (a), the broadcast symbol is deleted and the first dial option symbol "-" is deleted.
Is displayed. The reason is "-" for dialed numbers.
Because an additional number may be entered directly after the.

On the other hand, the destination set immediately before is a destination using one-touch dial keys (A, B,...), A destination using speed dial keys ($ 1, $ 2,...), Or a group number (G01, In the case of G02, ...), the leading dial option symbol "-" is displayed with the broadcast symbol left. The reason is that there is no possibility of additional input at these destinations.

If the cursor position is at the mail address input position when the dial option input key is pressed (YES in step S2-2), a frequently used symbol ("."") In the mail address is used. ＠ ”“ − ”“ )) Are sequentially displayed (step S2-6). When the user decides to input when the desired symbol is displayed, the symbol is input to the mail address.

Next, the procedure of the mail address erasing process according to the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3 and a screen display example of FIG. 4B. It is monitored whether or not the clear key has been pressed (step S3-1). If the clear key has been pressed, the character selected as the character to be deleted (the character indicated by the cursor) is the mail address start symbol. Is determined (step S3-2). If the character to be erased is a mail address start symbol as shown in FIG. 4B, all characters of the mail address starting with the mail address start symbol are deleted (step S3-3). On the other hand, if the character to be erased is not the mail address start symbol, a character erasing process for only the selected character is executed.

In this example, the case where the mail address start symbol is input only at the head of the mail address in order to distinguish the mail address from the telephone number has been described.
It is possible to distinguish a mail address by inputting a symbol only at the head of the telephone number, or to distinguish a mail address by inputting a distinguishing symbol at the head of the mail address and the telephone number.

[0036]

According to the communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the first invention, when at least one of a telephone number and a mail address is set as a communication destination, a code indicating either the telephone number or the mail address is transmitted to the data terminal. Since a predetermined key in a key group provided in advance for input is switched for inputting a code, it is necessary to input a code which must be input with few key operations without increasing the number of keys. An excellent effect is achieved.

In the communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to the second aspect of the invention, when the input of the above-mentioned code is instructed to be deleted, the code is input together with the set telephone number and / or the set telephone number. Alternatively, since the mail address is deleted, there is an excellent effect that setting data having a large number of characters, such as a mail address, can be easily deleted without deleting each character.

The communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the third invention detects whether or not a code is input, thereby determining whether or not a mail address is set. Since a predetermined key in a key group provided in advance for data input, for example, a key switched for code input described above is switched for input of a code included in a mail address, the number of keys is increased. "@", "."" This provides an excellent effect that a symbol such as "" can be input with few key operations.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus with an electronic mail function according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a mail address start symbol input process according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a mail address erasing process according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a screen display example according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Main control part 2 Reading part 3 Recording part 4 Display part 5 Operation part 6 ROM 7 RAM 8 Image memory 9 Modem 11 NCU

Claims (3)

[Claims] An electronic mail communication is possible, and when at least one of a telephone number and a mail address is set as a communication destination, a communication for inputting a code indicating either the telephone number or the mail address. A communication terminal device with an e-mail function, comprising: a terminal device; a key group for data input; and means for switching a predetermined key in the key group for inputting the code. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for, when an instruction to delete the input code is issued, deleting the code and a telephone number and / or mail address set by inputting the code. Communication terminal device with e-mail function. 3. A means for judging whether or not an e-mail address is set by detecting the presence or absence of the code input, and
3. The communication terminal device with an electronic mail function according to claim 1, further comprising: means for switching a predetermined key in the key group for inputting a code included in a mail address.