JP2000181905A - Preparation device for electronic document file and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic document file preparation device capable of easily reflecting additional information not normally printed inside an original electronic document file on an object electronic document file at the time of preparing the object electronic document file through a printer driver for the original electronic document file prepared by an application program and to provide a recording medium for making a computer realize the electronic document file preparation device. SOLUTION: Relating to a printing means 22, the additional information not normally printed inside the original electronic document file 31 is converted to additional information preparation information, included in a file together with printing information and sent out to an electronic document driver 24 for conversion. The additional information is restored based on the additional information preparation information in a conversion means 25 and the object electronic document file 33 including the additional information is prepared. This recording medium records the program.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an electronic document file creation device and a recording medium, and more particularly to an API (Application Program) for printer output of an operating system.
The present invention relates to an electronic document file creation device and a recording medium for creating an electronic document file by using a printer driver and a printer driver.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an application program such as a word processor is a PDF (Portable Document File).
One way to create an electronic document file such as
There is a method of selecting a printer driver (sometimes referred to as an electronic document driver) that outputs an electronic document file in a target format and executing a printing procedure for the printer.

According to this method, an application program creates an original electronic document file, and then executes a printer output API (Applicable API) of an operating system.
An electronic document file in a desired format can be created by simply executing the same procedure as printing on a printer using the application program interface). In other words, an electronic document file in a format that is difficult to create independently can be easily created from an application program if only a printer driver that outputs an electronic document file in a target format is available. Further, if the same printer driver is used, an electronic document file of the same format can be created even by another application program, which is useful for sharing the electronic document file.

[0004]

However, the conventional technology for converting electronic document files has the following problems.

A first problem is that even if additional information such as a bookmark, a memo, a link, a document structure, an electronic signature, etc. can be defined on an original electronic document file created by the application program, the application program cannot execute the printer. These additional information cannot be output to a target electronic document file created using an API and a printer driver.

The reason is that, in a printing procedure in a normal application program, only the text is output as a print image. Further, the printer AP
This is because I has no means for printing additional information as additional information.

[0007] The second problem is that, after an electronic document file in a target format is created using a printer driver, additional information is manually input using a dedicated editor, thereby creating the target electronic document file. Although additional information can be added to a document file, the task of inputting this additional information into a target electronic document file is complicated. Further, when an electronic document file is re-created by making a change to the original document, all the additional information must be re-input, which is an extremely difficult operation.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an electronic document file creating apparatus for creating a target electronic document file via a printer driver by using an original electronic document file created by an application program is provided. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic document file creating apparatus capable of easily reflecting additional information which is not normally printed in the electronic document file of the present invention on the target electronic document file.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a computer-readable recording medium on which a program for causing a computer to implement the electronic document file creating apparatus is recorded.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, an electronic document file creator according to claim 1 outputs an original electronic document file created using application software to an electronic document file in a target format. In an electronic document file creation device for creating a target electronic document file by converting the file into a file in the target format via a conversion electronic document driver, the original electronic device includes print information to be printed and additional information not to be printed. The additional information in the document file is converted into additional information creation information that can be later restored to additional information in the same format as the print information, and is sent to the conversion electronic document driver via a printer application program interface (printer API). A printing means for sending, and a digital document driver for the conversion. Conversion means for restoring the additional information creation information in the intermediate electronic document file output by the conversion electronic document driver or converted by another conversion electronic document driver and outputting a target electronic document file including the additional information. There is a configuration.

According to the invention having such a configuration, the printing means converts the normally unprinted additional information in the original electronic document file into additional information creation information, and includes it in the file together with the print information. And the conversion means restores the additional information based on the additional information creation information and creates the target electronic document file including the additional information. Therefore, the additional information created by the application software is stored in the target electronic document file. It can be easily reflected.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic document file creating apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein the printing unit does not affect the print information. The additional information is configured to be converted into the additional information creation information.

According to the invention having such a configuration, for example, by setting the apparent print width to 0, the additional information can be converted into the additional information creation information without affecting the print information. Printing is not affected.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic document creating apparatus according to the first or second aspect, wherein the printing unit adds a character string not used in printing. The additional information creation information is transmitted.

According to the invention having such a configuration, the additional information creation information does not affect printing.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium according to the fourth aspect, wherein an original electronic document file created using application software is converted via an electronic document driver for conversion which outputs an electronic document file in a target format. A computer-readable recording medium that records an electronic document file creation method for creating a target electronic document file by converting the file into a file of the target format, wherein the source includes print information to be printed and additional information not to be printed. The additional information in the electronic document file is converted into additional information creation information that can be later restored to the additional information in the same format as the print information, and the converted information is sent to the conversion electronic document driver via a printer application program interface (printer API). Sending a printing step, Converting the additional information creation information in the intermediate electronic document file output by the document driver or converted by still another conversion electronic document driver to output a target electronic document file including the additional information. It has a configuration in which a program for causing a computer to implement the electronic document file creation method is recorded.

According to the invention having such a configuration, by installing the program recorded on the recording medium into the computer, it is possible to realize the electronic document file creating apparatus according to the first aspect.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium according to the fourth aspect, wherein the additional information is added to the additional information so that the printing step does not affect the print information. It is configured to convert to creation information.

According to the invention having such a configuration, by installing the program recorded on the recording medium in the computer, it is possible to realize the electronic document file creating apparatus according to the second aspect.

In order to achieve the above object, the recording medium according to claim 6 is the recording medium according to claim 4 or 5,
In the printing step, a character string not used in printing is added and the additional information creation information is transmitted.

According to the invention having such a configuration, the electronic document file creating apparatus according to the third aspect can be realized by installing the program recorded on the recording medium into the computer.

[0022]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of an electronic document file creating apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a first embodiment of an electronic document file creation device of the present invention. The electronic document file creation device 1 includes a data processing device 2 that operates under program control, a storage device 3 that stores information,
An input device 4 such as a keyboard and an output device 5 such as a display device and a printing device are provided.

The data processing device 2 includes editing / display means 21
, A printing unit 22, a printer API 23, a conversion electronic document driver (conversion printer drive) 24, a conversion unit 25, and an editing / display unit 26.

The editing / display means 21 is an application program such as a word processor for creating a document. Editing / display means 21 input via input device 4
The original electronic document file 31 edited by is stored in the storage device 3. In the original electronic document file 31, additional information such as a bookmark, a memo, a link, and document structure information are stored in a file format unique to the application program, together with a text as print information.

The printing means 22 is a feature of the present invention, and prints the text and additional information in the original electronic document file 31.
The text is printed in accordance with the layout specification in the original electronic document file 31 as before. The additional information is printer A
Since printing cannot be performed directly via the PI 23, information (additional information creation information) sufficient to restore the additional information later is printed in the same format as the text. At this time, the layout is performed so as not to affect the layout of the text, that is, the apparent print width becomes zero.

The printer API is software for calling a printer function provided by an operating system from application software.

The electronic document driver 24 is a conversion printer driver that creates a target electronic document file in a target format. For example, if the target electronic document file is PD
In the case of F, Acrobat Writer (manufactured by Adobe Systems Inc.) corresponds to this. The output of the electronic document driver 24 is stored in the storage device 3 as an intermediate electronic document file 32.
At this point, an intermediate electronic document file 32 having a format common to the target electronic document file is created.
In the intermediate electronic document file 32, only the additional information creation information is stored in the same format as the text, but no additional information is stored.

The conversion means 25 restores the additional information creation information in the intermediate electronic document file 32 by input from the input device 4 or automatically, converts the information into additional information, and converts the information into the target electronic document file 33 including the additional information. Is created and stored in the storage means. At this point, the target electronic document file 33 contains the original electronic document file 31 which is the original document file.
Is stored in accordance with the target format output by the electronic document driver 24.

With the electronic document file creator 1 having such a configuration, a target electronic device such as a PDF including additional information such as a bookmark, a memo, a link, and document structure information, which cannot be created only by the conventional printing means. Document files can be created.

Next, the operation of the electronic document file creating apparatus 1 will be described in detail with reference to a specific example. For example, a printed file “History of Tobacco” shown in FIG. 2A is an SGML (St.
In the language of andard Generalized Markup Language), it is described as shown in FIG.

An example in which a PDF file containing document structure information is created from the original electronic document file 31a as shown in FIG. 2B will be described. In the conventional printing procedure, as a process for the <title> tag portion, a specification relating to layout such as a font, a character size, a printing position, and a character string "History of cigarettes"
3 had been sent.

In the case of the electronic document file creator 1 of the present invention, the printing means 22 adds sufficient information (additional information creation information) for restoring the document structure information to the original document in addition to the text described above. The data is sent to the printer API 23 in the same format as the text so that the layout does not change. For example,
The contents when a PDF file including document structure information is created in accordance with the PDF specifications are transmitted as they are. An example of the contents of a PDF file created by the electronic document driver that has received such an input via the printer API 23 is shown in FIG.
An intermediate electronic document file 32a shown in FIG.

In the example shown in FIG. 2C, the printer API
The character string of the print image sent to 23 is output as a Tj operator (operator). The layout-related specification sent to the printer API 23 is output as another operator. The printing unit 22 adds “$ 000”, which is a character that is not used in normal printing, to the beginning of the character string sent as the additional information creation information so that it can be distinguished from the character string of the text. To the printer API 23. The underlined portions are descriptions added by the present invention for document structure information to be included in the PDF file, but they are not displayed on the viewer (editing / display means 25) of the PDF file, and
Does not affect text layout.

Finally, the conversion means 25 converts the PDF file containing the additional information creation information into a PDF file containing the document structure information.
File (target electronic document file 32). The contents of the converted PDF file are as shown in (electronic document file 33a) shown in FIG.

In the case of this example, the conversion is the operand (number of operations) of the Tj operator from which the character string “$ 000” has been deleted.
Is used as the contents of the converted PDF file.
That's it. At this time, the underlined portion remains as it is, but does not affect the text layout.

As described above, according to the electronic document file creating apparatus of the present invention, the printing means of the electronic document file slightly changed from the conventional one, and the additional information creating information in the intermediate electronic document file of the target format are added to the additional information. With the conversion means for restoring, using an electronic document driver that creates an electronic document file of the desired format,
A target electronic document file of a target format including additional information can be easily created.

The reason for this is that additional information that cannot be transmitted via the printer API is output together with the text as additional information creation information, or a part of the contents of the intermediate electronic document file in the target format that has already been created. Is easier than creating an electronic document file in a target format including additional information directly from an application program.

Further, it is possible to provide an easy-to-understand operation method for creating an electronic document file in a target format on an application program for creating a document.

The reason is that a series of processes for creating an electronic document file in a target format can be automated in the program, and a menu such as "output as PDF file" can be prepared in the application program. It is.

Next, a second embodiment of the electronic document file creation device of the present invention will be described. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an outline of the second embodiment.

In the stage of creating an electronic document file of a target format, even if the electronic document file of another format is passed through several times, the electronic document file creating apparatus of the present invention can be applied to the electronic document file of each format. It is valid. Here, a PostScript file is created from the original electronic document file 31b created by the application program, and then a target electronic document file P
A case where the additional information in the original electronic document file 31b is included in the PDF file 33b when converting to the DF file 33b will be described.

In this case, some of the additional information that has been determined in advance as PDF specifications, such as a bookmark, a memo, and a link, can be described using a pdfmark operator in a PostScript file created on the way. . After that, using a conversion electronic document driver corresponding to a Pdfmark operator such as AcrobatDistller,
Convert stScript file to PDF file, pdfm
A PDF file including additional information reflecting the content described by the ark operator can be created. However,
When creating a PostScript file via a printer driver, it is not possible to directly output a pdfmark operator unrelated to the print image.

However, according to the present invention, the print program 22a as the printing means includes the pdfmark together with the text.
By sending enough information (pdfmark creation information) to restore the operator to the PostScript printer driver 24a as the conversion electronic document driver via the printer API 23, the first pdfmark creation information including the pdfmark creation information in the same format as the text is provided. A PostScript file 32b as an intermediate electronic document file can be created.

Thereafter, PostScrip including pdfmark creation information
PostScri including pdfmark operator from t-file 32b
The PostScript file 32b as the second intermediate electronic document file is converted from the PostScript file 32b using the conversion program 25a as the first conversion means for restoring the pt file.
2c is created.

For example, if it is desired to include the title “History of Tobacco” in the first embodiment as a bookmark in the PDF file, the printer API 23 and the PostScript
After outputting the description as shown in FIG. 4A into the PostScript file 32b via the printer driver 24a, the PostScript including the pdfmark operator having the description as shown in FIG. Convert to file 32c.

Also in this case, similarly to the first embodiment,
To distinguish the character string from the body text, the character string output as pdfmark creation information is prefixed with “$ 000” which is a character that is not used for normal printing.
It has been sent to P123. Further, the conversion to pdfmark is a simple procedure of using the contents of the operand of the pdfmark operator from which the character string “$ 000” has been deleted as the contents of the PostScript file after conversion.

After that, the PostScript file 32c is
If the file is converted into a PDF file 32d as a third intermediate electronic document file using bat Distiller, the bookmark information described by the pdfmark operator is converted to the PDF file 32d.
This is included as additional information of the bookmark in d.

On the other hand, additional information not supported by pdfmark, such as the document structure information described in the first embodiment, is added from the print program 22a in the same procedure as in the first embodiment. The information is converted into information creation information and output to the PostScript file 32b. Hereafter, P
Until the DF file 32d is created, this additional information creation information is held while changing the file format.

Finally, using the conversion program 25b as the second conversion means, the PDF file 32d containing the additional information creation information is converted into a PDF file 33b, which is the target electronic document file containing the additional information. This PDF file 33b contains both additional information created using pdfmark and additional information created without using pdfmark.

[0050]

As described above, according to the electronic document file creator of the present invention, from the original electronic document file created by the application software, the additional information in the original electronic document file which is not normally printed can be obtained. It can be easily reflected in electronic document files.

Further, according to the recording medium of the present invention, by installing it on a computer, the computer can function as such an electronic document file creation device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a first embodiment of an electronic document file creation device according to the present invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B show conversion of an original electronic document file to a target electronic document file in the first embodiment of the electronic document file creation device of the present invention, wherein FIG. Description of the original electronic document file,
(C) shows the description when the original electronic file is converted into the electronic document file of the target format including the additional information creation information, and (d) shows the description of the target electronic document file including the additional information.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the electronic document file creation device of the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a description of an electronic document file in a second embodiment of the electronic document file creation device of the present invention.
(A) is a description when converted from an original electronic document file to a PostScript file containing pdfmark creation information,
(B) shows a description when converted into a PostScript file including a pdfmark operator by the conversion means.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Electronic document file creation apparatus 2 Data processing apparatus 21 Editing / display means 22 Printing means 23 Printer API 24 Electronic document driver 25 Conversion means 26 Editing / display means 3 Storage device 31 Original electronic document file 32 Intermediate electronic document file 33 Target electronic document File

Claims (6)

[Claims] An electronic document file created by using application software is converted into a file in the target format via a conversion electronic document driver for outputting an electronic document file in the target format. The additional information in the original electronic document file including the print information to be printed and the additional information not to be printed can be restored to the additional information later in the same format as the print information. A printing unit that converts the information into additional information creation information and sends the converted information to the electronic document driver for conversion via a printer application program interface (printer API); Intermediate power converted by the electronic document driver Creating apparatus of the electronic document file and having a conversion means for outputting a target electronic document file containing the additional information to restore the additional information creation information in the document file. 2. The electronic document file creation device according to claim 1, wherein the printing unit converts the additional information into the additional information creation information so as not to affect the print information. An electronic document file creation device. 3. The electronic document file creating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said printing means sends said additional information creating information to which a character string not used in printing is added. Creating device. 4. An original electronic document file created by using application software is converted into a file of the target format via a conversion electronic document driver for outputting an electronic document file of the target format. A computer-readable recording medium that records an electronic document file creation method for creating the electronic document file, wherein the additional information in the original electronic document file including print information to be printed and additional information not to be printed is stored as the print information. A printing step of converting the information into additional information creation information which can be later restored to additional information in the same format as described above, and sending it to the electronic document driver for conversion via a printer application program interface (printer API); Or other changes Converting the additional information creation information in the intermediate electronic document file converted by the electronic document driver for use to output a target electronic document file including the additional information. A computer-readable recording medium on which a program for realizing the program is recorded. 5. The computer-readable recording medium according to claim 4, wherein the printing step converts the additional information into the additional information creation information so as not to affect the print information. recoding media. 6. The computer-readable recording according to claim 4, wherein the printing step includes transmitting a character string not used in printing and the additional information creation information. Medium.