JP2000259513A - Method and device for transmitting and receiving electronic mail - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable transmission regardless of the capacity limit of a relay server by dividing an image in large size, making each image into electronic mail as an independent image partitioned for the unit of page and transmitting it and further to output the image of the received electronic mail even when there is electronic mail which can not be received in the transmission destination. SOLUTION: Transmission equipment for electronic mail is composed of an image storage means 11 for storing the transmission images of plural pages together with page information, a transmission data amount setting means 12 for setting a transmission data amount which is the upper limit value of transmission data, an image dividing means 13 for comparing the data amount of images stored in the image storage means 11 with the set transmission data amount, discriminating the necessity of division when the stored data amount exceeds the transmission data amount and dividing the stored image into image size as many as the number of transmissible images, an electronic mail preparing means 14 for respectively converting the respective divided images to electronic mail and an electronic mail transmitting means 15 for transmitting the prepared electronic mail of respective divided images.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for transmitting and receiving electronic mail for converting image information into electronic mail and transmitting and receiving the electronic mail, and a transmitting and receiving apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A store-and-forward type e-mail system is configured to transfer an e-mail to a target computer using a relay server. Such an e-mail system was initially created for the purpose of transmitting character information, but recently, due to the spread of computer technology and hardware technology, the method of transmitting information other than characters in e-mail has also become widespread. are doing. One of the widely used e-mail protocols is IETF (Intern
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer) compiled by et Engineering Task Force = Internet standardization organization
Protocol). This SMTP is a 7-bit AS
It is made on the assumption that a CII character string is transmitted. However, the demand for transmitting characters other than ASCII characters and non-character information has increased, so IETF has MIME (Multip
urpose Internet Mail Extensions) to allow non-text information to be sent as email.
In MIME, non-7-bit data is encoded by a method called Base64 and can be handled in the same manner as character information.

On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 8-242326, there is known a method in which a facsimile which has conventionally been communicated via a telephone line is communicated by using an electronic mail system by focusing on the low communication cost of the Internet. Have been. For example, in IETF, facsimile images are
A method has been proposed in which an image file of a TIFF-FX format, which is an extension for facsimile of F (Tag Image File Format), is attached to an electronic mail and transmitted. TIFF can manage images on a page-by-page basis, and thus can manage information on a plurality of pages. Furthermore, TIFF-
FX has been extended to handle coded images used in G3 / G4 facsimile.

FIG. 13 shows the structure of TIFF.
At the head of the IFF data, a TIFF header 1 is attached. This header 1 contains the IFD (Image File
Directory). TIF
In the image in F, the image data 2 itself and the IFD 3 are paired. When the TIFF includes images of a plurality of pages, the image data 2 and the IFDs 3 exist for the number of pages. Each IFD
Reference numeral 3 includes pointer information to the IFD of the next page, and the pages can be sequentially tracked from the first page. In TIFF, the image of each page is encoded. The encoding method is MH if the target image is binary,
If a coding method for a binary image such as MR is used and the target image is a natural image, a coding method for a natural image, for example, JPE
G etc. are used.

FIG. 14 shows an SM with a facsimile image attached.
It shows the structure of an e-mail used in the TP. The e-mail includes a header 6 and a mail body 7, and the mail body 7 is divided into one or more parts. The header 6 includes a destination e-mail address list, an e-mail address of the sender, a message ID for identifying the e-mail, a title of the e-mail, and route information added by a relay server on the way. Image data is entered in the mail body 7.

[0006] TIFF can include a plurality of pages in one file. The image of each page is encoded in page units. As a coding method, a conventional G3 / G4 facsimile method is used. For binary data of black and white, a method such as MH, MR, MMR, or JBIG is used. For a natural image having gradation information, a JPEG method is used. Further, since the structure of the main body when transmitting facsimile data is not specified, information other than the image can be included. In that case, the mail body 7 is divided into two parts, and an image is put in one part and another information is put in the other part. By using such an e-mail method, a facsimile image including a plurality of pages can be transmitted as one e-mail to a remote place at a low communication cost.

[0007]

When the content to be communicated is only text information, the size of the e-mail does not matter, but information other than text, for example, voice, images, programs, etc., is only a text string. Since the size of the non-character information becomes much larger than that of the information, when the non-character information is converted into an electronic mail and started to be communicated, the buffer capacity of the relay server cannot keep up. For this reason, the administrator of the relay server sends the e-mail 1 to prevent the buffer from overflowing and stopping the mail system.
Now limits the size per case.

[0008] However, even if such a measure is taken at any server on the e-mail communication path, there are many cases where there is no means for inquiring the users at both ends. However, even if the processing capacity of the relay server to which the user directly accesses is sufficient, it is impossible to send a large-sized e-mail because only one intermediate server is restricted. In particular, the TIFF data as a facsimile image is large in size because one TIFF includes a plurality of pages of images, and is likely to correspond to the capacity limitation of the server.

Therefore, IETF states that RFC2046:
“Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions Part Two: M
In “edia Types”, a message / partial type is provided, which divides an excessively large e-mail into a plurality of small data and transmits each of the divided data as an e-mail, thereby avoiding a server capacity limitation.

However, when this method is adopted, since the TIFF data including a plurality of images is cut at an arbitrary place, it is difficult to restore the original data if even one of the plurality of divided e-mails is missing. . In the TIFF, the storage position of each image cannot be known unless a pointer to each image is traced from the beginning of the data. Therefore, if data in the middle is lost, image information stored later from the missing position cannot be extracted. For example, if the e-mail is divided into three e-mails and the second e-mail does not arrive, the images contained in the missing e-mail are the parts of the first and third e-mails that have already arrived in the less important parts. Even if the content is sufficient if only the data is included, the position information of the subsequent images cannot be reconstructed without pointer information to the image contained in the second e-mail. The resulting image cannot be output. Therefore,
Until the second e-mail is resent, the first and third e-mails that have already been received must be stored, and this series of e-mails if hardware resources are limited. There was a problem that even if an e-mail different from the e-mail came, it could not be received.

Therefore, according to the first aspect of the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the electronic mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. In addition, since each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by a page unit, even if there is an e-mail which is not received at the transmission destination, the output of the received e-mail image is not performed. Provide a method of sending e-mail that is possible.

Further, the invention according to claim 2 further comprises attaching an identification information list together with identification information to the e-mail of each divided image, so that the e-mail which has not arrived at the destination when the received image is restored is transmitted. Provided is an e-mail transmission method that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the e-mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. In addition, since each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by a page unit, even if there is an e-mail which is not received at the transmission destination, the output of the received e-mail image is not performed. Provided is an electronic mail transmission device that can be used.

Further, according to the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the e-mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. In addition, since each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by a page unit, even if there is an e-mail which is not received at the transmission destination, the output of the received e-mail image is not performed. By attaching an identification information list together with identification information to the e-mail of each divided image, even if there are e-mails that have not arrived when restoring the received image at the transmission destination, Provided is an e-mail transmission device capable of surely confirming whether or not it has arrived.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an image of the original size and output, and an electronic mail of a divided image that cannot be received can be received. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image Provided is a method for receiving an e-mail that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived from identification information and an identification information list even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, when there is an e-mail which has not arrived at the time of restoring a received image, the e-mail is judged based on the identification information and the identification information list and notified to the sender. Provide a method of receiving e-mail.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an image of the original size and output, and an electronic mail of a divided image that cannot be received can be received. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image Provided is an e-mail receiving device that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived from identification information and an identification information list even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived.

According to the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received and restored to an image of the original size and output. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image Even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived, the identification information and the identification information list make it possible to reliably grasp which e-mail of the divided image has not arrived, and if there is an e-mail that has not arrived when restoring the received image Provided is an e-mail receiving device that can determine an unreceived e-mail based on identification information and an identification information list and notify a transmission source of the e-mail.

[0019]

According to the first aspect of the present invention,
When images of a plurality of pages are stored in a predetermined format together with page information, and the data amount of the stored images is compared with a predetermined upper limit of transmission data, that is, the transmission data amount, and the accumulated data amount exceeds the transmission data amount. There is an e-mail transmission method in which the data amount obtained by adding the data amount of each page is divided into images of a page number not exceeding the transmission data amount, and each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail and transmitted. .

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the electronic mail transmitting method according to the first aspect, identification information for identifying the electronic mail is attached to each electronic mail to be transmitted, and each of the identification information is added to page information. An identification information list arranged on the basis of this is created, and the created identification information list is also attached to each electronic mail to be transmitted.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image storage means for storing a plurality of pages of images together with page information in a predetermined format, a transmission data amount setting means for setting a transmission data amount which is an upper limit of transmission data, The data amount of the image stored by the image storage unit is compared with the transmission data amount set by the transmission data amount setting unit, and when it is determined that the storage data amount exceeds the transmission data amount, the data amount for each page is added. Image dividing means for dividing the divided data amount into images of a number of pages not exceeding the transmission data amount, e-mail creating means for converting each image divided by the image dividing means into e-mail, and e-mail creating means And an e-mail transmitting means for transmitting an e-mail of each of the divided images created in step (1).

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image storing means for storing a plurality of pages of images together with page information in a predetermined format, a transmission data amount setting means for setting a transmission data amount which is an upper limit of transmission data, The data amount of the image stored by the image storage unit is compared with the transmission data amount set by the transmission data amount setting unit, and when it is determined that the storage data amount exceeds the transmission data amount, the data amount for each page is added. Image dividing means for dividing the divided data amount into images of a number of pages not exceeding the transmission data amount, e-mail creating means for converting each image divided by the image dividing means into e-mail, and e-mail creating means Means for creating identification information for identifying the electronic mail of each of the divided images created in the above step, and attaching the identification information to each of the electronic mails; Identification information list creating means for creating an identification information list in which the identification information created in step 1 is arranged based on page information, and an identification information list for attaching the identification information list created by the identification information list creation means to each e-mail An e-mail transmission device includes an attachment unit and an e-mail transmission unit that transmits an e-mail of each divided image to which identification information and an identification information list are attached.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of each of the divided images transmitted by the electronic mail transmitting method of the second aspect is received, the divided images included in each of the electronic mails are extracted, and an identification information list is obtained. An electronic mail receiving method of extracting an extracted image, reconstructing each divided image into one image including a plurality of pages based on the extracted identification information list and identification information of each electronic mail, and outputting the reconstructed image. .

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the method for receiving an e-mail according to the fifth aspect, when no e-mail corresponding to the identification information described in the identification information list is received, the e-mail is not received. A non-delivery notification e-mail to be notified to the transmission source as an e-mail is created, and the created non-delivery notification e-mail is transmitted to the transmission source.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mail receiving means for receiving a plurality of divided image electronic mails, a divided image extracting means for extracting a divided image from each electronic mail received by the mail receiving means, and a mail receiving means. Identification information list extracting means for extracting an identification information list indicating the mutual relationship of the e-mails from the received e-mails, and dividing each of the divided e-mails based on the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting means and the identification information of each e-mail An e-mail receiving apparatus includes an image reconstructing unit that reconstructs an image into one image including a plurality of pages, and an image output unit that outputs an image reconstructed by the image reconstructing unit.

The invention according to claim 8 is a mail receiving means for receiving a plurality of divided image e-mails, a divided image extracting means for extracting a divided image from each e-mail received by the mail receiving means, and a mail receiving means. Identification information list extracting means for extracting an identification information list indicating the mutual relationship of the e-mails from the received e-mails, and dividing each of the divided e-mails based on the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting means and the identification information of each e-mail An image reconstructing means for reconstructing an image into one image composed of a plurality of pages, an image output means for outputting an image reconstructed by the image reconstructing means, and an identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting means. It is determined whether all of the e-mails corresponding to the described identification information have been received. An unreceived email list creating means for creating a list, and a non-delivery notification email notifying the sender of the unreceived email based on the unreceived email list created by the unreceived email list creating means. An e-mail receiving device includes a non-delivery notification e-mail creating unit and a non-delivery notification e-mail transmitting unit that transmits the non-delivery notification e-mail created by the non-delivery notification e-mail generating unit to a transmission source.

[0027]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. (First Embodiment) In this embodiment, a method and an apparatus for transmitting an electronic mail will be described.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the construction of a transmission apparatus. Reference numeral 11 denotes a plurality of transmission images which are inputted in units of pages using a program such as a scanner or a word processor and are encoded in units of pages together with page information. An image storage means for storing data in a format of, for example, TIFF, and a transmission data amount setting means 12 for setting a transmission data amount which is an upper limit value of data to be transmitted.

Reference numeral 13 compares the data amount of the image stored in the image storage unit 11 with the transmission data amount set by the transmission data amount setting unit 12, and determines that the division is necessary when the storage data amount exceeds the transmission data amount. Image dividing means 14 for dividing the stored image into image sizes of the number of pages that can be transmitted, that is, dividing the accumulated image into images of the number of pages where the data amount obtained by adding the data amount of each page does not exceed the transmission data amount; E-mail creating means for converting the images divided by the image dividing means 13 into e-mails, respectively, and e-mail transmitting means 15 for transmitting the e-mail of each divided image created by the e-mail creating means 14 .

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the processing and control performed by the transmitting apparatus of FIG. 1. In step S1, the image is stored in the TIFF format by the image storing means 11, and the process proceeds to step S2.
, The data amount of the stored image and the set transmission data amount DT
Is determined by comparing whether or not to perform division. If it is determined that division is necessary because the data amount of the stored image exceeds the transmission data amount DT, image division is performed in step S3. When it is determined that division is not necessary because the data amount of the image is equal to or smaller than the transmission data amount DT, an e-mail creation process is performed in step S4.

The image division in step S3 is performed based on the division algorithm shown in FIG. First, in step S11, the process moves to the first page, which is the first page of the stored image, and in step S12, the contents of the transmission image buffer used to cut out the transmission image from the stored image are reset. Then, in step S13, the data amount of the current page and the data amount in the transmission image buffer are added, and the added data amount is compared with a preset transmission data amount.

If the added data amount is equal to or smaller than the transmission data amount, in step S14, the current page is additionally stored in the transmission image buffer. Since the data in the transmission image buffer uses a TIFF file format capable of storing page information, a new page can be added to one image data. Subsequently, in step S15, it is checked whether or not the next page exists. If the next page exists, in step S16, the process proceeds to the next page, and the process returns to step S13. If the next page does not exist, the data in the transmission image buffer is newly stored as a transmission image in step S17, and the process ends.

If it is determined in step S13 that the data amount added exceeds the transmission data amount, the data in the transmission image buffer is stored as a transmission image in step S18, and the next page is stored in step S19. Is checked, and if the next page exists, the process returns to step S12 without resetting the current page and resets the contents of the transmission image buffer. If there is no next page, in step S20, the current page is stored as a new transmission image, and the process ends. When this division processing is completed, step S
The electronic mail creating process of No. 4 is performed.

In the e-mail creation process in step S4,
Each divided image is converted into an e-mail. Then, when the conversion to e-mail is completed, an e-mail transmission process of step S5 is performed. In this transmission process, the created e-mail is transmitted to the destination.

In such a configuration, when the image data amount of a plurality of pages stored for transmission by the image storage means 11 is smaller than the preset transmission data amount, the image size is small, so there is no need to divide the image data. It is converted into an e-mail as it is and sent to the other party. In this case, the message is transmitted without being caught by the capacity limitation of the relay server.

If the image data amount of a plurality of pages stored for transmission by the image storage means 11 exceeds a predetermined transmission data amount, it is determined that the image size is large and division is necessary. At this time, the transmission image buffer is used, the data amount in the buffer is added to the data amount of the current page, the transmission data amount is compared, and the transmission data is divided within a range where the data amount does not exceed the transmission data amount. Create an image. Then, each of the divided transmission images is converted into an electronic mail.

For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the stored image in the TIFF file format consisting of n pages is divided into two parts by the middle m pages which do not exceed the transmission data amount, and the transmission images from page 1 to page m are divided. The transmission image 2 from page 1 and page m + 1 to page n is created, and this is converted to an e-mail.

The electronic mail of the image thus divided is transmitted to the destination. Therefore, also in this case, the image size of each electronic mail is small, and the electronic mail is transmitted without being caught by the capacity limitation of the relay server. Thereby, the load on the relay server can be reduced.

FIG. 5 is a diagram conceptually showing a series of steps for dividing a stored image into electronic mail and transmitting the image according to the present embodiment.
5 is stored as a storage image, and then, for example, the transmitted image 1 of the encoded images 1 to 3 and the encoded images 4 and 5 are divided by image division.
The transmission image 2 is divided into e-mails and transmitted.

As described above, a large-sized transmission image composed of a plurality of pages is divided into images divided into pages each having the number of pages whose image capacity is equal to or smaller than the transmission data amount, and is transmitted as a plurality of electronic mails. Even if an unreceived e-mail occurs at the destination receiving the e-mail, it becomes possible to output an image of the received e-mail.

(Second Embodiment) This embodiment also describes an e-mail transmission method and a transmission device, and the transmission device will describe functions added to the transmission device of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a main block diagram for realizing the added function. Reference numeral 16 denotes identification information for identifying the electronic mail of each divided image created by the electronic mail creating means 14, and the corresponding electronic mail Is an identification information creating means for creating an identification information list in which the identification information created by the identification information creating means 16 is arranged based on page information, and 18 is an identification information list creating means. An identification information list attaching unit 17 attaches the identification information list created by the electronic mail creating unit 14 to the electronic mail of each divided image created by the electronic mail creating unit 14. And
The electronic mail transmitting unit 15 of FIG. 1 transmits the electronic mail of each divided image to which the identification information list is attached by the identification information list attaching unit 18.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the processing performed by the blocks shown in FIG. 6. First, in step S21, the electronic mail creating means 14 creates electronic mail for each divided image. In step S22, the identification is performed. The information creating means 16 creates the identification information and attaches it to the corresponding e-mail. Based on the created identification information, the identification information list creating means 17 creates the identification information list IDL. The information list attaching means 18 attaches the identification information list to the electronic mail of each divided image.

In such a configuration, the electronic mail of each divided image is transmitted to the transmission destination with an identification information list in which unique identification information and identification information of each electronic mail are arranged based on page information. You. FIG. 8 shows the structure of an e-mail attached with identification information when applied to the e-mail structure used in the SMTP. The e-mail 1 shown in (a) of FIG. 8 and the e-mail shown in (b) of FIG. 2 is originally 1
This is an e-mail attached with the transmission image 1 and the transmission image 2 which were two images.

A unique number for identifying the electronic mail 1 is attached to the electronic mail header portion of the electronic mail 1 as an electronic mail identification number 1. Also, a unique number that can identify the electronic mail 2 is attached to the electronic mail header portion of the electronic mail 2 as the electronic mail identification number 2.
Further, the divided transmission image and the identification information list are attached to the mail body of each e-mail. For example, the original image is composed of encoded images 1 to 5, which are encoded images 1 to 3.
When the transmission image 1 is divided into the encoded images 4 and 5, the transmission image 1 includes the encoded images 1 to 3, and the transmission image 2 includes the encoded images 4 and 5. The same identification information list is attached to each e-mail.

As described above, since the identification information list is attached to the e-mail of each divided image together with the identification information, even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived at the destination when the received image is restored, any of the divided images It is possible to know whether an e-mail has arrived.

(Third Embodiment) This embodiment is similar to the third embodiment.
An e-mail receiving method and a receiving apparatus will be described. FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a receiving apparatus. 21 is a mail receiving means for receiving an e-mail and adding identification information attached to the e-mail to a received mail list, and 22 is a mail received by the mail receiving means 21. The divided image extracting means for extracting an image divided from the electronic mail, and an identification information list extracting means for extracting an identification information list indicating a mutual relationship between the electronic mails from the electronic mail received by the mail receiving means 21.

24 is a received mail confirming means for confirming whether or not the identification information list of the received electronic mail is new;
An image 25 reconstructs the divided image extracted by the divided image extracting unit 22 into one image composed of a plurality of pages based on the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting unit 23 and the identification information of the received e-mail. Reconstructing means 26 is an image decoding means for decoding the image reconstructed by the image reconstructing means 25 in page units, and 27 is an image output means for outputting the image decoded by the image decoding means 26.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing the processing and control performed by the receiving apparatus of FIG. 9. First, in step S31, the mail receiving means 21 receives an electronic mail of a divided image, starts a reception timer, and starts reception. Mail list R
Add identification information to L. Subsequently, in step S32,
It is checked whether or not the identification information list is included in the e-mail received by the identification information list extracting means 23. If the identification information list is included, the process proceeds to step S33.
, An identification information list IDL is extracted.

Subsequently, in step S34, it is checked whether or not the identification information list extracted by the received mail confirmation means 24 is an existing identification information list. If the identification information list is a new identification information list, the reception timer is initialized. The process returns to step S31. If it is an existing identification information list, it is checked in step S35 whether or not the reception timer has expired beyond a preset time, and if it has timed out, the flow advances to step S36. Error processing, and terminates with an error. If the timeout has not occurred, step S37
The received mail list is compared with the identification information list, and when it is determined that there is an unreceived e-mail, the process returns to step S31.

If it is determined that all the electronic mails have been received, the divided image is extracted from the received electronic mail by the divided image extracting means 22 in step S38, and the image reconstructing means 25 is extracted in step S39. Based on the identification information list and the identification information of the received e-mail, the divided image is reconstructed into one image composed of a plurality of pages. In step S40, the reconstructed image is decoded in units of pages. , And outputs the decoded image.

In such a configuration, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an image of the original size, and output. Also, even if there is an e-mail of the divided image that could not be received, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image divided into pages, so the e-mail of the received divided image is restored and output it can. Moreover, even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived when restoring the received image, it is possible to reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived from the identification information and the identification information list.

(Fourth Embodiment) This embodiment also describes an e-mail receiving method and an e-mail receiving apparatus, and the transmitting apparatus describes functions additionally provided to the transmitting apparatus of the third embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of a main part for realizing the added function. Reference numeral 28 denotes an electronic mail corresponding to the identification information described in the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting means 23 in FIG. A non-received email list creating means for determining whether or not all have been received, and creating an unreceived email list if there are unreceived emails;
Reference numeral 29 denotes a non-delivery notification e-mail creating unit that creates a non-delivery notification e-mail that informs the sender of the unreceived e-mail based on the unreceived e-mail list created by the unreceived e-mail list creating unit 28; Is a non-delivery notification e-mail transmission means for transmitting the non-delivery notification e-mail created by the non-delivery notification e-mail preparation means 29 to the transmission source.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing the processing performed by the block shown in FIG. 11. First, in step S51, the unreceived e-mail list creating means 28 compares the identification information list with the received mail list, and compares the received e-mail list with the received e-mail list. Check if there is any mail, and if not, list the unreceived emails N
Create an RL. Subsequently, in step S52, the non-delivery notification email creating means 29 creates a non-delivery notification email for notifying the sender of the unreceived email. Finally, in step S53, the non-delivery notification e-mail transmitting means 30 transmits the non-delivery notification e-mail created to the transmission source.

In such a configuration, it is determined whether there is any e-mail that has not arrived when restoring the received image by comparing the identification information list with the received e-mail list storing the identification information of the received e-mail. Then, if there is any e-mail that has not arrived, it can be notified to the sender as a non-delivery notification e-mail. Therefore, the transmission source can immediately cope with retransmission of the unreceived e-mail by receiving the non-delivery notification e-mail.

[0057]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the e-mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. Since the images can be reduced, and each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by pages, even if there are e-mails that are not received at the destination, the e-mail images received It is possible to provide an e-mail transmission method that enables output.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, by attaching an identification information list together with identification information to the e-mail of each divided image, e-mails that have not arrived at the destination when the received image is restored can be transmitted. It is possible to provide an e-mail transmission method that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the e-mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. In addition, since each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by a page unit, even if there is an e-mail which is not received at the transmission destination, the output of the received e-mail image is not performed. It is possible to provide an e-mail transmitting device that can be used.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, by dividing and transmitting a large-sized e-mail composed of a plurality of pages of images, the e-mail can be transmitted irrespective of the capacity limitation of the relay server and the load on the relay server can be reduced. In addition, since each of the divided images is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by a page unit, even if there is an e-mail which is not received at the transmission destination, the output of the received e-mail image is not performed. By attaching an identification information list together with identification information to the e-mail of each divided image, even if there are e-mails that have not arrived when restoring the received image at the transmission destination, It is possible to provide an e-mail transmitting device that can reliably determine whether or not the e-mail has arrived.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an image of the original size and output, and an electronic mail of a divided image that cannot be received can be received. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image It is possible to provide a method of receiving an e-mail that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived from the identification information and the identification information list even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, if there is an e-mail that has not arrived when restoring a received image, the e-mail is judged based on the identification information and the identification information list and notified to the sender. Can provide a method of receiving e-mail.

According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an original size image and output, and an electronic mail of a divided image that cannot be received can be received. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image It is possible to provide an e-mail receiving apparatus that can reliably grasp which divided image e-mail has not arrived from the identification information and the identification information list even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived.

According to the eighth aspect of the present invention, an electronic mail of a plurality of divided images from a transmission source can be received, restored to an original size image and output, and an electronic mail of a divided image that cannot be received can be received. Even if there is an e-mail, the e-mail is converted into an e-mail as an independent image separated by page unit, so the e-mail image of the received divided image can be restored and output, and when restoring the received image Even if there is an e-mail that has not arrived, the identification information and the identification information list make it possible to reliably grasp which e-mail of the divided image has not arrived, and if there is an e-mail that has not arrived when restoring the received image It is possible to provide an e-mail receiving device that can determine a non-received e-mail based on the identification information and the identification information list and notify the transmission source.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic mail transmitting device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing processing and control in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the image division processing in FIG. 2 in detail.

FIG. 4 is a view showing an example for explaining image division in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a view conceptually showing a series of flows for dividing an accumulated image into electronic mail and transmitting the divided image in the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an essential block diagram of an electronic mail transmitting apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing processing of a main part block in the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a view showing a configuration example of an e-mail to which a divided image is attached in the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an electronic mail receiving device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing processing and control in the embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of a main part of an electronic mail receiving device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing processing of a main part block in the embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a view showing an image file in a conventional TIFF data format.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an electronic mail to which a conventional facsimile image is attached.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Image storage means 12 ... Transmission data amount setting means 13 ... Image division means 14 ... E-mail creation means 15 ... E-mail transmission means

Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5B089 GA26 JA05 JA31 JB03 KA06 KA12 KB00 KC15 KC28 KC53 LA02 LA07 LA18 5C062 AA01 AB38 AB42 AC21 AC24 AC28 AC29 AC35 AC38 AC43 AF00 AF07 BA00 5C073 AB11 BB04 CD05 CD07 5K030 HA06 B06 LE06 LE12 LE14 MA13 MB15 9A001 EE04 HH27 HH28 JJ14

Claims (8)

[Claims] An image of a plurality of pages is stored together with page information in a predetermined format, and the data amount of the stored image is compared with a predetermined upper limit of transmission data to determine a transmission data amount. If the data volume is exceeded,
A method of transmitting an e-mail, comprising: dividing an image into an image having a number of pages that does not exceed a transmission data amount by adding a data amount for each page; converting each of the divided images into an e-mail; . 2. An identification information for identifying an electronic mail is attached to each electronic mail to be transmitted, and an identification information list in which the identification information is arranged based on page information is created. 2. The method of transmitting an electronic mail according to claim 1, wherein the electronic mail is attached to each electronic mail to be transmitted. 3. An image storage means for storing images of a plurality of pages together with page information in a predetermined format; a transmission data amount setting means for setting a transmission data amount which is an upper limit value of transmission data; The data amount of the stored image is compared with the transmission data amount set by the transmission data amount setting means, and when it is determined that the storage data amount exceeds the transmission data amount, the data amount obtained by adding the data amount for each page is reduced. Image dividing means for dividing the image into images of the number of pages not exceeding the transmission data amount, e-mail creating means for converting each image divided by the image dividing means into e-mail, and e-mail creating means An e-mail transmission device comprising: an e-mail transmission unit that transmits an e-mail of each divided image. 4. An image storage means for storing images of a plurality of pages in a predetermined format together with page information; a transmission data amount setting means for setting a transmission data amount which is an upper limit of transmission data; The data amount of the stored image is compared with the transmission data amount set by the transmission data amount setting means, and when it is determined that the storage data amount exceeds the transmission data amount, the data amount obtained by adding the data amount for each page is reduced. Image dividing means for dividing the image into images of the number of pages not exceeding the transmission data amount, e-mail creating means for converting each image divided by the image dividing means into e-mail, and e-mail creating means Identification information creating means for creating identification information for identifying the electronic mail of each divided image and attaching it to the corresponding electronic mail, and the identification information created by the identification information creating means Identification information list creating means for creating an identification information list in which each identification information is arranged based on page information, identification information list attaching means for attaching the identification information list created by the identification information list creation means to each email, An e-mail transmission unit for transmitting an e-mail of each divided image to which identification information and an identification information list are attached. 5. An electronic mail of each divided image transmitted by the electronic mail transmitting method according to claim 2, receiving the divided image included in each electronic mail, extracting an identification information list, and extracting the extracted electronic image. A method for receiving an e-mail, comprising reconstructing each divided image into one image composed of a plurality of pages based on the identification information list and the identification information of each e-mail, and outputting the reconstructed image. 6. A non-delivery notice e-mail that informs a sender of an e-mail as an unreceived e-mail when an e-mail corresponding to the identification information described in the identification information list is not received, and generates the e-mail. 6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the non-delivery notification e-mail is transmitted to a transmission source. 7. E-mail receiving means for receiving a plurality of divided image e-mails, divided image extracting means for extracting a divided image from each e-mail received by the e-mail receiving means, and e-mail received by the e-mail receiving means An identification information list extracting means for extracting an identification information list indicating the mutual relationship between the e-mails from each other; and extracting the divided images from a plurality of pages based on the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extraction means and the identification information of each e-mail. An e-mail receiving apparatus comprising: an image reconstructing unit for reconstructing a single image; and an image output unit for outputting an image reconstructed by the image reconstructing unit. 8. A mail receiving means for receiving a plurality of divided image e-mails, a divided image extracting means for extracting a divided image from each of the e-mails received by the mail receiving means, and an e-mail received by the mail receiving means An identification information list extracting means for extracting an identification information list indicating the mutual relationship between the e-mails from each other; and extracting the divided images from a plurality of pages based on the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extraction means and the identification information of each e-mail. Image reconstructing means for reconstructing the image into a single image, image output means for outputting an image reconstructed by the image reconstructing means, and identification information described in the identification information list extracted by the identification information list extracting means. Determines whether all of the emails corresponding to the information have been received, and creates a list of unreceived emails if there are any emails that have not been received Means for creating a non-received e-mail list, and a non-delivery notice for creating a non-delivery notification e-mail for notifying the sender of the unreceived e-mail based on the non-received e-mail list prepared by the non-received e-mail list preparing means An e-mail receiving apparatus comprising: an e-mail creating means; and a non-delivery notice e-mail transmitting means for transmitting a non-delivery notice e-mail created by the non-delivery notice e-mail creating means to a transmission source.