JP2001175572A - Portable electronic mail terminal and electronic mail document preparing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a portable electronic mail terminal, with which a document can be easily prepared, and an efficient document preparing method therefor. SOLUTION: In addition to an operation panel having plural keys, the portable electronic mail terminal is provided with an image sensor, an image processing part for generating image data by processing the output of the image sensor and a character recognizing part for generating character data by recognizing the image expressed by the image data as a character and both a character entry based on key operation and a character entry based on the read of the image expressing the character are used.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] The present invention relates to a portable electronic mail terminal. Further, the present invention relates to a method of inputting the characters.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A portable telephone is positioned as a portable information terminal device, and its functions are diversifying with the development of electronics. Some mobile e-mail telephones have a function of sending and receiving e-mail.

FIG. 6 shows the appearance of a typical conventional portable electronic mail telephone. The portable e-mail telephone 5 includes an operation panel 51 composed of dozens of keys, a display panel 52 composed of a liquid crystal display, and an antenna 5 for transmitting and receiving radio waves.
3 is provided. The operation panel 51 is used for inputting a telephone number, and therefore includes at least ten numeric keys corresponding to “0” to “9”. The display panel 52 displays items necessary for the telephone function such as a telephone number, and also displays a document transmitted or received by the e-mail function.

[0004] In order to display a wide range of easy-to-read characters and documents, the larger the display panel 52 is, the better. Therefore, there is a high demand for a larger screen of the display panel 52. On the other hand, in order to ensure the portability of the portable e-mail telephone 5, it is necessary to make the whole electronic device compact. Therefore, the operation panel 51 cannot be provided with too many keys. Therefore, a numeric keypad indispensable for inputting a telephone number is also used for character input, and a document to be transmitted by e-mail is created by operating the numeric keypad.

[0005] A user creates a document as follows.
(1) First, a predetermined function key on the operation panel 51 is operated to select a character type (type of hiragana, katakana, alphabet, kanji, numeral, etc.). (2) Next, a desired character is input by operating an appropriate numeric keypad.

The Japanese syllabary is grouped in units of lines such as "a line" and "ka line", and the alphabet is "AB".
Some groups such as "C" and "DEF" are grouped, and each group is associated with a numeric keypad. Further, the characters included in each group and the number of key operations are associated with each other.
Therefore, a desired character can be input by one or more key operations. In the case of inputting a kanji, the user inputs "reading" in hiragana or katakana and operates a predetermined function key to perform a conversion operation to a kanji called "kana kanji conversion" to select a desired kanji.

[0007] While performing the operation of (1) as necessary,
A document is created by repeating the operation of (2). A series of characters constituting the document are stored in a built-in memory as character data (code) and displayed on the display panel 52. The user can send the document stored in the memory as an e-mail at any time.

[0008]

However, in a conventional portable electronic mail telephone, the number of key operations required for character input is large, so that the input operation is complicated and the efficiency of document creation is low. In particular, if the character type changes many times in the document, or if some of the kanji included in the document have the same “reading” as many other kanji, the function key This increases the complexity and low efficiency of the input operation. These problems are caused by a mobile information terminal dedicated to e-mail,
The same applies to a portable information terminal called DA.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and a portable electronic mail terminal that can easily create a document.
And to provide an efficient document creation method.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided an image reading means for reading an image and generating image data representing the read image, and image data generated by the image reading means. Character recognition means for recognizing an image to be represented as a character and generating character data representing the recognized character, storage means for storing the character data generated by the character recognition means, and electronically storing the character data stored in the storage means. The transmitting means for transmitting as a mail constitutes a mobile electronic mail terminal.

The portable electronic mail terminal can directly read characters represented as images and use them as characters constituting a document to be transmitted by electronic mail. The character recognition means can be capable of recognizing any of hiragana, katakana, alphabets, numbers, and kanji, whereby the input operation is always constant without depending on the type of character, For example, even when inputting kanji, there is no need to perform kana-kanji conversion.

The portable electronic mail terminal has character input means having a plurality of keys operated by a user, generating character data in accordance with the operated keys, and storing the generated character data in a storage means. In addition, it is possible to switch between the generation of character data by the image reading unit and the character recognition unit and the generation of character data by the character input unit in accordance with a user's instruction. The user can select a method of inputting characters, thereby improving usability. In addition, a document for transmission can be created even when an appropriate image representing characters is not at hand.

Preferably, the character recognition means divides the image data generated by the image reading means into a plurality of parts, and recognizes an image represented by each part as a character to generate a plurality of character data. It becomes possible to input a plurality of characters represented in the image by a single reading operation.

Here, the character recognizing means finds a part representing a blank in the image data generated by the image reading means, and divides the image data into a plurality of parts with the part representing the blank as a boundary. . In this way, even if the size of the character represented by the image changes, the character can be recognized with certainty, and various images representing characters having different sizes can be used as a document.

The character recognition means may generate character data representing a plurality of rows of characters, and the storage means may store all the character data generated by the character recognition means. A series of characters over a plurality of columns can be input in a single reading operation.

The character recognition means generates character data representing a plurality of columns of characters, and the storage means stores only character data representing a predetermined one-line character among the character data generated by the character recognition means. It may be. Of the series of characters spanning multiple columns, only the required one line of characters can be used as input.

Display means for displaying a character represented by the character data stored in the storage means and a cursor whose position changes in accordance with a user's instruction, wherein the storage means stores the character data generated by the character recognition means. May be inserted at a position corresponding to the cursor in the already stored character data. Characters can be inserted in the middle of an already created document, making it easy to modify the document.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention also provides a method for creating an electronic mail document, wherein a character input by a key operation and a character input by reading an image representing the character are used in combination. The input of characters by reading an image can be realized by the above-described image reading means and character recognizing means or means equivalent thereto.

Here, it is preferable that the characters constituting the document include Chinese characters. Since it is possible to input characters by reading an image, it is possible to input Chinese characters very easily by using this.

[0020]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A portable electronic mail telephone (hereinafter simply referred to as a telephone) as an embodiment of the portable electronic mail terminal of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an appearance of a portable electronic mail telephone 1 of the present embodiment. The telephone 1 is about the size of a human hand, and has a slightly elongated and thin rectangular parallelepiped outer shape. In FIG.
(A) is a perspective view mainly showing the front, and (b) is a perspective view mainly showing the side.

The telephone 1 has an e-mail transmission / reception function for transmitting / receiving a signal representing a document, in addition to a function as a normal telephone for transmitting / receiving a signal representing a voice.
It also has a scanner function to read images. The image read by the scanner function is recognized as a character and stored as a character constituting a document to be transmitted by e-mail. FIG. 2 schematically shows a circuit configuration relating to communication of the telephone 1 and creation of a document.

As shown in FIG. 1, an operation panel 11 and a display panel 12 are provided on the front (front) of the telephone 1. The operation panel 11 includes ten keys 11a, a plurality of function keys 11b, and two cursor keys 11c.

The numeric keypad 11a has a function similar to that of the conventional telephone 5 shown in FIG. That is, the numeric keypad 11a is associated with ten numbers "0" to "9", and is used for inputting a telephone number. The numeric keypad 11a is used for hiragana and katakana grouped in units of Japanese syllabary such as "a line" and "ka line".
It is also associated with alphabets that are grouped by several, such as "C" and "DEF", and are also used for inputting characters for document creation. The correspondence between the numeric keypad 11a and numbers and other characters can be switched.

The function key 11b is associated with processing relating to document creation and transmission / reception. The key labeled "Mail" is used to switch between calling and sending e-mail. The key marked "letter" is used to switch the correspondence between the numeric keypad 11a and numbers, hiragana, katakana, uppercase alphabets, and lowercase alphabets, and the key marked "convert" is input. It is used for kana-kanji conversion to convert kana to kanji. The key marked "confirmed" is used to instruct to store the entered character or the kanji obtained by conversion as a character constituting the document, and the key marked "clear" constitutes the document Used to erase one character or all characters.
The key described as “transmission / reception” is used for instructing the start of transmission processing or reception processing.

The cursor key 11c is used for moving the cursor in association with the cursor displayed on the display panel 12 when a document is created. Cursor key 11
When inputting a telephone number, c is associated with the symbols “*” and “#” given a predetermined meaning in the communication protocol, and is used for inputting these symbols. Note that the number of cursor keys is not limited to two for moving left and right, and for example, a mode in which four cursor keys are provided for moving up, down, left, and right can be adopted.

The display panel 12 is composed of a liquid crystal display, and is used for displaying a telephone number, a document transmitted by e-mail or a received document. The display panel 12 has a size capable of displaying tens of characters horizontally and several characters vertically.
Dozens of characters of a document can be displayed at once. The cursor is also displayed on the display panel 12 as described above, and the cursor moves in units of characters. When the entire document cannot be displayed at one time, the display is scrolled by operating the cursor key 11c with the cursor positioned at the beginning or end of the display to display a portion that does not appear. Can be.

For input and output of voice, the telephone 1
Openings 13a and 13b are provided in the lower and upper portions of the surface, respectively, and a microphone 14 and a speaker 15 are provided near the internal openings 13a and 13b, respectively (FIG. 2). An expandable antenna 16 for transmitting and receiving radio waves is provided on the upper surface.

An elongated window 17 for reading an image is provided on the bottom of the telephone 1, and an image sensor 18 is provided inside. The image sensor 18 is manufactured using, for example, an amorphous silicon semiconductor, and is arranged to face the window 17 so that the pixel arrangement is parallel to the window 17. The image sensor 18 is of a close contact type that reads a document image at the same magnification. A light source 19 for uniformly illuminating the entire window 17 is also provided inside the telephone 1, and a reading width and a symbol M indicating the center thereof are written at the lower end of the surface.

The user can read the image on the document by moving the telephone 1 in the vertical direction with respect to the window 17 with the bottom surface in contact with the document.
In the vicinity of both ends of the window 17, a rotary encoder 20 is provided to detect the amount of movement of the telephone 1 with respect to the original. The telephone 1 reads one line of the document image each time the movement amount detected by the encoder 20 increases by a predetermined value (for example, 0.1 mm).

The telephone 1 has three modes, ie, a key input mode, a scanner input mode 1 and a scanner input mode 2, for character input for document creation. The key input mode is a mode in which characters are input by operating the ten keys 11a of the operation panel 11. The scanner input mode 1 and the scanner input mode 2 correspond to the image sensor 1
In this mode, the image read in step 8 is recognized as a character, and the recognized character is used as an input. In the scanner input mode 1, when a plurality of columns of characters are read, the characters in the column read near the center of the window 17 are used as input, and the characters in other columns are not used. In the scanner input mode 2, when a plurality of columns of characters are read, all the columns of characters are used as input.

To switch between these modes, a slide-type switch 21 is provided on one side of the telephone 1. The switch 21 has three positions, and in each position, the characters “key”, “scanner 1”, and “scanner 2” indicating the mode to be set are written.

On the other side of the telephone 1, a push-type switch 22 for instructing reading of an image is provided. When the switch 22 is pressed, an image is read.

As shown in FIG. 2, the telephone 1 includes a control unit 31, three memories 32,
3, 34, an audio processing unit 35, a wireless transmission / reception unit 36, an image processing unit 37, and a character recognition unit 38. The control unit 31 controls the whole of the telephone 1,
In response to the operation, character data representing a character is generated.

The memory 32 is a read-only nonvolatile memory, and stores a program describing a control process performed by the control unit 31. The memory 33 is a readable and writable nonvolatile memory, and stores a document to be transmitted by e-mail and character data of the received document. The memory 34
It is a readable and writable nonvolatile memory, and stores image data generated from an image read by the image sensor 18.

The audio processing unit 35 processes audio signals input through the microphone 14 to generate audio data to be transmitted, processes received audio data to reproduce audio signals, and controls the speaker 15 Output via

The radio transmitting / receiving unit 36 transmits the audio data supplied from the audio processing unit 35 by radio waves from the antenna 16, and extracts the audio data from the radio waves received by the antenna 16 and supplies the audio data to the audio processing unit 35. . With this process,
The call function is realized.

The wireless transmission / reception section 36 adds a predetermined signal defined by an electronic mail protocol to character data read out from the memory 33 by the control section 31 and transmits the character data from the antenna 16. When the radio wave received by the antenna 16 includes a signal indicating an e-mail, the radio transmitting / receiving unit 36 further extracts character data from the received radio wave, provides the character data to the control unit 31, and stores the character data in the memory 33. Let it. With these processes, functions of sending and receiving an e-mail are realized.

The wireless transmission / reception unit 36 also performs processing for detecting a call of a communication partner and an incoming call, and establishing communication after the call and the incoming call.
These processes are performed according to a general telephone communication protocol.

The image processing section 37 performs predetermined processing such as A / D conversion, shading, and γ correction, which are well known in the image processing technology, on the output signal of the image sensor 18 to generate image data representing the read image. Then, the generated image data is stored in the memory 34. Image data is value 1 and value 0
Is a two-dimensional array in which the value 1 indicates the black portion of the image and the value 0
Represents a white portion of the image.

The character recognizing section 38 reads out the image data stored by the image processing section 37 from the memory 34, and recognizes characters from the distribution of the values of the image data. Then, character data representing the recognized character is generated, and the character data is provided to the control unit 31 and stored in the memory 33. Character recognition unit 3
8 generates character data and the control unit 31 uses the numeric keypad 11a.
Of character data generated in response to the operation of the same character represents the same character. For example, the character “A” input by the operation of the numeric keypad 11 a and the character
Is the same character data.

The character recognition section 38 has a read-only nonvolatile memory 38a. The memory 38a stores image data representing various characters including numerals, hiragana, katakana, uppercase and lowercase alphabets, kanji, and other symbols. I remember. The character recognition unit 38 stores the distribution pattern of the values of the image data read from the memory 34 and the memory 38a.
The character is recognized by comparing the distribution pattern of the values of the individual image data stored in.

The size of the character read by the image sensor 18 differs depending on the original image. For this reason,
The image data generated by the image processing unit 37 may represent one column of characters, or may represent a plurality of columns of characters. The character recognizing unit 38 determines a boundary between columns based on a linear connection in one direction of a portion of the image data having a value of 0, that is, a blank portion, and determines a straight line of the blank portion in a direction perpendicular to the column. The boundaries between the characters in the column are determined based on the sequential sequence. Then, the above-described character recognition is performed using each part separated by the boundary as image data representing one character. Therefore, a plurality of character data is normally generated by one reading operation.

The direction of the characters displayed on the document and the direction of reading by the image sensor 18 are not always constant. For example, when reading vertically written characters vertically,
When reading horizontally written characters in the horizontal direction, the direction of the characters represented by the image data differs by 90 °. Therefore, the character recognizing unit 38 recognizes the first few characters by adding 9 characters to the image data.
By performing a rotation process for each 0 ° and comparing the rotated image data with the image data stored in the memory 38a, the relationship between the direction of the characters on the document and the reading direction is found.

The control unit 31 causes the memory 33 to store character data generated according to the operation of the numeric keypad 11a and character data provided from the character recognition unit 38. that time,
When the cursor on the display panel 12 is located after the last character of the document, new character data is stored next to the last character data in the memory 33. As a result, characters are added to the end of the document. When the cursor is positioned on any character, new character data is stored immediately before the character data representing the character on which the cursor is positioned. As a result, a character is inserted in the middle of the document.

When the scanner input mode 1 is set, even if the character data representing a plurality of rows of characters is given from the character recognition unit 38, the control unit 31 outputs the image data of the portion closest to the center of the image sensor 18. Only the character data representing the character string generated from is stored in the memory 33. On the other hand, when the scanner input mode 2 is set, when character data representing a plurality of columns of characters is provided from the character recognition unit 38, the control unit 31 causes the memory 33 to store all of the character data. At this time, the character data of each column is continuously stored, and data indicating a line feed is added to the end of each column.

The control unit 31 has a function key 11b
When the deletion of one character or all characters is instructed by the operation of, the character data representing the character at which the cursor is positioned and all the character data constituting the document being created are deleted from the memory 33. When a change occurs in the character data in the memory 33 during the document display, the display panel 12 immediately reflects the change on the display. That is, if characters are added to the end of the document or inserted in the middle of the document,
The added document and the inserted document are displayed, and when the character is deleted, the deleted document is displayed.

Hereinafter, a specific example of document creation by the portable electronic mail telephone 1 will be described. The first example is "ABC
A document “Determined to DE Headquarters First Meeting Room” is created, and then a character string “13:00 on December 3” is added to the head of the created document. Numeric keypad 1 for character input
1a and the scanner function are used together. FIG. 3 shows a document image used in this example and a reading operation thereof, and FIG. 4 shows how a document displayed on the display panel 12 changes.

At first, the document is blank, and only the cursor 12a is displayed on the display panel 12, as shown in FIG. First, the switch 21 is operated to set the scanner input mode 1, and as shown in FIG. 3B, a window 13 is set at the head of the character string of "ABC headquarters first conference room" to be read on the document D. The telephone 1 is held so that the centers of the telephones 1 substantially coincide with each other. Then, the switch 22 is pushed in, the telephone 1 is moved along the character string as indicated by an arrow, and the switch 22 is released when the telephone 1 reaches the end of the character string.

With this operation, a character string is read, character data representing each character is generated, and stored in the memory 33. Further, the read character string is displayed on the display panel 12, as shown in FIG. 4B, and the cursor 12a is displayed behind the end of the character string.

Next, the user operates the switch 21 to set a key input mode in order to input a character string “OK” not found in the document D using the numeric keypad 11a. And
The ten-key 11a is associated with the hiragana with the function key 11b, the key corresponding to "na-line" is operated twice, and the character "ni" is input, and the input is confirmed with the function key 11b.

Since the cursor 12a is located after the end of the document, new character data is added to the end of the character data in the memory 33, and the new character is also displayed in FIG.
As shown in (c), it is displayed after the last character. Also,
The cursor 12a is displayed after the new character that has become the last character. Since the maximum number of characters that can be displayed in the horizontal direction has been reached by the input up to this point, the cursor 12a is displayed at the beginning of the next line.

Further, the ten keys 11a are operated to input the four characters "Kei". Then, the kana-kanji conversion is performed by operating the function key 11b to change the character to the “kanji” of “OK”, and after confirming that the desired character has been obtained, the input is confirmed by the function key. Also in this case, the generated two character data are added to the end of the character data in the memory 33, and the character is also changed as shown in FIG.
Added to the end.

Next, the cursor keys 11c are operated to
As shown in FIG. 4E, the cursor 12a is positioned on the first character, and the switch 21 is operated to set the scanner input mode 1. Then, in the same manner as the above-described reading operation, the character string of “1:00 pm on December 3” is read from the document. Character data representing the read character string is
These character strings are stored before the leading character data in the memory 33 and are displayed at the beginning of the document as shown in FIG. The cursor 12a is displayed after the input character string, that is, on the character that was the first character. Finally, the mode is switched to the key input mode, and the character “,” is input. This character is also displayed on the cursor 12 as shown in FIG.
It will be displayed before the character indicated by a.

In the second example, a plurality of columns of characters are read at one time. FIG. 5 shows the reading operation of the document image in this example and the display on the display panel 12 after reading. Here, three lines of characters written on the document D are
It is assumed that the width matches the width of E.8.

First, the switch 21 is operated to set the scanner input mode 2 and the window 13 is set at the head of the three columns to be read.
Are held in such a manner as to substantially match. Then, the switch 22 is pushed in, the telephone 1 is moved along the character string as shown in FIG. 5A, and the switch 22 is released when the telephone 1 reaches the end of the character string. As a result, three columns of characters are read, and the generated character data is stored in the memory 33.

As described above, data indicating a line feed is added after the character data of each column. Therefore, FIG.
As shown in (b), the display is also line-breaked for each column, and a character indicating the line break is displayed at the end of each column. The data indicating the line feed can be deleted from the memory 33 by operating the function key 11b and instructing deletion of one character while the cursor is positioned on the character indicating the line feed.

As described above, the portable e-mail telephone 1 can read an image representing a character and use the character as a character constituting a document. Therefore, the number of times of operation of the numeric keypad 11a is greatly reduced. be able to. For this reason, the input operation for creating a document is facilitated, and the efficiency is improved. This is especially useful when creating documents that contain many kanji or frequently change the type of characters, because the operation of converting kana to kanji when entering kanji and the operation of specifying the type of character are not required. Increase.

In this embodiment, in the scanner input mode 1, a character string represented by image data near the center of the image sensor 18 is used as an input.
A character string represented by image data near one end of the image sensor 18 may be used as an input. Similarly, in the scanner input mode 1, character recognition is performed for all columns, and character data of necessary columns is stored in the memory 33. However, after determining the boundaries between columns, character Recognition may be performed. This improves the processing speed.

In this embodiment, an image sensor in which pixels are arranged one-dimensionally is used, and a method of reading an image line by line while changing a relative position with respect to an original image is adopted. A method of using a two-dimensionally arranged image sensor and reading a two-dimensional image at a time without changing the relative position to the document image may be adopted.
In that case, the processing after the generation of the image data can be performed in the same manner as that described in the present embodiment. Furthermore, in the present embodiment, the description has been made by taking a portable e-mail telephone as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and is applicable to a portable information terminal dedicated to e-mail and a portable information terminal such as a PDA capable of sending and receiving e-mail. Applicable.

[0060]

According to the portable electronic mail terminal of the present invention having the image reading means and the character recognizing means, it is possible to directly read the character represented as the image and use it as the character constituting the document transmitted by the electronic mail. Because it is possible, document creation becomes easy. Character recognition means that can recognize any of hiragana, katakana, alphabets, numbers, and kanji, the input operation is the same for any type of character, improving the efficiency of document creation I do.

A character input means for generating character data in response to a key operation is provided, and the generation of character data by the image reading means and the character recognition means and the generation of character data by the character input means are performed in response to a user's instruction. In such a configuration, the user can select a character input method, thereby improving usability. In addition, even when an appropriate image representing a character is not at hand, a document for transmission can be reliably created.

In a configuration in which the character recognizing means divides the image data generated by the image reading means into a plurality of parts and recognizes the image represented by each part as a character to generate a plurality of character data, A plurality of characters can be input by a single reading operation, and the efficiency of document creation is further improved.

In particular, the character recognizing means finds a part representing a blank in the image data generated by the image reading means, and divides the image data into a plurality of parts by using the part representing the blank as a boundary. There is no restriction on the size of the target character, and various images representing characters having different sizes can be used as originals.

When the character recognizing means generates character data representing a plurality of rows of characters and the storage means stores all the character data generated by the character recognizing means, a series of characters over a plurality of rows are read at one time. It becomes possible to input by operation.

The character recognizing means generates character data representing a plurality of columns of characters, and the storage means stores only character data representing a predetermined one-line character among the character data generated by the character recognizing means. By doing so, only a necessary one-line character can be used as an input from a series of characters in a plurality of columns.

Display means for displaying a character represented by the character data stored in the storage means and a cursor whose position changes in accordance with a user's instruction, wherein the storage means stores the character data generated by the character recognition means. In the configuration that inserts a character at the position corresponding to the cursor in the already stored character data, the character can be inserted in the middle of the already created document, making it easy to modify the document. Become,
The efficiency of document creation is further improved.

In the method of creating an e-mail document according to the present invention, in which the input of a character by key operation and the input of a character by reading an image representing the character are both used, the input operation can be selected according to the input character. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently create a document to be transmitted by e-mail. Reading an image representing a character can always be performed by a fixed operation regardless of the type of the character, and thus is particularly suitable for creating a document containing kanji.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exemplary perspective view showing the appearance of a portable electronic mail telephone according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an outline of a circuit configuration relating to communication of the portable electronic mail telephone and creation of a document.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a document image and a reading operation in a specific usage example of the portable electronic mail telephone.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display on a display panel in the above usage example.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a reading operation of a document image and a display on a display panel in another specific usage example of the portable electronic mail telephone.

FIG. 6 is a front view showing the appearance of a conventional portable electronic mail telephone.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Portable electronic mail telephone 11 Operation panel 11a Numeric keypad 11b Function key 11c Cursor key 12 Display panel 12a Cursor 14 Microphone 15 Speaker 16 Antenna 17 Reading window 18 Image sensor 19 Light source 20 Encoder 21 Switch 22 Switch 31 Control part 32 Memory 33 Memory 34 Memory 35 Voice processing unit 36 Wireless transmission / reception unit 37 Image processing unit 38 Character recognition unit 38a Memory

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5B064 AA07 AB16 BA02 5B089 GA25 GB04 HA11 JA31 JB03 KA03 KH13 LB14 5K101 KK02 LL12 NN04 NN06

Claims (9)

[Claims] An image reading unit that reads an image and generates image data representing the read image; and recognizes an image represented by the image data generated by the image reading unit as a character, and converts character data representing the recognized character into character data. A portable electronic device comprising: a character recognizing unit for generating; a storage unit for storing the character data generated by the character recognizing unit; and a transmitting unit for transmitting the character data stored in the storage unit as an e-mail. Mail terminal. 2. An image reading means comprising a plurality of keys operated by a user, generating character data according to the operated keys, and storing the generated character data in a storage means. 2. The portable electronic mail terminal according to claim 1, wherein the generation of the character data by the character recognizing means and the generation of the character data by the character inputting means are switched according to a user's instruction. 3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the character recognition means divides the image data generated by the image reading means into a plurality of parts, and recognizes an image represented by each part as a character to generate a plurality of character data. Item 2. The portable electronic mail terminal according to Item 1. 4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the character recognition unit finds a portion representing the blank in the image data generated by the image reading unit, and divides the image data into a plurality of portions with the portion representing the blank as a boundary. 3. The mobile electronic mail terminal according to 3. 5. The mobile phone according to claim 3, wherein the character recognition means generates character data representing a plurality of rows of characters, and the storage means stores all the character data generated by the character recognition means. Email terminal. 6. A character recognition means for generating character data representing a plurality of columns of characters, and a storage means for storing only character data representing a predetermined one-line character among the character data generated by the character recognition means. The mobile electronic mail terminal according to claim 3, wherein 7. Display means for displaying a character represented by character data stored in a storage means and a cursor whose position changes in accordance with a user's instruction, wherein the storage means is generated by the character recognition means. 7. The portable electronic mail terminal according to claim 1, wherein when storing the character data, the character data is inserted at a position corresponding to a cursor in the character data already stored. . 8. A method for creating an e-mail document, wherein a character input by a key operation and a character input by reading an image representing the character are used in combination. 9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the characters constituting the document include Chinese characters.