JP2004254050A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accurately and quickly form an image by performing functions, such as chapter separation, chapter division and page printing without taking labor and time even when an original does not have page numbers or there is a large number of sheets in the original. <P>SOLUTION: A user obtains from the original a page corresponding to a designated page for chapter separation, makes an image reading part 12 of a copying machine 10 scan the page and stores the scanned page in a storing part 13. Then, the user sets the original in the image reading part 12 of the copying machine 10, and when the user sets a chapter separation function, the user designates, as a leading page of a chapter, image data stored in the storing part 13 as a designated page. When copying processing is started, a designated page determining part 14 compares each sheet of the original with the designated image data whenever the original is scanned by one sheet at a time to determine whether the sheet of original coincides with the image data on the designated page. The coinciding image data for chapter separation is printed on joined paper (colored paper). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus that designates a designated page having a certain function from a plurality of document images and forms an image according to the function of the designated page.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventional image forming apparatuses include a copy machine and an MF machine. For example, copiers and the like have convenient functions such as chapter division, chapter division, and page printing. The chapter break function is a function of designating a page corresponding to the first page of a chapter to be separated from the top of the document by designating a break position, and printing the specified page on a slip sheet (colored paper) or the like. is there. The chaptering function is a function of arranging and printing the designated page on the front side or at the top of a sheet when performing double-sided printing or aggregate printing, in which page designation is performed in the same manner as the chapter division described above. It is. Further, the page printing function is a function of printing by adding a page number, and is a function of designating the number of a page of a document to specify a start page and an end page to which a page number is added. .
These functions are very convenient functions, and can be used without any problem if a page number has already been added to the document side (for example, see Patent Documents 1 to 3). Even if the page numbers are given, it is not rare that the number of documents is large and it is practically difficult to specify the number of pages.
Therefore, as a means to eliminate the trouble and inaccuracies of manually turning over a document and counting the number of pages, when an original is stored in a copy server, an automatic paper feeder (hereinafter referred to as ADF) is used. The document is scanned one by one, the number of pages displayed on the panel is checked, and the number of pages checked when the stored document is printed is designated as a chapter break.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-61049 [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-61050 [Patent Document 3] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-78004
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in such a conventional image forming apparatus, when a document image without a page number is stored, the document image must be in front of a copying machine until the document to be separated is scanned. It is necessary to write down and remember the page checked above, which is time-consuming, inaccurate, and impractical.
In particular, when using a function that can be achieved by designating a page of a document, such as chapter division, chapter division, or page printing as described above, no page is placed on the document side, or the page is skipped. Even if the number of originals is large, it is practically difficult to specify a page. Therefore, there is a problem that it is impossible to use those functions. The present invention has been made in view of the above, and even when pages are not printed on the original side or when the number of originals is large, chapter division, chapter division, or page printing can be performed accurately and without trouble. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus capable of processing quickly.
[0004]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a designating means for designating a designated page having a certain function from a plurality of manuscript images, an image reading means for reading image data of the manuscript image, and at least the designation means. Storage means for storing the image data of the designated page; comparing the image data of the designated page stored in the storage means with the image data of the original image read by the image reading means; It is characterized by comprising a designated page judging means for judging, and an image forming means for forming image data of the designated page according to the function of the designated page.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, a designated page having a certain function is designated from a plurality of document images by the designation unit, image data of the document image is read by the image reading unit, and at least the image data of the document image is read by the storage unit. The image data of the designated page designated by the designation means is stored, and the image data of the designated page stored in the storage means is compared with the image data of the original image read by the image reading means by the designated page judgment means, and the image data is determined to be identical. The page is determined to be the designated page, and the image data of the designated page is formed by the image forming means according to the function of the designated page. Therefore, even when it is difficult to designate the page of the document by the page number, A desired page can be easily and accurately specified.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the designation unit designates a chapter break and prints a chapter on a predetermined sheet, and designates a chapter break. A designated page having any one of a chapter dividing function for printing chapters starting from the top of the sheet and a page printing function for printing only a predetermined page by designating a print range can be designated. It is characterized by the following.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the designating means can designate a designated page having any one of a chapter dividing function, a chapter dividing function, and a page printing function. Even when it is difficult to do so, page designation such as chapter division, chapter division, page printing, etc. can be performed easily and accurately, and these comfortable and convenient functions can be used.
[0005]
According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the designation unit designates a first designation unit for designating one page of image data to be read from now on, and the storage unit which has already read and stored the image data. A second designating means for designating one page of image data stored in the means, and a third designating means for designating image data for a plurality of pages which have already been read and stored in the storage means. And a selecting means for selecting the plurality of specifying means.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, the designating means has at least two or more of the first to third designating means, and the designating means can be selected by the selecting means. Even when performing chapter breaks, chapter divisions, page printing, etc., it is possible to respond to various needs of the user because the designation method of the designated page can be selected according to the situation, and the user is convenient without stress Function can be mastered.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the image forming apparatus further includes a page range specifying unit that specifies a page range of image data of the original image to be compared with the image data of the specified page. The page determining means compares only the page range specified by the page range specifying means and determines the specified page.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is further provided a page range designating means for designating a page range of the image data of the original image to be compared with the image data of the designated page. Since the comparison is performed only for the specified page range and the specified page is determined, the specified page can be determined in a short time, and the image formation result (print result) and the like can be obtained more quickly.
[0006]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of an image forming apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
(Embodiment 1)
The image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment is a copy machine having convenient functions such as chapter division, chapter division, page printing, and can store and hold image data of a designated page specified by a user. It is assumed that the copying machine has a temporary or permanent storage area.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment. The image forming apparatus 10 of FIG. 1 includes a designating unit 11 as designating means, an image reading unit 12 as image reading means, a storage unit 13 as storage means, a designated page determining unit 14 as designated page determining means, an image forming means , An image forming unit 15, a selecting unit 16 as a selecting unit, and a page range specifying unit 17 as a page range specifying unit.
The designation unit 11 designates a chapter break from a plurality of document images and prints the chapter on a predetermined sheet for each chapter. A chapter which designates a chapter break and prints the chapter starting from the top of the sheet. It designates a designated page having a separation function, or a page printing function for printing only a predetermined page by designating a printing range. Various methods are conceivable as a designation method. (1) The user designates a page by directly extracting a designated page from a plurality of originals, scanning an image and storing image data, or 2) When scanning an image, specify a page as what number and what number of an image, or 3) Scan all the images and store them in the storage unit 13, and then store the images in the storage unit 13. It can be specified by specifying data. In FIG. 1, a first designating unit 111 as first designating means for designating image data for one page to be read, and designating image data for one page already read and stored in the storage unit 13 are designated. A second specifying unit 112 as a second specifying unit, and a third specifying unit 113 as a third specifying unit for specifying image data for a plurality of pages that have been read and stored in the storage unit 13. are doing.
[0007]
The image reading unit 12 is equivalent to a scanner in a copier, and reads an image of a document and converts it into image data. In the present embodiment, it is possible to read image data of only a specified page or to read all original images. Here, it is assumed that an automatic paper feeder (ADF) that performs scanning (reading scanning) while separating a plurality of documents one by one when a plurality of documents are set on a tray is provided.
The storage unit 13 stores the image data read by the image reading unit 12, and stores designation information for designating a designated page with the designation unit 11.
The designated page determination unit 14 determines whether the page is a designated page designated by the user. Here, the image of the designated page is read by the image reading unit 12 and stored in the storage unit 13, and the stored image data of the designated page is compared with the document image data sequentially read by the image reading unit 12. If they match, it is determined that the page is the designated page. If they are different, it is determined that the page is not the designated page. If the page designation is a designation such as what number from the start of reading or what page, the number of readings and the number of pages are counted to determine whether the page is the designated page.
The image forming unit 15 forms an electrostatic latent image by drawing the read image data on a charged photoconductor drum in the case of an electrophotographic system using a copier, deposits toner, and develops the latent image. The image is formed by transferring the image onto paper. In addition, an image may be formed using various methods such as a thermal transfer method and a heat-sensitive method.
The selection unit 16 is configured to be able to arbitrarily select an arbitrary specification method from the first to third specification units 111 to 113 of the above-described specification unit 11 in accordance with the usage situation of the user. In addition, it goes without saying that a designation method other than the above may be selected.
The page range designation unit 17 takes a long time to perform the comparison process with the image data of all the pages when the designated page decision unit 14 compares and judges the image data. By simply specifying the approximate page range necessary for the process, the range to be compared is narrowed and the processing time is shortened.
The image forming apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment is configured as described above, and the operation of the image forming apparatus 10 will be described below by taking a case where a chapter break function is used as an example.
[0008]
FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining an operation when a designated page is designated by extracting a designated page, scanning the accumulated page, and storing the extracted page in a copying machine. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a user first takes out a page corresponding to a designated page of a chapter break from a manuscript (step S <b> 21), scans it with the image reading unit 12 of the copier 10, and stores it in the storage unit 13. (Step S22).
Subsequently, the original is set on the image reading unit 12 of the copier 10 (step S23), and when the user sets the chapter separation function, the image data stored in the storage unit 13 is designated as the first page of the chapter. The page is designated from the operation panel or the like (step S24). In the example of FIG. 2, the image data stored earlier is specified as the first page of the third chapter (step S242).
Then, the user presses a copy key with a chapter break to start it (step S25). When the copy process is started, the document is separated one by one by an ADF (not shown), and each time the document is scanned, the designated page is designated. The judgment unit 14 compares the image data with the designated image data. The comparison is started from the head data of the target page. If there is a difference on the way, the comparison process is stopped, one page of the document is read, and the image forming unit 15 performs a printing process.
If there is no difference in the data, all of the data for one page is compared. However, this takes too much time, and here, there is no difference at the time when about １ ／ of the data of one page is compared. For example, it is determined that the page is the designated page and is processed. This comparison range can be arbitrarily set on the user side according to the situation, and is determined by two conflicting points of accuracy in determination and reduction in processing speed. If the designated page determination unit 14 determines that the image data matches the image data of the designated page, the designated page is printed on a slip sheet (colored paper) because the processing is performed based on the chapter separation function.
As described above, according to the first embodiment, the first page of the third chapter can be printed on the slip sheet (colored paper) as shown in FIG. At this time, the user only needs to perform a simple operation of extracting the first page of Chapter 3 and scanning it in advance. Even if the page number is not added or the page number is present, the number of pages of the document is reduced. Even when it is troublesome to specify pages at most, it is possible to automatically determine and process the chapter break processing on the copy machine 10 side automatically.
[0009]
(Embodiment 2)
In the above-described first embodiment, one page of image data is stored in advance, and the stored data is designated as a chapter-separated page. In the second embodiment, in addition to this, for example, It is characterized in that a page number can be specified for a manuscript having a page number of about one digit, and both can be arbitrarily selected.
This will be described with reference to FIG. 2. Since the first page of the second chapter is a single-digit page number that can be immediately determined by the user, it is specified by a page number (step S241), and the first page of the third chapter is set. Since it is difficult for the user to count the pages, the pages are stored in the storage unit 13 of the copying machine 10 in advance, and the storage data is designated (step S242). Then, when selecting a method of designating these designated pages, the user uses the selecting unit 16 of FIG. 1 to arbitrarily select according to the situation.
The selection unit 16 further includes a first specification unit 111 for specifying image data for one page to be read from now on, and a second specification unit for specifying image data for one page already read and stored in the storage unit 13. It is also possible to select any one of the unit 112 and the third specifying unit 113 that specifies image data of a plurality of pages that have already been read and stored in the storage unit 13.
[0010]
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an operation in a case where a designated page is designated by sharing data in which a plurality of pages that may possibly be chapter breaks are collectively stored in advance. As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of pages which may be chapter-divided are previously stored together (step S31), and the data is shared and designated as a division page. Subsequently, the original is set on the image reading unit 12 of the copying machine 10 (step S32), and when the user designates a chapter-separated page, each page of the stored document that has been stored in advance as the separator page is replaced with each chapter. Then, copying is started (step S34).
As a result of the copying, as shown in FIG. 3, each page of the stored document stored in advance as a delimiter page is printed on a slip sheet (colored paper) at a delimiter position of each chapter of the document.
Also, as shown in FIG. 3, using a stored document that has been stored in advance as a separator page, the second page of the stored document is defined as a second chapter, and the fourth page of the stored document is defined as a third chapter. Can be specified by the number of pages (step S41).
As shown in FIG. 3, the second and fourth pages of the stored document, which have been stored in advance as delimiter pages, are printed on a slip sheet (colored paper) at the break position of each chapter of the document as shown in FIG. Will be.
As described above, according to the second embodiment, not only the image data can be specified as the method of specifying the specified page, but also the specification of the page number can be selected in accordance with the usage situation of the user. Becomes possible. In addition, storing image data that has been scanned in advance as a separator page makes it possible to easily perform a different chapter-separation copy. Even if one page is designated and one manuscript is divided into different chapters for another purpose, all the designated pages are stored for the time being and designated according to the purpose. Since a desired page can be selected, an operation with a very high degree of freedom can be performed, and it is possible to meet various needs.
[0011]
(Embodiment 3)
In the first embodiment, one page of image data is stored in advance, the stored data is designated as a chapter-separated page, and this is sequentially compared with the document image data by the designated page determination unit 14. It is determined whether or not the page is a designated page. However, if this is performed for all pages, the processing time may become longer as the number of documents increases. In view of the above, when the designation of a chapter-separated page by image data is selected, the user is further provided with a page range designation unit 17 for designating the number of pages between the designated pages of the document. (See FIG. 1).
For example, assuming that the first page (designated page) of the third chapter in the figure showing the copy result of FIG. 1 is the 32nd page, the page range is designated, for example, from page 20 to page 40. As a result, when the copy process is started, the original document is conveyed one page at a time by the ADF of the image reading unit 12 and scanned, and comparison with the designated image data is performed.
In the third embodiment, as described above, since the user specifies the page range from page 20 to page 40 to the page range specifying unit 17, the comparison process is not performed up to page 19, and , The comparison process is performed until the same manuscript as the designated page is found on page 32, and the comparison process is stopped after page 33. However, in order to improve the accuracy, the last page of the designated range is designated as 40. The comparison process may be continued up to the page.
As described above, according to the third embodiment, when the designated page is designated by the image data and the comparison process is performed with all the document image data, the processing time may be long. By specifying the range of the manuscript page, quick copy processing can be performed without impairing the operability of the user.
[0012]
In each of the above embodiments, the operation has been described with respect to the case where the chapter break function is set as the designated page. However, the present invention is not limited to this. Can be implemented, and the same advantageous effects as described above can be obtained.
In each of the above embodiments, a copy machine has been described as an example of an image forming apparatus. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and can be applied to various image forming apparatuses that print and output images.
[0013]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to easily and accurately specify a desired page even when it is difficult to specify a page of a document by a page number.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, even when it is difficult to designate a page by a page number, page designation such as chapter division, chapter division, and page printing can be performed easily and accurately. Comfortable and convenient functions can be used.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, even when chapter division, chapter division, page printing, and the like are performed, the designation method of the designated page can be selected according to the situation, so that various needs of the user can be met. And the user can use the functions conveniently without stress.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the designated page can be determined in a short time, and the image forming result (printing result) and the like can be obtained more quickly.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an operation in a case where a designated page is designated by extracting a designated page, scanning the accumulated page, and storing the extracted page in a copying machine.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an operation in a case where a designated page is designated by sharing data in which a plurality of pages that may possibly be chaptered are collectively stored in advance.
[Explanation of symbols]
Reference Signs List 10 image forming apparatus, 11 designation section, 12 image reading section, 13 storage section, 14 designated page determination section, 15 image formation section, 16 selection section, 17 page range designation section, 111 first designation section, 112 second designation section , 113 Third designation part

Claims (4)

Designating means for designating a designated page having a certain function from a plurality of document images;
Image reading means for reading image data of a document image;
Storage means for storing at least image data of a designated page designated by the designation means;
A designated page determination unit that compares the image data of the designated page stored in the storage unit with the image data of the original image read by the image reading unit, and determines a coincident page as the designated page;
Image forming means for forming image data of the designated page according to the function of the designated page;
An image forming apparatus comprising: The designation means includes a chapter separation function for instructing a chapter break and printing each chapter on a predetermined sheet, a chapter separation function for instructing a chapter break and printing such that the chapter starts from the top of the sheet, and a printing range. 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a designated page having any one of a page printing function for printing only a predetermined page by instructing a designated page can be designated. The specifying means includes first specifying means for specifying one page of image data to be read and second specifying means for specifying one page of image data which has been read and stored in the storage means. And two or more of third specifying means for specifying image data for a plurality of pages that have already been read and stored in the storage means.
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a selection unit that selects the plurality of designation units. The image processing apparatus further includes a page range specifying unit that specifies a page range of image data of the document image to be compared with the image data of the specified page,
2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the designated page determination unit compares only the page range designated by the page range designation unit to determine the designated page.

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