JP2005165985A - Dtp-editing device provided with region designation function and data logging function - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a DTP-editing device in order to conduct reuse of digital process data more effectively. <P>SOLUTION: A DTP editing device is provided with a region designating means which designates one or more region on a printing plate for a data file edited and made by a DTP-editing software; and a extracting means which extracts objects included in the data file based on a position relation with the designated region and outputs them as a different file by the region being the standard for extraction. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a DTP editing apparatus having an area designating function and a data cut-out function for printing plate-making data produced entirely with digital data.

  With the widespread use of DTP, it has become common for printing printing to proceed with digital data. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to use the WWW technology to work on the Internet. From such a background, there is an increasing need to reuse printing plate making data for print media (paper media) produced by a full digital process as the contents of Web pages and CD-ROMs. In particular, completed printing plate making data such as product catalogs can be reused for other media in the same form as print media, such as cutting out data for each small section that displays product specifications and publishing it on a CD-ROM or the Internet. There is something I want to do. In preparation for such reuse, the printing plate making data may be divided and stored for each product unit.

A layout that constitutes one side of a flyer or catalog by arranging a plurality of small section portions (which are referred to as “product sub-groups” or simply “sub-groups”) displaying product specs is often used in commercial printed materials. Since the edited product subgroup is content data in which information on products to be appealed to customers is gathered in a sufficiently compact manner, it is highly useful once created. Accordingly, there have been proposed an editing layout device that focuses on efficiently creating a product group, and a layout design device that includes means for cutting out a product group part from edit data into a product group file (for example, a patent). Reference 1).
Japanese Patent No. 2000-20578

  In the layout design apparatus of Patent Document 1, the means for creating the product assembly file aiming at reusing the product assembly once created is a block defined in advance on the printing plate as to which area on the printing plate is occupied. Since the data of each product sub-group arranged in correspondence with each other is output as a file, it cannot be used for editing data created by a layout device that does not use such a layout design method.

  Printing plate making data created using general commercial DTP software takes the form of native data of DTP editing software. That is, it is a set of objects such as character fonts, graphic elements, and images defined by a system unique to DTP editing software. Therefore, when cutting out data for each product group from completed printing plate making data such as a product catalog and managing the printing plate making data on a product basis, is it a part corresponding to the product group from an object such as a character figure? It is necessary to take a method of determining whether or not a basic attribute is always held in the native data of any DTP editing software. When the paper medium is reused, the data format may remain the native data of the DTP editing software.

  Furthermore, in order to reuse the data thus cut out as the contents of a Web page or CD-ROM, a part of the native data is handled as image data as a collection of pixel data, or PDF (registered trademark) It will be reused as data. In the former case, conventionally, the printing plate making data is RIP processed (rasterized) and converted into image data, then the range of product units is specified using image editing software, and the cut image is saved as new data. The method of processing with was taken

FIG. 11 is a diagram schematically illustrating this process. The DTP document edited and completed by the DTP editing software is actually the native data of the DTP editing software. (Files created with DTP editing software are often referred to as DTP documents.) This DTP document is output in PostScript (registered trademark, hereinafter referred to as “PS”) format and executes a RIP process (generally software) The bitmap image data is referred to as RIP). As the file format of the bitmap image data, the Tiff format is often used. The Tiff format image data is opened with image editing software such as Photoshop (registered trademark), and each portion to be reused is manually cut out and saved as a new image file. Therefore, in the conventional process, everything after RIP processing is performed manually.

  In the conventional process shown in FIG. 11, after RIP processing, the image editing software is started, the clipping range is selected and specified, and saved as a new image file. There was a limit. The present invention has been made in consideration of such problems of the conventional process, and an object of the present invention is to provide a DTP editing apparatus for more efficiently reusing digital plate-making data for a DTP document.

  The invention according to claim 1 is based on the positional relationship between the designated area and the area designating means for designating one or more areas on the printing plate with respect to the data file edited and created by the DTP editing software. A DTP editing apparatus comprising: an extraction unit that extracts an object included in the data file and outputs the object as a separate file for each region that is the extraction reference.

  A printing plate is an effective area of print data set on a coordinate system defined in data edited and created by DTP editing software. If an area surrounding them is set for each part for displaying product specifications by the area specifying means for DTP data such as a product catalog, a data file divided for each product is automatically obtained.

  The invention according to claim 2 is the DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output file is an EPS file. Even if the output file is created in the native data format of the DTP editing software, it is meaningless because the file cannot be opened by another processing program. The data stored in the output file needs to be in a format that can be handled by the image processing software or read by the RIP processing software in order to enable various later reuse. For this purpose, it is most convenient to output in the form of an EPS file (Encapsulated Postscript File).

The invention according to claim 3 is characterized in that the following three modes can be selected as extraction criteria when extracting an object included in the data file based on the designated area on the printing plate. A DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1.
(1) Mode to extract only objects that are completely contained in the set plate area (2) Mode to extract all objects that overlap the set plate area (3) Complete to the set plate area Mode that cuts and extracts the overlapping part of the object included in and the object that overlaps the set area on the printing plate

  The area on the printing plate designated by the area designating means is designated in order to cut out the data edited and created by the DTP editing software. It is necessary to determine a criterion for determining whether or not it is located within. However, since the area to be specified usually adopts a simple figure such as a rectangle because of the ease of coordinate calculation, the criteria for extracting edit data are not limited to one. Is easy to operate. From such an idea, the invention described in claim 3 is based on the mode (1) (complete envelopment mode), the mode (2) (graphic reference mode), and the mode (box 3) (box) as extraction criteria. Reference mode) is provided.

  The invention according to claim 4 sets conditions for extracting from the extracted object data a key code character string to be used as part of the file name of the output file when the extracted object data is output as a separate file. The DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: According to the DTP editing apparatus of the fourth aspect, for example, when processing the DTP editing data of the product catalog, the character string representing the product model number is extracted from the text data of each product spec, Since the output file with the file name can be output, post-processing can be performed smoothly.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a DTP editing apparatus according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, wherein the DTP editing apparatus is a computer program that is used by being incorporated as a plug-in in the DTP editing software. Is a computer program describing a series of instructions to be operated as Here, the program used as a plug-in in the DTP editing software is a program that is called from the menu command of the DTP editing software, and shares a part of the computer resources that the DTP editing software handles during startup. It is a computer program that can be handled.

By using the DTP editing apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to easily perform the area designation work from the printing plate making data and the data cut-out work in a lump, so that this work is extremely simple compared to the conventional work method. It can be performed and a remarkable effect can be produced. Specifically, if the DTP editing apparatus of the present invention is used, a processing process as shown in FIG. 15 can be realized. In other words, the operator performs batch area designation on the DTP document and batch cutout according to the area designation on the DTP editing apparatus, and obtains the result as an EPS file for each small product group. Then, if each obtained EPS file is subjected to RIP processing, the product assembly data can be obtained as Tiff image data. In the processing steps shown in FIG. 15, the processing of reading individual EPS files and converting them into image data can be batch-processed, so that the processing efficiency is significantly improved as compared with the conventional method.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a DTP editing apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 10 denotes a computer main body to which a graphic display 11, a keyboard and mouse 12, and a hard disk 20 are connected. The computer main body 10 is provided with editing layout software 100, box attribute setting means 110, area setting means 120, and data cutout means 130.

  The box attribute setting unit 110, the region setting unit 120, and the data cutout unit 130 are installed in the computer main body 10 in the form of software modules incorporated in the editing layout software 100, and are called from the menu of the editing layout software 100. It works by being. When called from the menu of the edit layout software 100, the box attribute setting means 110, the area setting means 120, and the data cutout means 130 share a part of the computer resources used by the edit layout software 100. That is, it is possible to access a file opened by the editing layout software 100 or a part of temporarily stored data, and to refer to and update the contents.

  Reference numeral 201 denotes a printing plate making data file. The printing plate making data file 201 is data to be cut out in the cut-out process. Reference numeral 202 denotes an extraction area setting file. The role of the extraction area setting file 202 will be described later. These are all recorded on the hard disk 20. Reference numeral 300 denotes a cut-out data file created as a result of cut-out. It will also be recorded on the hard disk 20.

  FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a work flow of area setting and data extraction from printing plate making data by the apparatus of the present invention. The following is a description along this flow.

  First, in step S1, an attribute of a box when an area is specified at once is determined. There are two types of box attributes: the appearance of the area setting box (color, border thickness), and the setting of the clipping mode of the area setting box.

  There are three types of cutout modes: mode 1: complete envelopment, mode 2: figure reference, and mode 3: box reference. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining these three types of modes. In the complete enveloping mode, an object located inside the rectangular area defined by the area setting box (that is completely surrounded by the rectangular area) is to be cut out. On the other hand, in the graphic reference mode, all objects that overlap the rectangular area defined by the area setting box are to be cut out. In the box reference mode, only a portion that falls within a rectangle of graphic data existing in a rectangular area defined by the area setting box is to be cut out instead of cutting out in units of objects.

  FIG. 3 shows an attribute setting dialog box 300 of the area setting box used in step S1. Reference numeral 301 denotes a switch for designating a cutting mode. Reference numeral 302 denotes an interface for designating the appearance (rectangular frame line width, frame line color) of the area setting box used in the mode 1 cut-out mode. Reference numeral 303 denotes an interface for designating the appearance (rectangular frame line width, frame line color) of the area setting box used in the mode 2 cut-out mode. An interface 304 designates the appearance (rectangular frame line width, frame line color) of the area setting box used in the mode 3 cut-out mode. Reference numeral 305 denotes an interface for designating the appearance (rectangular frame line width, frame line color) of the group area designation box. The group area specification box is used to specify grouping of objects.

  FIG. 4 shows a dialog box 400 for designating increase / decrease in size at the time of box creation. When automatically generating a rectangle (referred to as a user box) for setting a cutout area, a user box is created by enlarging or reducing the set upper, lower, left, and right sizes, or the ratio of upper, lower, left, and right.

  Returning to the flow of FIG. After setting the box attributes in step S1, a key code is set (S2). The key code is data serving as a key for determining a file name when the cut-out data is automatically saved as an image file. Usually, the object to be cut out is often data in which the specs of a specific product are formatted, so if the product model number or product name is used as a file name, the subsequent work is easy. Therefore, it is specified that the product model number and the product name can be extracted from the data that has been typeset. Specifically, from the character composition data included in the extracted object, specify the number of characters (from more than a few characters), character type (such as English, numbers, or kanji), typeface, character size, character color, and character decoration The part that matches is extracted as a key code. FIG. 6 shows a dialog box 600 for setting a key code. When the key code is set, when the area setting box is created at a specific position on the printing plate where the target data is displayed, the character composition data to be cut out and its attributes are inspected according to the box cutting mode. The corresponding character string is specified, and the key code is extracted. The key code is not limited to one type. Two types can be extracted and connected to form one key code. FIG. 7 shows a dialog box 700 for setting key code writing. When the writing setting is made, the code connecting the key code 1 and the key code 2 is written into the box as the key code when the area setting box is created. Note that details of setting extraction conditions when extracting a key code are described in detail in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-29875 filed by the same applicant.

  After Steps S1 and S2, an area setting box is created in Step S3. There are two methods of creating: individual creation or batch creation. In the case of individual creation, the three menu icons 801, 802, and 803 at the lower end are designated on the menu of FIG. 8 that appears on the screen of the editing layout software 100, and an area setting box is created on the printing plate making data. . The numbers displayed on the menu icons indicate the respective cutting modes. The object to be cut out is designated by the relationship of the three modes shown in FIG. 5 for the area set by the area setting box that appears when the menu icons 801 to 803 are selected.

  In the case of batch processing, an area is designated for the displayed plate-making data. Then, all the grouped objects located in the designated area are selected, and the state is the same as when the object to be cut out is selected individually by the area setting box for each grouped object. The grouping of objects may be performed as part of the editing work at the stage of the DTP editing work, or may be performed in steps S5 and S6 in advance as shown in the flowchart of FIG. That is, in step S5, the group setting icon 804 at the bottom end of the menu of FIG. 8 is designated, and a group setting box is displayed on the printing plate making data. In step S6, the objects selected in the group setting box are set as one group.

  FIG. 9 is a dialog box for specifying batch mode change. The mode of the area setting box already created on the printing plate making data can be changed at once. In addition, after the group setting box and the area setting box are created, the box can be displayed or hidden. As a result, it is possible to easily find an object that has leaked from grouping or area setting on the printing plate making data.

  FIG. 10 shows a dialog box 920 for specifying batch deletion of area setting boxes. When batch deletion is executed, the area setting box already created on the printing plate making data can be deleted within a specified range (selection, page specification, all pages). In addition, the group setting box created in step S4 can also be deleted.

  Returning to the flow of FIG. After step S3, data is cut out based on the area setting box in step S4. The file name of the cut-out data is created using the key code set in step S2. If there is no key code, a file name is created based on the original printing plate making data file name and serial number. In addition, the area information created as the area setting file can be saved as text data.

  Next, how the area setting unit 120 can be realized will be described. FIG. 13 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the area setting unit 120. The area setting unit 120 is called by selecting command icons 801 to 804 from the command menu 800. First, referring to the contents of the box attribute setting table (S40), the thickness and color of the frame line are determined according to which menu icon is called (S42). Then, the coordinates at which the worker points to two diagonal points are received as box position information (S44). At this time, the box frame is displayed in the color confirmed in S42 and the thickness of the frame line. Next, a box ID for specifying the box is assigned (S46). Box ID, box attribute (extraction attribute or group box distinction), and position information converted into plate coordinates are recorded in the area setting table as information of the box being displayed (S48). If the user continues to set a box, the process returns to S44. The operator can perform region setting as many times as necessary by repeating steps S44 to S48. The area setting results are recorded in the area setting table, which is a storage area that can also be referred to by the cutout unit 130, as box IDs, box attributes, and position information for the set number of areas. FIG. 14 conceptually shows an example of the area setting table. Actually, the content of FIG. 14 may be recorded as numerical data.

  The area setting table itself can be stored as the area setting file 202. When processing a page layout with a standard product catalog or the like, if the area setting table once used is stored in the area setting file 202 and can be used, the area setting file 202 can be used when processing other pages. By calling, it is possible to save the trouble of setting the area and to improve the work efficiency.

  Next, how the data cutout unit 130 can be realized will be described. FIG. 12 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the data cutout unit 130. The operation of the data cutout unit 130 will be described below.

  First, the box ID counter is set to 1 (S10). Next, the extraction attribute and position information of the box indicated by the box ID are acquired with reference to the corresponding box ID in the area setting table shown in FIG. 14 (S12). At this time, if there is no corresponding box ID and acquisition is not possible, the cut-out process is terminated assuming that the process has been completed for all box IDs (S14).

  Next, if the extraction attribute and position information of the box can be acquired, the extraction attribute is checked, and if it is a group box, the process jumps to step S30. Otherwise, the process proceeds to step S18 (S16). Hereinafter, the case where it progresses to step S18 is demonstrated previously. First, the position attribute of the object in the plate making data is checked based on the extraction attribute of the box indicated by the box ID (either mode 1, mode 2 or mode 3) and the position information of the box indicated by the box ID. The object corresponding to the cutout is selected (S18). The cutout determination in this step is as described in FIG. Next, based on the set key code information, the text data object in the cut out object is inspected to create a key code (S20). Then, a file name is generated from the key code, and an EPS file is created with the selected object data as the content and the character string created from the key code as the file name (S22). The box ID is incremented, and the process returns to step S12 (S24).

  If the process jumps to step S30, a group of objects included in the box area indicated by the box ID is searched (S30). When one such group is found, based on the set key code information, the text data object in the objects belonging to the found group is inspected to create a key code (S32). Then, a file name is generated from the key code, and an EPS file is created with the object data belonging to the found group as the contents and the character string created from the key code as the file name (S34). If there is a group of another object included in the area of the box indicated by the box ID, the process returns to step S30. If there is no other group, the output EPS file can be output for each group for all groups, and step S24 is performed. Proceed to

  Eventually, if each box recorded in the area setting table has an attribute of modes 1 to 3, the cutout processing unit 130 writes the corresponding object as one EPS file in steps S18 to S22. In the case of a group box, an EPS file is created as a cut-out data file 300 in units of objects belonging to individual groups included in the box in the steps S30 to S36. In this way, the cutout process is realized.

  The box attribute setting unit 110 calls the dialog boxes 300, 400, 600, 700, 900, and 920 from the pull-down menu or the like of the editing layout software 100, and sets the attribute and key code of the area setting box according to the dialog box specification. Work. What is necessary is just to produce according to the plug-in software creation rule of the edit layout software 100. FIG.

  The DTP editing apparatus according to the best embodiment of the present invention has been described above. If the DTP editing apparatus of the present invention is used, the processing steps as shown in FIG. 15 can be realized. That is, the operator performs batch area designation for the DTP document and batch cutout according to the area designation on the DTP editing apparatus, and obtains the result as an EPS file for each small product group. Then, if each obtained EPS file is subjected to RIP processing, the product assembly data can be obtained as Tiff image data. In the processing steps shown in FIG. 15, the processing of reading individual EPS files and converting them into image data can be batch-processed, so that the processing efficiency is significantly improved as compared with the conventional method.

In the above-described embodiment, the editing layout software is first described, and the DTP editing apparatus 1 is configured by adding plug-in software. However, the gist of the present invention is not necessarily limited to such a form. is not.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the DTP editing apparatus 1 which is one Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the work flow of the area | region setting from the printing plate-making data by the apparatus of this invention, and data extraction. This is the attribute setting dialog box 300 of the area setting box used in step S1. This is a dialog box 400 for designating increase / decrease in size when creating a box. It is a figure explaining cut-out mode. This is a dialog box 600 for setting a key code. This is a dialog box 700 for setting key code writing. This is a menu icon that appears on the screen of the editing layout software 100. This is a dialog box for specifying batch mode changes. This is a dialog box 920 for designating batch deletion of area setting boxes. It is explanatory drawing of a conventional process. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the data cutout means 130. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of an area setting unit 120. An example of an area setting table is conceptually shown. It is explanatory drawing of the process using the DTP editing apparatus 1 which is one Embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 DTP editing apparatus 10 Computer main body 11 Monitor display 12 Keyboard 20 Hard disk 100 Editing layout software 110 Box attribute setting means 120 Area setting means 130 Data cutout means 201 Printing plate making data 202 Area setting file 300 Cutout data

Claims (5)

  For the data file edited and created by the DTP editing software, the data file is determined based on the positional relationship between the means for designating one or more areas on the printing plate as a reference for extraction processing and the designated areas. A DTP editing apparatus comprising: means for extracting the object described in the above and outputting the file as a separate file for each area serving as a reference for the extraction process.   The DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output file is an EPS file. 2. The DTP according to claim 1, wherein the following three modes can be selected as extraction processing criteria when an object included in the data file is extracted based on the designated area on the printing plate. Editing device.
(1) Mode to extract only objects that are completely contained in the set plate area (2) Mode to extract all objects that overlap the set plate area (3) Complete to the set plate area Mode that cuts and extracts the overlapping part of the object included in and the object that overlaps the set area on the printing plate   A feature is provided for setting a condition for extracting from the extracted object data a key code character string used as part of the file name of the output file when the extracted object data is output as a separate file. The DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1. A computer program which is used as a plug-in in DTP editing software, which describes a series of instructions for operating a computer installed with DTP editing software as the DTP editing apparatus according to claim 1.

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