JP2663127B2 - Control method for facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention starts reading a document image before the end of a transmission operation, stores the read image information in an image storage unit, and accumulates the image when the transmission operation ends. The present invention relates to a method for controlling a facsimile apparatus having a short transmission mode for transmitting image information stored in a means to a designated destination. [Prior Art] Generally, when an image is transmitted by a facsimile apparatus, an operator sets a transmission original in the apparatus, sets various information necessary for transmission such as a destination, finishes the setting, and turns on a start key. I do. As a result, the transmission control process by the facsimile apparatus is started, and at the message transmission stage, the set transmission original is read and transmitted to the destination. When the transmission is completed and all transmitted originals are ejected, the operator collects the transmitted originals,
A series of operations ends. In this way, since the operation of the operator and the operation of the facsimile machine are sequentially performed, conventionally,
There has been a disadvantage that the operator's intervention time in the facsimile machine is relatively long. Therefore, the applicant has solved this inconvenience,
We have proposed a facsimile machine with a reduced transmission mode in which the operator's operation and the facsimile machine's reading operation of a transmission original can be performed in parallel to shorten the operator's intervention time (see Japanese Patent Application No. 61-137335). However, in such a conventional apparatus, transmission image information of an existing operator is already stored, and when another operator sets a transmission original while waiting for a recall of the transmission image information, the transmission image information is already stored. The transmitted image information is erased and the image information cannot be transmitted. [Purpose] The present invention has been made to solve the above-described disadvantages of the related art, and has as its object to provide a method of controlling a facsimile apparatus that can appropriately use the shortened transmission mode. [Configuration] According to the present invention, an original image reading is started before a transmission operation is completed, and the read image information is stored in an image storage unit, and the image information stored in the image storage unit is designated when the transmission operation is completed. In the control method of facsimile transmission having a shortened transmission mode to transmit to the destination, comprising a guidance output means for outputting guidance information to the operator,
Guidance information indicating that if the image information cannot be stored in the image storage unit when the transmission original is set, the abbreviated transmission mode cannot be used, and that a transmission operation other than the abbreviated transmission mode will be performed. Is output by the guidance output means. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows an example of a document transport system of a facsimile apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a document placed on a document table 1 is conveyed by conveyance rollers 2 and 3, illuminated by a light source 5 on a contact glass 4, and light reflected from an image surface is reflected by a mirror 6. , An image is formed on the line image sensor 8 by the lens 7. Also, on the platen 1,
A document sensor 9 for detecting a document is provided. FIG. 2 illustrates a control system of this device. In the figure, a scanner 10 is for reading a document image at a predetermined resolution, a plotter 11 is for recording and outputting a copy image and a received image at a predetermined resolution, and an operation display unit 12 is a facsimile machine. The image memory 13 includes various operation keys necessary for operating the apparatus and various kinds of information such as guidance messages for guiding an operator's operation procedure.The image memory 13 is used to store images. Things. The encoding / decoding units 14 and 15 encode and compress the image signal and decode the encoded image information into the original image signal, and the system control unit 16 controls the entire facsimile apparatus. The communication control unit 17 is for executing a predetermined transmission control procedure when transmitting data with the partner device, and the modem 18 exchanges digital data using an analog transmission path such as a telephone line. Sometimes for modulating and demodulating data, the network controller 19 has an automatic transmission / reception function and is for connecting this facsimile apparatus to an analog transmission line. The detection signal of the document sensor 9 is applied to the system control unit 16. The voice response signal 20 is canceled in a short transmission mode (described later) such as, for example, "Since another transmission file is already stored, the short transmission mode cannot be used. The normal transmission mode is performed." The speaker 21 is for responding to a voice message to be notified, and is for converting an output signal of the voice response device 20 into an acoustic signal. Then, these scanner 10, plotter 11, operation display unit 12, image memory 13, encoding / decoding units 14, 15, system control unit 16, communication control unit 17, and voice response device 20,
Necessary data is mutually exchanged by the system bus 22. Each component of the facsimile apparatus has the same configuration as that of the conventional apparatus, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted. Now, when transmitting image information with this facsimile machine, the system control unit 16 executes the processing shown in FIGS. 3 (a) and 3 (b). That is, the system control unit 16 monitors that a document is set on the scanner 10 and the document sensor 9 is turned on (NO loop of judgment 100), and the operator sets a document to be transmitted and the document sensor 9 is turned on. , The result of this decision 100 is Y
At the time of ES, it is checked whether other image information is stored in the image memory 13 at that time and is full (determination is made).
101). When the result of this determination 101 is NO, the reduced transmission mode in which the transmission operation of the operator and the document reading are performed in parallel is executed, and when the result of the determination 101 is YES, the normal transmission mode is executed. That is, when the result of the determination 101 is NO, the scanner 1
The document reading operation of the original 0 is started (process 102), and the read image signal is encoded and compressed by the encoding / decoding unit 14 (process 10).
3) The image information is sequentially stored in the image memory 13. Also, when the result of the determination 101 is NO, the system control unit 16 inputs information necessary for transmitting image information to the operator, for example, destination telephone number information while sequentially displaying appropriate guidance messages. Then, a guidance message is displayed so that the start key is turned on when all necessary information is input. The system control unit 16 performs the processes 102 to 104 on the image memory 13
Is full (the result of determination 105 is YES), reading of all documents is completed (the result of determination 106 is YES), or the start key is turned on from the operation display unit 12 (determination
Execute repeatedly until the result of step 107 is YES). If the result of determination 105 or determination 106 becomes YES during this repetitive processing, the system control unit 16 stops the reading operation of the scanner 10 (processing 108), the transmission operation of the operator ends, and the start key is turned on. (Step 109), and if the result of Step 109 is YES, a predetermined transmission procedure is started (Step 110). If the result of judgment 107 is YES
, The reading operation of the scanner 10 is stopped at that time (process 111), and the process proceeds to the process 110 for starting the transmission procedure. Accordingly, the system control unit 16 transfers the telephone number of the destination input from the operator to the network control device 19 to call the destination, and starts a predetermined transmission control procedure when transmitting to the communication control unit 17. Command. Then, at the message transmission stage, first, it is determined whether or not the image information stored in the image memory 13 and the destination encoding mode are the same (decision 112). When the result of the determination 112 is NO, the image information stored in the image memory 13 is read and the encoding / decoding
At 14, the original image signal is decoded (process 113), and the image signal is coded and compressed by the coding / decoding unit 15 according to the coding method set between the image signal and the destination at that time (process 114). It is transferred to the model 18 via the communication control unit 17 (processing 11
Five). These processes 113 to 115 are repeatedly executed until the image information stored in the image memory 13 ends (decision 116
NO loop). When the result of the determination 112 is NO, the image information stored in the image memory 13 is sequentially read out and transferred to the modem 18 via the communication control unit 17 (process 117). The processing is repeatedly executed until the stored image information is completed (NO loop of judgment 118). In this way, when the transmission of the image information stored in the image memory 13 is completed, it is checked whether or not the document sensor 9 is ON at this time (decision 119), and when the result of this decision 119 is YES, Since there is a transmission original which has not been transmitted yet, the reading operation of the scanner 10 is restarted (processing 120), the encoding is performed by the encoding / decoding unit 15 (processing 121), and the data is transferred to the modem 18 (processing 122). The processes 120 to 122 are executed until the reading of all the originals is completed (NO loop of the determination 123), and the process ends. If the result of the determination 119 is NO, since transmission of all transmitted originals has already been completed, this process is immediately terminated. The image information stored in the image memory 13 that has been transmitted to the destination is deleted. In this manner, in the reduced transmission mode, when the operator sets a transmission document on the scanner 10, the reading of the transmission document is started and the transmission operation of the operator is enabled, and the reading of the transmission document and the subsequent transmission operation of the operator are performed. Are performed in parallel, so that the operator's intervention time is very short. If the number of set originals is very large and not all of them are stored in the image memory 13, the stored part is read out from the image memory 13 and transmitted, so that the time of the part is This is shorter than when transmitting a document while reading a transmission document, and overall, the operator's intervention time is reduced. On the other hand, if the result of decision 101 is YES, the system control unit
16 switches the internal state to the normal transmission mode (processing 12
4) Activate the voice response device 20 and respond to the operator with a voice message notifying the short transmission mode release as described above (process 125), and the operator ends the normal transmission operation and returns from the operation display unit 12 It waits until the start key is turned on (NO loop of decision 126). When the result of the determination 126 is YES, the system control unit 16
The process proceeds to a transmission procedure start process 127, where the destination telephone number input by the operator is transferred to the network control device 19 to call the destination, and a predetermined transmission control procedure at the time of transmission is transmitted to the communication control unit 17. Command to start. Then, at the message transmission stage, the reading operation of the scanner 10 is started (process 128), and the encoding / decoding unit 1
It is encoded by 5 (process 129) and transferred to the modem 18 (process 130). The processes 128 to 130 are executed until reading of all originals is completed (NO loop of decision 131), and this process is terminated. Therefore, when the operator sets a document to be transmitted, if the image information of another operator has already been stored in the image memory 13, the normal transmission mode is executed, and the image stored in the image memory 13 is displayed. The image information can be transmitted appropriately without the information being erased. By the way, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the original image is transmitted has been described. However, the same processing can be executed when a copy of the original image is formed. Can be shortened. In the above-described embodiment, the reading of the image is interrupted immediately at the end of the operation by the operator. However, the reading may be interrupted at the end of the page being read at that time. Further, in the above-described embodiment, two encoding / decoding units are provided. However, the present invention can be applied to a case where one encoding / decoding unit is provided. [Effects] As described above, according to the present invention, the document image reading is started before the transmission operation is completed, and the read image information is stored in the image storage means. A control method for a facsimile apparatus having a shortened transmission mode for transmitting image information stored in a means to a designated destination, comprising: guidance output means for outputting guidance information to an operator; When image information cannot be stored in the image storage unit, the guidance output unit outputs guidance information indicating that the short transmission mode cannot be used and that a transmission operation other than the short transmission mode is to be performed. As a result, during operation, it is possible to notify that the transmission mode has been changed halfway, thereby changing the transmission mode. It is possible to avoid situations in which the operation is continued without noticing that the operation has been performed, resulting in poor operability,
A malfunction such as an erroneous operation procedure can be prevented beforehand, and the transmission operation is not performed irrespective of the normal transmission operation, so that, for example, "an abnormality has occurred in the device." This has the effect of avoiding a situation in which the user thinks.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a document conveying system of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a control system, and FIG. FIGS. 4A and 4B are flowcharts illustrating processing examples executed by the system control unit at the time of transmission. 9 Original document sensor, 10 Scanner, 12 Operation display unit, 13 Image memory, 14, 15 Encoding / decoding unit, 16
… System control unit, 20… Voice response device, 21… Speaker.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] Before the transmission operation is completed, the document image reading is started, the read image information is stored in the image storage unit, and the image information stored in the image storage unit is transmitted to the designated destination when the transmission operation is completed. A method of controlling a facsimile apparatus having a transmission mode, comprising: guidance output means for outputting guidance information to an operator; and when image information cannot be stored in the image storage means when a transmission original is set. Is a method for controlling the facsimile apparatus, wherein the guidance output means outputs guidance information indicating that the reduced transmission mode cannot be used and that a transmission operation other than the reduced transmission mode is performed.