JP3051496B2 - Document processing method and apparatus - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document processing method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a document processing method and apparatus capable of connecting a plurality of printers having different fonts, selecting a font arbitrarily, and editing and outputting a document. About.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a document processing apparatus, there is a method in which typeface information to be mounted on a printer is provided in a main body of the apparatus, and a font to be used is selected based on the information when editing and printing a document. Had been taken.

[0003]

However, in the above conventional example, in the case of a system configuration in which a plurality of printers having different fonts are connected to one document processing apparatus, the printers are mounted on the apparatus main body side. Because of the typeface information, printers that can always be used by the apparatus main body are limited, and it has not been possible to edit and print document data by selecting a desired font from any printer.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and provides a document processing method and apparatus capable of dynamically selecting fonts mounted on a plurality of printers and using the fonts for document editing and printing. It is intended to be.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, a document processing method according to the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, in a document processing method capable of communicating with a plurality of printers having different fonts, a step of instructing a font selection at the time of outputting a document, and collecting the font information of the plurality of printers in response to the instruction of the step A step of generating a window for displaying font information based on the collected font information and displaying the window; a step of selecting a desired font from the font information displayed in the window; and Instructing any one of the plurality of printers having the selected font to print the document.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document processing apparatus for connecting a plurality of printing means having different fonts, wherein the display means displays a document and information related to the document, and each of the plurality of printing means. Communication means for giving and receiving print information, font selection instruction means for instructing font selection at the time of output of the document, and font information possessed by the plurality of printing means in response to an instruction from the font selection instruction means. Window generating means for generating a window for displaying font information based on the font information and displaying the window on the display means, and selecting and instructing a desired font from the font information displayed in the window. Font selecting means, and the plurality of printing means having the font selected by the font selecting means. Comprising a document processing apparatus characterized by having a print instruction unit that instructs the printing of the document for either.

[0007]

With the above arrangement, the present invention collects font information of each of a plurality of printing means at the time of font selection, generates and displays a window of the font information, and selects a desired font from the window. Then, it operates to instruct the printing means having the selected font to print a document.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

A document referred to in this embodiment is a generic term including a sentence (including a table), a figure, an image, and the like.

[Schematic Description of System (FIGS. 1 and 2)] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a document processing system as a typical embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a system bus.
Connected to bus 1. 2 is a CPU. Reference numeral 3 denotes a program memory (hereinafter, referred to as PMEM), which selects and reads a program for editing processing from the hard disk 15 as appropriate and executes the program by the CPU 2.

Data input from the keyboard 9 is stored as code information in the PMEM 3 which is also a text memory. Reference numeral 8 denotes an input control unit to which input devices such as a keyboard 9 and a mouse 10 are connected. The operator operates the keyboard 9 to issue a system operation command or the like. Reference numeral 10 denotes a pointing device (hereinafter referred to as P) for instructing processing of image information on a CRT 13.
In this embodiment, a mouse is used. With this operation, the cursor on the CRT 13 is arbitrarily moved in the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) directions to select a command icon on the command menu to give an instruction for processing, an instruction for editing, an instruction for a drawing position, and the like. I do.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a video image memory (hereinafter, VR)
AM), 12 is a display output control unit, and 13 is a CRT. The data displayed on the CRT 13 is the VRAM 11
Above is deployed as bitmap data. For example, if it is character data, a character pattern corresponding to the code is developed in the VRAM. It is also possible to generate and display a cursor directly on the display area of the VRAM by software control. 14 is an external storage device controller, 1
Reference numerals 5 and 16 denote external storage media (disks and the like) for data files. For example, 15 is a hard disk (hereinafter, referred to as HD), and 16 is a floppy disk (hereinafter, FD).
).

Further, the document processing system of the present embodiment receives the typeface / character size instruction information, print position, character code string, etc. transmitted from the communication control unit 4 via the communication port 5 and the communication line 6. A plurality of printers 7 are connected to develop a print bitmap image using character fonts or the like possessed in the own device and print out.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the printer 7. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 21 denotes a system bus;
Each component described below is connected to the system bus 21. Reference numeral 22 denotes a CPU, and 23 denotes a PMEM, which reads a program for print bit map image development and output processing from the hard disk 28 or the ROM 30 as appropriate, and executes the program.

The data received and input via the communication port 32 via the communication line 33 and the communication control unit 31 is stored as code information in the PMEM 23 which is also a text memory. 24 is an image memory (hereinafter referred to as IM)
EM), 25 is a print output control unit, 26 is a print output unit, and the print image is I / O data as bit map data.
After being developed in the MEM 24, it is output to the print output unit 26 under the control of the print output control unit 25. 29 is an external storage device control unit, 28 and 27 are data file disks, 27 is FD, and 28 is HD. A ROM 30 stores character font control information, bit map data, contour information, etc., a printer 7 control program, and the like.

[Structure of Font Management Data (FIG. 3)] FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the structure of font management data installed in the printer 7. The printer 7 has management data having a structure as shown in FIG. 3 for each typeface, and these data can be fetched into the apparatus main body in response to a request from the apparatus main body. In FIG. 3, reference numeral 41 denotes a typeface id code for internally recognizing typeface data; 42, a typeface name character code for displaying a typeface name in a typeface selection window; 43, such as dot data, compressed data, vector data, etc. Data types id and 44 for identifying the data type of the pattern are other typeface management data groups such as version and pattern box size.

[Description of Font Selection Window (FIG. 4)] FIG. 4 is a view showing an example of a font selection window created based on the font management data mounted on each printer 7 described with reference to FIG. is there. In FIG. 4, the printer A has font data of Chinese Mincho, textbook, and square fonts, the printer B has font data of Chinese Mincho, regular, and cursive fonts, and the printer C has gothic and regular fonts. A state in which body font data is registered is shown. In FIG. 4, the typeface data is selected by using the mouse 10 shown in FIG.
Alternatively, the selection is made by inputting a selection instruction from any of the keyboards 9. For example, in the case of a selection instruction using the mouse 10, a desired typeface area in FIG. 4 may be clicked, and in the case of the keyboard 9, a numerical value corresponding to the desired typeface displayed in the window may be input. .

[Font Selection Window Generation Process and Document Output by Font Selection (FIGS. 5 to 7)] Here, a font selection window generation process executed by the document processing system having the above configuration and document output by font selection. Will be described with reference to a flowchart shown in FIG. 7 using the document example shown in FIG. 5 and the print data shown in FIG.

First, in step S1, an operator of the system issues a font change instruction while editing an existing document or a font selection instruction while creating a new document. Next, in step S2,
The CPU 2 of the system of this embodiment inquires each printer 7 via the communication control unit 4 about the fonts mounted on each printer, and obtains font management data having the structure shown in FIG.

In step S3, the font i and the font name code in the font management data obtained in step S2 are associated with each other, and the printer i which specifies each printer is specified.
A typeface selection window is created from the information of d, and the typeface selection window is displayed on the CRT 13. FIG. 5 (a)
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a state in which a font change is instructed on a document editing screen 51 displayed on the CRT 13 and a font selection window 52 is displayed. Next, in step S4, the displayed window is in a state of waiting for an instruction input from the mouse 10 or the keyboard 9. Here, when an instruction is input to the font selection window 52, the process proceeds to step S5. Here, as shown in FIG. 5 (a), it is assumed that the font of the printer C is selected from this window and the font of the document data being edited is changed to the font.

In step S5, the instruction input in step S4 is analyzed, and the corresponding typeface id and printer id are set to character data in the print data.

When the data is printed, the result is shown in FIG.
The data is output in gothic form as indicated by 53 shown in FIG.
At this time, the print data sent from the system main body to the printer, which is the target, ie, the printer in which the desired font is mounted, is as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 6, the print data is composed of character data 61, graphic data 62, and image data 63. Both the graphic data and the image data are stored in the main body or the printer. Raster development may be used. On the other hand, the character data is sent from the main body as code data, and the font data specified according to the code data is rasterized into a desired format on the printer side. Reference numeral 71 denotes a printer id, and print data is sent to a printer corresponding to the id.

The character data 61 is a character code to be printed,
A font id (identical to the font id 41 shown in FIG. 3) 6 for identifying the font data of the character string data 64 and the character code 64 from which font data is obtained
5. Information 66 on how to transform the font pattern and rasterize it, fill information 67 on the font pattern, font pattern vertical and horizontal size (dot size or print character size) 68, font pattern rotation size 69, and It is composed of font pattern development reference point data 70.

When the printer 7 receives such print data, the printer 7 rasterizes a font pattern uniquely obtained according to the typeface id and the character code data according to the development parameters of the character data, and prints the pattern. Output.

Therefore, according to this embodiment, the system can collect typeface information from the printer connected to the system and select the typeface information from the printer connected to the system, and display the information as a list in the window. The user can select a desired font from the various font information possessed by the printer and output a document from a printer having the selected font.

In this embodiment, the print result output by changing the typeface has been described. For example, the font pattern data raster-developed on the printer side is printed using the data communication function between the printer and the system body in the same manner as printing. By transferring to the VRAM of the system itself,
It is also possible to select a plurality of fonts from different printers for one document data and display the result on a CRT.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5A, the size of the font selection window has been described as being appropriately fit in the document editing screen 51 displayed on the CRT 13. However, the present invention is not limited to this.
For example, when the number of connected printers or the number of installed fonts is large and the size of the font selection window becomes large, FIG.
A window having a scroll or page feed function as shown in FIG. In this case, for example,
In FIG. 8, when the lower scroll bar is clicked with the mouse 10 in the window display state of 72, the display changes to a window display state of 77, and when the lower page turning bar 76 is clicked with the mouse 10, the display state changes to a window display state of 78. On the other hand, for scrolling or page turning in the direction opposite to the direction shown in FIG. 8, the upper page turning bar 73 or the upper scroll bar 74 may be clicked.

The present invention may be applied to a system constituted by a plurality of devices, may be applied to an apparatus constituted by one device, or may be applied to a system or an apparatus for supplying a program. It goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where the above is achieved, and further to a system in which processing is performed via a network such as a LAN.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, font information is collected from each connected printing means, a desired font is selected, and a document is output to the printing means having the selected font. Therefore, for example, in a system in which a plurality of printers are connected, there is an effect that more flexible document processing can be performed by dynamically using an arbitrary printer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a document processing system according to a representative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printer connected to the document processing system.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a structure of font management data mounted on a printer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a typeface selection window.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a font example and a print example of the result.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a structure of print data.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a font selection window creation process.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a display example of a typeface selection window with scroll and page feed functions.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 21 System bus 2, 22 CPU 3, 23 Program memory (PMEM) 4, 31 Communication control unit 5, 32 Communication port 6, 33 Communication line 7 Printer 8 Input control unit 9 Keyboard 10 Mouse 11 VRAM 12 Display output control unit 13 CRT 14, 29 External storage device control unit 15, 28 Hard disk (HD) 16, 27 Floppy disk (FD) 24 Image memory (IMEM) 25 Print output control unit 26 Print output unit 30 ROM

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Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] In a document processing method capable of communicating with a plurality of printers having different fonts, a step of instructing selection of a font at the time of outputting a document, and font information held by the plurality of printers triggered by the instruction of the step Collecting, and based on the collected font information,
Generating a window for displaying font information and displaying the window; selecting a desired font from the font information displayed in the window; and selecting a desired font from the plurality of printers having the font selected by the step. Instructing any one of them to print the document. 2. A document processing apparatus for connecting a plurality of printing means having different fonts, a display means for displaying a document and information related to the document, and transmitting and receiving print information to and from each of the plurality of printing means. Communication means, font selection instructing means for instructing font selection at the time of output of the document, font information possessed by the plurality of printing means triggered by the instruction by the font selection instructing means, via the communication means, A window generating unit for generating a window for displaying font information based on the font information and displaying the window on the display unit; a font selecting unit for selecting and indicating a desired font from the font information displayed on the window; For any of the plurality of printing means having the font selected by the font selecting means, A document instructing unit for instructing printing of a document.