JP3133467B2 - Portable document reading device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for temporarily inputting document information or the like input by a word processor or a character recognition device or provided from a host machine connected online.
The present invention relates to a portable text-to-speech apparatus that can be stored in a portable storage device such as a C card and can listen to this information at an arbitrary location by a ruled speech synthesis.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional text-to-speech apparatus is disclosed in
As disclosed in JP-A-38716, a key operation is used to perform rule-based synthesis of the cursor position, the phrases before and after the cursor position, and sentences in a column, or to perform rule-based speech synthesis sequentially from a designated column. Was. In the conventional method, document information is sent to a document reading-out device while being connected online to a document creation / input device such as a word processor, and then the document is sequentially subjected to regular speech synthesis by a speech synthesis device.

[0003] Such a document reading device is connected online to a document preparation device such as a word processor, and it is impossible to listen to the document while disconnecting the connection circuit with the word processor or the like, for example, carrying it in a headphone stereo. Was.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and is intended to accept document information created by a word processor document creation device or the like or document information provided from a host machine online. It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable document reading device capable of temporarily storing information in a portable storage device and reading the information at an arbitrary place.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an utterance switch means and a file title utterance switch means in the portable document reading device so that the file contents and file title can be read aloud as appropriate.

It is another object of the present invention to search for the time required for reading out the entire amount of document information stored in the portable storage means by the capacity discrimination means and synthesize the ruled speech.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A portable document reader of the present invention.
Lifting device, a portable first storage means for storing document information
And the document information transferred from the first storage means.
A second storage means, and the second storage means stored in the second storage means.
Address point means for specifying the address of document information
The document information amount stored in the second storage means
A volume utterance switch means pressed when synthesizing voice;
Based on the command from the capacity vocal switch means, the second
Capacity determining means for searching the amount of document information stored in the storage means
In accordance with the search result of the capacity determination means.
Rule that synthesizes the amount of document information stored in storage
And a combining circuit.

[0008]

[0009]

According to the present invention, document information classified as a file title and file contents is stored in a portable first storage means such as an IC card, and the document information stored in the storage means is stored in a portable document reading device in a portable document reading device. 2 to the storage means, and retrieves the file contents in the second storage means based on the command from the voice switch means, and the file title in the second memory means based on the command from the file title voice switch means, Synthesizes the contents of the file and the title of the file with a rule.

Further, the portable document reading apparatus is provided with a capacity discriminating means capable of searching for the time required for synthesizing the entire document information in a regular speech, and the time is also subjected to the regular speech synthesis in the same manner as the document information.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A first embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS.
It will be described based on.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a file title ($ 1, $ 2, $ 3,...) And its file contents ($ 1, $ 2, $ 3,...) As shown in FIG. And a portable storage means for storing document information comprising an IC card. A document buffer memory 2 for storing document information transferred from the IC card 1;
Designates an address of the document information stored in the document buffer memory 2 and an address pointer which designates a boundary between the file title and the file contents. Rule synthesizing circuit that utters rule synthesized speech based on
Reference numeral 1 denotes an utterance switch which is depressed when synthesizing a file title and file contents in the document buffer memory 2 in a ruled speech manner; Based on the determination result of the determination circuit 6, the document buffer memory 2
A search circuit for searching for the file titles (# 1, # 2, # 3,...) And the contents of the files (# 1, # 2, # 3,...). It is a clock generation circuit to be performed.

In such a configuration, the feature of the first embodiment is that when the utterance switch 5a1 is pressed, both the file title and the file contents are read out sequentially, and the flow is described based on the flowchart of FIG. explain.

In step S1, the utterance switch 5a
When 1 is pressed, the process proceeds to step S2. In step S2, a search is made for a file title in the document buffer memory 2, and in step S3, a search is made for the file contents in the document buffer memory 2. In step S4, the rule synthesis circuit 4 sequentially synthesizes the search results performed in steps S2 and S3 in a rule speech.

In step S5, if there is any file to be read, the process returns to step S2. If there is no file to be read, the process is terminated.

Next, the reading operation of the document shown in FIG. 5 will be specifically described with reference to the block diagram of FIG.

First, all document information in the IC card 1 is transferred to the document buffer memory 2.

Thereafter, when the utterance switch 5a1 is pressed, a utterance switch pressing signal PU1 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the pressed switch determination circuit 6.

The address pointer 3 is an address at which the file titles of $ 1, $ 2, $ 3, ... and the file contents of $ 1, $ 2, $ 3, ... are stored and held in accordance with the signal PU1. Is sent to the document buffer memory 2.

Further, the depression switch discrimination circuit 6 detects the signal PU1 from the utterance switch 5a1, and
, And a search signal SS for searching for the file titles # 1, # 2, # 3,... And the file contents # 1, # 2, # 3,. Send out. In the document buffer memory 2, based on the address signal AS and the search signal SS, the file titles # 1, # 2, # 3,.
.., And the file titles and file contents are sent from the document buffer memory 2 to the rule synthesizing circuit 4. When combining ...
Test Results FIG. 2 shows the test results.・ ・ ・ ・ ・ 」
Rule speech synthesis is performed as follows.

Next, a second embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
It will be described based on. The difference from the first embodiment is that the utterance switch 5a2 is depressed when synthesizing the file contents in the document buffer memory 2 in a ruled speech, and is depressed when the file title in the document buffer memory 2 is synthesized in a ruled speech. Is provided with a file title utterance switch 5b. Further, it is determined which of the utterance switch 5a2 and the file title utterance switch 5b has been pressed, and the file title utterance switch 5b is determined.
That is, a push switch determination circuit 6 that counts the number of times b is pressed is provided. More specifically, pressing the file title utterance switch 5b an odd number of times results in a first mode in which the file title is read out, and pressing the even number of times causes a second mode in which the file title is not read out. Will be described based on the flowchart of FIG.

In step S1, the utterance switch 5a
When 2 is pressed, the process proceeds to step S2. In step S2, if the file title utterance switch 5b has been pressed an even number of times (second mode), step S4 to be described later
If the button has been pressed an odd number of times (first mode), the procedure proceeds to step S3. In step S3, after searching for a file title in the document buffer memory 2, the process proceeds to step S4. In step S4, after searching for the file contents in the document buffer memory 2, the process proceeds to step S5, where the file title and the file contents sent to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 are sequentially synthesized by rule speech.

In step S6, if there is a file to be read out yet, the process proceeds to step S7, and if there is no file to be read out, the process ends. In step S7,
If the file title utterance switch 5b has been pressed an odd number of times (first mode), the process proceeds to step S3,
If the button has been pressed an even number of times (second mode), the process returns to step S4.

According to the operation setting of FIG. 7, the reading operation of the document of FIG. 5 is performed based on the block diagram of FIG.
The two cases (B) will be specifically described. (A) Reading out only file contents All document information in the IC card 1 is transferred to the document buffer memory 2.

Thereafter, when the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, a utterance switch pressing signal PU1 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the pressed switch determination circuit 6. Address pointer 3 receives signals {1, # 2, #} according to signal PU1.
An address signal AS for specifying an address at which the file contents of 3,... Are stored is sent to the document buffer memory 2.

The press switch discriminating circuit 6 includes the utterance switch 5
A signal PU1 from a2 is detected, and the determination circuit 6 sends a search signal SS for searching the file contents # 1, # 2, # 3,... in the document buffer memory 2 to the search circuit 7. In the document buffer memory 2, based on the address signal AS and the search signal SS, the file contents
1, # 2, $ 3,... Are sequentially searched, and the contents of the file are sent from the document buffer memory 2 to the rule synthesizing circuit 4.・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ The test results are shown in Fig.2.
... ". (B) Reading out both file title and file contents All document information in the IC card 1 is transferred to the document buffer memory 2.

Thereafter, when the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, a utterance switch pressing signal PU1 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the pressed switch determination circuit 6. Also,
When the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed once (first mode), a file title utterance switch press signal PU2 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the press switch discrimination circuit 6.

The address pointer 3 uses those signals PU
1. An address signal AS for designating an address at which a file title and file contents are stored and held according to PU2 is sent to the document buffer memory 2. Further, the push switch determination circuit 6 outputs signals PU1 and PU2 from the utterance switch 5a2 and the file title utterance switch 5b.
The determination circuit 6 sends a search signal SS for searching the file title and file contents in the document buffer memory 2 to the search circuit 7. In the document buffer memory 2, a file title and file contents are sequentially searched based on the address signal AS and the search signal SS, and the file title and file contents are read from the document buffer memory 2 into the rule synthesizing circuit 4. And in the rule synthesizing circuit 4 "Test method When synthesizing a reading-style voice, ..... Test result Fi
g. 2 shows the test results. ... ".

In the above description, the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed immediately after the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, and both the file title and the file contents are read out from the beginning, but after the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, the file contents are read out. Even if the file title utterance switch 5b is depressed once during the reading, both the file title and the file contents thereafter are read out.

Further, if the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed once more while both the file title and the file content are read out, only the file content is read out.

Next, a third embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
It will be described based on. The difference from the second embodiment is that when the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed, the pressed switch discriminating circuit 6 gives priority to the end of the sentence of the sentence currently read out, and the file title of the file content of the sentence is converted to the rule synthesizing circuit. 4 and a sentence boundary discriminating circuit 9 for sending to the address pointer 3 a signal for storing the address of the sentence being read when the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed. A description will be given based on FIG.

In step S1, the utterance switch 5a
When 2 is pressed, the process proceeds to step S2. In step S2, the contents of the file in the document buffer memory 2 are searched, and the contents of the file are sent from the document buffer memory 2 to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 for each sentence. In step S3, the content sent to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 is subjected to rule-based speech synthesis for each sentence.

In step S4, if there is a file to be read out yet, the process proceeds to step S5, and if there is no file to be read out, the process ends. In step S5,
If the file title utterance switch 5b has been pressed an odd number of times, the process proceeds to step S6, and if it has been pressed an even number of times, the process returns to step S2.

In step S6, the speech synthesis of the file contents is temporarily interrupted, and the flow advances to step S7 to proceed to step S7.
After searching for the file title of the file content at the time of the interruption in step 6, the process returns to step S2, and thereafter, the same operation as described above is performed.

The reading operation of the document shown in FIG. 5 according to the operation setting shown in FIG. 8 will be specifically described based on the block diagram shown in FIG.

In FIG. 1, all the document information in the IC card 1 is transferred to the document buffer memory 2.

Thereafter, when the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, a utterance switch pressing signal PU1 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the pressed switch discriminating circuit 6. The address pointer 3 sends to the document buffer memory 2 an address signal AS for specifying an address at which the file content according to the signal PU1 is stored and held. The depression switch discrimination circuit 6 detects the signal PU1 from the utterance switch 5a2, and the discrimination circuit 6 instructs the retrieval circuit 7 to retrieve the search signal SS for retrieving the file contents in the document buffer memory 2.
Is sent. In the document buffer memory 2, the file contents are sequentially searched based on the address signal AS and the search signal SS, and the file contents are sent from the document buffer memory 2 to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 via the sentence boundary discriminating circuit 9. The sentence is sent for each sentence, and the rule synthesizing circuit 4 “when synthesizing a reading-sound voice, the range in which the pitch changes is
It is considered about 1.3 octaves. Is synthesized as a rule voice.

On the other hand, during the rule-based speech synthesis of the file contents,
When the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed, a file title utterance switch pressing signal PU2 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the pressing switch determination circuit 6,
The search circuit 7 sends a search signal SS to the document buffer memory 2.

The pressed switch discriminating circuit 6 causes the text boundary discriminating circuit 9 to preferentially read out the file title of the file content next to the sentence in the currently read out file content according to the file title utterance switch pressing signal PU2. Send a signal. In accordance with this, the sentence boundary determining circuit 9 sends to the address pointer 3 a signal for storing the address at the end of the sentence of the sentence being read.

The address pointer 3 follows the signal,
When the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed, an address signal AS for designating an address at which the file title immediately before the sentence that has been speech-synthesized is stored and sent to the document buffer memory 2.

As a result, a file title is searched based on the address signal AS and the search signal SS sent to the document buffer memory 2, and the search result is sent to the sentence boundary determination circuit 9. This sentence boundary determination circuit 9
Sends the file title to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 prior to the file content after the sentence that was read out earlier, and synthesizes the rule speech as in the "test method".

Thereafter, the sentence located at the next address is searched based on the last address of the sentence of the last read sentence stored in the address pointer 3, and the contents of the file are read as described above. In step 4, a regular voice synthesis is performed as in "for the original voice sound, between -0.6 octave and +0.6 octave ...".

As described above, in the third embodiment, when the utterance switch 5a2 is pressed, the contents of the file are read aloud sequentially one sentence. If the file title utterance switch 5b is pressed during the reading, the switch 5a is pressed.
After the sentence was interrupted at the end of the sentence that was being read when b was pressed, the reading of the file title of the file content of that sentence was read, and then the next sentence was added following the sentence that was interrupted earlier. Can read aloud.

As described above, a document as shown in FIG. 5 is stored and held in the IC card 1, and this document information is used for the total capacity used in the IC card 1 or the used capacity. A method of knowing the standard of time required for synthesizing the entire document information in a regular speech will be described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 4, reference numeral 5c designates that the document is the IC card 1.
The capacity vocal switch 10 depressed when synthesizing the used capacity used in the ruled voice is checked with the capacity vocal switch 5c, and checks the used capacity of the document information with respect to the total capacity of the IC card 1 with the depression of the capacity vocal switch 5c. This is a capacity discriminating circuit for converting the used capacity into a character code, and the description of the other components is omitted since it is the same as that of the first embodiment.

In the figure, the document information of the IC card 1 is transferred to the document buffer memory 2. Voice switch 5
When c is pressed, a capacitance utterance switch pressing signal CA1 is sent to the address pointer 3 and the capacitance discrimination circuit 10. The capacity discriminating circuit 10 sends a capacity discriminating signal CC to the document buffer memory 2, and the address pointer 3 sequentially increments the address in the document buffer memory 2 in synchronization with the clock generating circuit 8. The capacity used in the storage is checked, and these capacities are sent to the capacity determination circuit 10. The capacity discriminating circuit 10 once converts the capacity into a character code and then sends the data to the rule synthesizing circuit 4 so that the rule synthesizing circuit 4 uses, for example, "the used capacity is 1.5 megabytes." The time required to read out all the document information of the IC card is one hour. ", And the regular voice synthesis is performed, and the used capacity of the IC card 1 can be heard as voice like the document information.

In the above description, the volume used of the document information or the time required for reading out the entire document information is performed by pressing the volume utterance switch 5c when synthesizing the regular voice. However, the present invention is not limited to this. However, it goes without saying that, for example, when the IC card 1 is set in the portable document reading device of the present invention, the volume utterance switch 5c is automatically depressed to synthesize a rule speech.

[0048]

As described above, according to the present invention, how much document information is stored in the portable storage means can be easily searched in accordance with the capacity discrimination means. In addition, it is possible to skip over the document information.

[0049]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a first block diagram for reading out a file title and file contents.

FIG. 2 is a second block diagram for appropriately reading out a file title in addition to reading out a file content.

FIG. 3 is a third block diagram in which the reading of the file content is temporarily suspended and the reading of the file title is performed;

FIG. 4 is a fourth block diagram for checking the amount of document information stored in a portable storage unit;

FIG. 5 is an example of a read-out document of a file title and file contents

FIG. 6 is a flowchart according to a first block diagram for reading out a file title and file contents.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart according to a second block diagram for appropriately reading out a file title in addition to reading out a file content.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart according to a third block diagram in which the reading of the file content is temporarily suspended and the reading of the file title is performed;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 IC card 2 Document buffer memory 3 Address pointer 4 Rule synthesis circuit 5a1, 5a2 Voice switch 5b File title voice switch 6 Press switch discrimination circuit 7 Search circuit 8 Clock generation circuit 9 Text boundary discrimination circuit 10 Capacity discrimination circuit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Norihiro Tatsuta 2-18-18 Keihanhondori, Moriguchi-shi, Osaka Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-2-252020 (JP, A) JP-A Sho JP-A-5-188699 (JP, A) JP-A-4-191899 (JP, A) JP-A-5-232982 (JP, A) JP-A-3-171198 (JP, A) A) JP-A-59-32886 (JP, A) JP-A-59-91390 (JP, A) JP-A-5-281988 (JP, A) JP-A-5-281987 (JP, A) −38716 (JP, B2) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G10L 11/00-13/08 G10L 19/00-21/06 G06F 3/16 330 G06F 3/16 340

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A portable first storage for storing document information.
Means and document information transferred from the first storage means.
The second storage means to be stored, and the second storage means stored in the second storage means.
Address point method to specify the address of the above document information
And a rule for determining the document information amount stored in the second storage means.
Volume utterance switch means pressed when synthesizing voice;
Based on the command from the capacity vocal switch means,
(2) Capacity determination for searching the amount of document information stored in the storage means
Means according to the search result of the capacity determining means.
Rule for synthesizing the amount of document information stored in the storage
And a rule combining circuit.
Reading device .