JP3143290B2 - Form creation device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a form creation apparatus suitable for creating a form using a computer having a document processing function such as a personal computer or a word processor, and displaying the form on a display screen or printing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of form apparatus, a form overlay such as a ruled line described in a form is created in advance, and various form data are displayed so as to match the form overlay.

[0003] In recent years, the output forms have become enormous. Therefore, a system for transmitting form data, for example, numerical data from a large-sized computer to a form creation device has also emerged.

[0004] For this purpose, a form creation method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 1-222372, 2-22052 and 4-4-2.
No. 369023 has been proposed. These proposals relate to the correspondence between the format overlay and the print position of the variable data, and have been effective when a new form is created by using the form creation method of these proposals.

[0005]

Conventionally, in this type of document creation apparatus, the user can easily correct the format overlay by using a document processing function. On the other hand, a large-sized computer for transmitting form data transmits form data by a program, so that there is a problem that it is difficult to cope with a change in the number or data type of form data. More specifically, when transmitting a plurality of form data, the data transmission order and the type of each data must be defined in advance in the transmission program. Therefore, when specific data becomes unnecessary or when data is added, the transmission program needs to be changed. In particular, when a plurality of form creation devices are connected to a large-sized computer, the form data transmission program also becomes large-scale, and a large amount of labor and skill of a computer engineer are required for correction.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention, in view of the above, to provide a form creation apparatus capable of reducing the effort of modifying a transmission program of a form data transmission side computer.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention is a form creation apparatus for creating a form by taking form data from an external computer. A storage unit for storing a search definition indicated by the search unit; a form data acquisition unit including the form data to capture data in a text format created by the computer; and a form data having characteristics indicated by the search definition in the storage unit. And a search unit for extracting from the obtained data by a search.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a form creation apparatus for creating a form by fetching form data from an external computer. A form data capturing unit for capturing data in text form created by a computer, form data having characteristics indicated by the search definition in the storage unit, and data having a specific positional relationship with the form data
And a search unit for extracting the data from the fetched data by a search. The invention of claim 3
Is newly created using the data extracted by the search unit.
It is further characterized by an editing unit for creating simple forms.
You.

[0009]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a specific character string, for example, a numerical character string indicating that the character string is within a predetermined numerical range, is included in the document text created by the computer for the purpose of printing or saving as the form data. Take out.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a specific character string, for example, a character string indicating a specific unit and a numeral having a specific positional relationship such as an adjacent character, are selected from document texts created in a computer for printing or storage purposes. Extract a character string as form data.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, reference numeral 10 denotes a computer which is a source of form data to be sent to a form creation device. The present embodiment is characterized in that the form data created by the computer 10 is text format data that can be output to a printing device. Note that the text data is data composed of a character code string constituting a document and a control code indicating a line feed or the like.

Reference numeral 12 denotes a form data taking-in unit for taking form data sent from the computer 10 into the apparatus. 14
Is stored in the device and is stored in the storage device (the storage unit of the present invention).
It is the form raw data stored in. Reference numeral 16 denotes a form data conversion unit that converts form raw data into form data in a predetermined format. Reference numeral 18 denotes a form conversion definition stored in the storage device. Channel code, function code, half-width code, etc. in the data stored in the file of form raw data 14
Information on full-width codes and information for grouping character codes into phrases are also stored in the file of the form conversion definition 18.

Here, the channel code is a control code for instructing the printing apparatus to feed the recording paper line by line. The function code is also called a function code, and is a code for instructing execution of a predetermined process. Half-width and full-width codes are codes that indicate the size of characters.

Reference numeral 20 denotes form data after conversion processing (hereinafter, referred to as converted form data). Reference numeral 22 denotes a character string search unit (search unit of the present invention) for searching for a predetermined character string. 2
Reference numeral 4 denotes a file defining search conditions. Reference numeral 26 denotes a search result file. A form editing unit 28 reorganizes the form using data extracted from the file of the form raw data 14.

Reference numeral 30 denotes an edit definition file in which definitions for editing are described. Reference numeral 32 denotes the created edit form data. Reference numeral 34 denotes a form display unit for performing image composition for displaying edited form data. A form printing unit 36 prints the edited form data. 38 is a display device, 40 is an input device, and 42 is a printing device.

Reference numeral 46 denotes a format overlay, that is, a display pattern file to be combined with the form data. 44
Is a format overlay creation unit for creating this format overlay.

The above is the functional configuration of the present embodiment.
FIG. 3 shows a specific system configuration.

FIG. 3 shows a specific system configuration of a form creation apparatus to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 3, the computer 10
Is connected to the form creation apparatus 100 via the LAN 150. The form creation device 100 includes the following circuits.

The CPU 101 controls the entire apparatus based on a system program stored in the ROM 102. The CPU 101 also executes the control procedures shown in FIGS. 6 to 7 and 9 and creates forms having different formats on the system RAM 103 based on the control procedures. CPU to be described later
101 is the form data conversion unit 16 and the character string search unit 2 in FIG.
2. It operates as the form editing unit 28 and the format overlay creating unit 44. The ROM 2 stores, in addition to programs (control procedures) executed by the CPU 101, parameter values used for device control.

The system RAM 103 temporarily stores data used for information processing of the CPU 101 and information processing results of the CPU 101. The system RAM 103 has an image storage area and also stores image data to be displayed on a CRT (display device) 108. This image data storage area operates as the form display unit 34 in FIG.

A hard disk (storage device) 104 stores received data such as raw form data and form data after editing processing. The hard disk 104 is the form data 1 in FIG.
4, a form conversion definition 18, converted form data 20, search result 26, and a storage device for storing files of edited form data 32.

The printing device 105 prints a form created by the CPU 101. The communication interface 106 performs information communication with the host computer 200 via the LAN 150 as the form data capturing unit 12 in FIG.

The input device 4 shown in FIG.
As 0, an operation instruction to the CPU 101 and input of various information are performed. The CRT 108 displays an image of a form read from the system RAM 103 by the CPU 101 (or a display controller). CRT 108 is shown in FIG.
Operate as a display device.

The operation of the system configuration shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 will now be described.

The computer 10 performs the processing shown in FIG. 4 and outputs the form in the form of a text. That is, the host computer 10 executes the form application program 500 to create the print file 502. FIG. 5 shows an example of the structure of the print file. The print file 502 stores a character code and a control code for each line constituting a form as one record (a name indicating one set of codes) in the host computer.

The record is a character code and the control code is, for example, a kanji code of Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) or a binary code.
There are mixed decimal (EBCDIC) codes. The print position information indicating the print position of these print information is a form format definition 50.
4 files.

The computer 10 uses the output program 506 to print the print file 502 and the form 504.
To create a file after editing and conversion. Computer 10
Is converted from the format overlay source code 516 to the format overlay object 510 by the format overlay creation program. The format overlay source code 516 is created at the time of form design. The computer 10 outputs the created format overlay object 510 and the edited and converted file 508 to a printing device (not shown) by the printer output program 512.

The present embodiment is characterized in that the post-edit conversion file 508 output to the printing apparatus, ie, the text data, is also used on the form creation apparatus side to re-edit the file into a predetermined format. The configuration of the file 508 after editing and conversion will be described with reference to FIG. As in the print file 502, the post-edit conversion file 508 uses one line as one record, and stores a channel control code for determining a print line at the head of the record. It should be noted that the designation of the print line includes the designation of a page change. After that, the print data is stored. A function code indicating the type of the print data and the font to be used is added to the head of the print data.

When the form creation device 1 receives the edited and converted file 508 via the form data fetching unit 12 (the communication interface 106 in FIG. 3), the edited and converted file 508 is converted into the edited raw data 14 in the internal storage device. (The hard disk 104 in FIG. 3).

The form data conversion unit 16 (CPU 10 in FIG. 3)
1) executes a conversion process for form rearrangement according to the form conversion definition 18. More specifically, the form raw data 14 is divided into a group of character strings separated by a function code or a blank character by the processing procedure of FIG. 7, and the divided character strings are re-arranged by the control procedure of FIG. , Chapters, and lines.

The detailed procedure in FIGS. 6 and 7 is actually a CP
Although U101 is described in an executable program language, it is functionally represented for convenience of explanation.

The form converter 16 converts the first form raw data 14
A readout line is set in the first line of the first section of the page, and the raw form data is sequentially read out in units of records (S10).
To loop processing of S90). Each time a specific code indicating the end of a line is detected in the read record, the form conversion unit 1
6 extracts a character string for one line from the form raw data 14 by combining the records read so far (S70). In addition, a specific code that satisfies the condition shown in FIG. 10 is detected in the read record to satisfy the condition of FIG.
0).

By executing the above processing, the form conversion unit 16 takes out the form raw data for each section and stores it as converted form data 20 in the storage device (hard disk 104) (see FIG. 1).

On the other hand, when the CPU 101 operates as the character string search unit 22, it extracts a character string that satisfies the conditions specified in the search definition 24 and creates a search result 26. The character string divided and extracted in the above-described processing is handled as a search target.

FIG. 11 shows an example of search conditions for this purpose. The information of the character string that satisfies the search condition is transcribed to the search definition 24 as it is. For example, if a specific title, term, or the like is No. It is detected by the determination formula of 1. In addition, the character code string of the number is converted into a numerical code. 5-No. The character string to be compared is discriminated according to the magnitude of the numerical value by the determination formula of No. 9. With the above processing, it is possible to detect a character string and numerical data used for rearranging a form included in the form.

When the form conversion unit 16 starts the processing procedure of FIG. 6, single data is sequentially read from the head of the divided data, and when data of a blank (space) code is detected (S130). , Before and after the blank code are determined to be line, phrase, and page breaks, and the form conversion unit 16 compares the character string before the blank code with information indicating the line, phrase, and page breaks in the divided character. It is added to the column and stored in the storage device. It is well known that the types of line, phrase, and page breaks can be identified by examining a period code code and a tab code accompanying a blank code, and thus detailed description is omitted.

The CP when operating as the form editing unit 28
U101 sequentially extracts data necessary for editing from the conversion form data 20 based on the character string stored in the file of the search result 26 according to the editing definition 30 prepared in advance, and converts the extracted conversion form data 20 into a diagram. System R of 3
Rearrange on the AM 103. By this rearrangement processing, new editing form data 32 is created, and the hard disk 10
4 is stored.

The edit definition 30 used for this rearrangement process
FIG. 8 shows an example of the structure of FIG. The edit definition 30 is edit information,
It is divided into fixed part information and variable part information. The editing information is information such as the name of the editing form data 32 to be created. . The fixed part information is a fixed character string such as a header that does not change. The fixed part information is classified into one that is output when the page of the form is changed, one that is output immediately before printing the variable part information described later, and one that is output at the last position of the page. Note that one print data in FIG. 8 is a character string.

The print information in the variable part information is the search result 26
Conversion form data 20 based on a specific character string taken from
It has information indicating the type of print information that can be collected from the server and the output method. In this embodiment, it is possible to output information by designating information on a line or a (minute) segment containing the specific character string or a blank line by using print information. Also, by adopting a format in which a character string relatively obtained based on the searched character string is printed at the next position of the search result, for example, a character string at a relative position (specific positional relationship) is obtained. It can also be relocated to the specified column position and output.
The print information also includes designation information for performing such rearrangement processing.

The form editing unit 28 for newly executing re-editing using the above-described editing definition 30, ie, the CPU 1
01 is shown in FIG. According to the control procedure of FIG. 9, the form editing unit 28 instructs the output of the fixed portion at the top of the page, the output of the fixed portion before output of the variable portion, the output of the fixed portion after output of the variable portion, the output of the fixed portion at the end of the page, etc. Is determined (S340, S360, S390, S420), and the instructed editing process is executed. Note that the output is not performed for those for which there is no output instruction from the fixed unit. The output of the variable portion is printed once, and all print information specified by the variable portion print information number in FIG. 8 is printed.

The user previously inputs a fixedly used character string or a ruled line using an input device (keyboard 107 in FIG. 3).

The CPU 101 makes the format overlay creating section 4
4, the format overlay creation unit 44 performs the same document processing as a conventional document processing device such as a word processor based on information input by the user, and generates a format overlay file for describing the edited form data 32. 46 is created in advance.

When the user inputs a request to print a form from the input device 40, the form display unit 34 (in this case, the CPU 101 executing the form display program) passes control to the form print program, and the form print unit 36 An image of the form is created and printed by the printing device 42.
More specifically, the edit data 32 and the overlay data 46 on the hard disk 104 are converted into image data and synthesized in the system RAM 103. The synthesized image data is transferred to the printing device 105, and the printing process is executed. When the user instructs the form display processing, the form data in the image form is displayed on the CRT1.
08 and displayed. The printing process is continuously performed, but the display process is performed for each page of the form, and is performed every time the user inputs a page switching designation from the input device 40.

As described above, in this embodiment, the form creation device 1 receives text form data, and the form creation device 1 extracts a specific character string and a related character string from the form data. Therefore, the computer 10 transmitting the form data does not need to pay attention to the data transmission order. In addition, since the form data used for printing is transmitted to the form creation device 1, the computer 10 does not need to create two types of form data for printing and for the form creation device as in the related art.

Further, it is not necessary for the computer 10 to create a different form output program for each of the plurality of form creation apparatuses 1. Since each form creation device 1 extracts the character string that the user wants from the form data in the text form by the search processing, the computer 10 needs to inform the form creation device 1 of the position of the character string to be extracted and the transmission order. Note that there is no.

The following example can be carried out in addition to this embodiment.

1) In the present embodiment, an example of visible output in which the character string extracted from the computer 10 and the format overlay created by the form creation device 1 are combined and displayed and printed has been described. It is also possible to perform visible output only by rearranging the columns. In this case, a form-only output mode and a format overlay combining mode are provided, and the user specifies the mode from the input device 40. Further, a mode for visually outputting the form raw data 14, a mode for visually outputting the search result 26, and a mode for visually outputting the converted form data are provided, and the data corresponding to the mode is visually output under the control of the CPU 101 according to the user's mode designation. You can also.

2) In this embodiment, a character string of a numeral in the received form data is extracted by identifying the range of the numeral, but a unit attached to the numeral, for example, a circle,%,
Various units such as $, rpm, V, etc. can be identified and a numeric character string attached to these units can be extracted. Needless to say, these units can be used for a character string to be re-edited together with a numerical character string. In this case, search definition 2
A character string indicating a unit is described in 4 and the character string search unit 22 searches for a character string of a unit and a number adjacent to the unit.

3) The search definition 24, the form conversion definition 18, and the edit definition 30 used in the present embodiment may be selectively transmitted from the computer to the form creation apparatus 1. In this case, the number of transmissions is only one.

4) In the present embodiment, the document text created by the computer 10 for printing is received by the form creation device 1. However, the document text created not only for printing but also for storage may be received. Good.

[0053]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since desired form data can be extracted from texts such as documents received from the computer by searching and used to create forms, it is not necessary for the computer to consider the order of transmission of character strings, and it is possible to increase or decrease the form data transmitted. It is not affected.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a specific system configuration according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a processing procedure on the computer 10 side.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of a text.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing processing contents related to creation of a form.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing processing contents related to creation of a form.

8 is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of an edit definition 30. FIG.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing processing contents related to creation of a form.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing grouping conditions.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing search conditions.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 form creation device 2 form data import unit 10 computer 22 character string search unit 24 search definition

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A form creation device for creating form by taking form data from an external computer, comprising: a storage unit for storing a search definition indicating a characteristic of the form data; and a form created by the computer including the form data. A form comprising: a form data fetching unit that fetches data in text form; and a search unit that extracts form data having characteristics indicated by the search definition in the storage unit from the fetched data by searching. Creating device. 2. A form creation device for taking form data from an external computer to create a form, comprising: a storage unit for storing a search definition indicating characteristics of the form data; and a form created by the computer including the form data. a form data capture unit for capturing the data of the text form, are extracted by searching the data in a specific positional relationship with the form data and該帳form data having the characteristics indicated by the search definition of the storage unit from among the data fetched the Search section and
A form creation device characterized by comprising: 3. Using the data extracted by the search unit.
Editing section to create a new report using
3. Form creation according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that
apparatus.