JP3493269B2 - How to check character output format - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for confirming a character output form, and in particular, when a document is finally output by a plate making device, the document is temporarily output to an output device such as a printer or a display in advance The present invention relates to a method for confirming in advance whether characters included in a document will be output in a correct form in the end.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When printing books, magazines, pamphlets, etc., proofreading is generally performed before printing. For example, in the work by the DTP system, before inputting the document data to the plate making device that forms the print content (document, image, etc.) on the plate making film (or printing plate), an output device such as a printer or a display (hereinafter simply referred to as " It is often tried to temporarily output the document to an "output device". By carefully examining the print result and display result of the output device, the worker confirms in advance whether or not the characters included in the document are output in a form that matches the order specification.

[0003]

The problem in such proofreading lies in visually confirming the output form of characters. For example, when similar typefaces and characters of similar character types are mixed, particularly when a typeface different from the printed matter is displayed using a substitute typeface, the confirmation work becomes difficult. Therefore, a check omission may occur in the preliminary confirmation by the output device. If the document data is sent to the plate-making device in a state where there is a check failure, it may cause a great economic and time loss.

The present invention has been made in view of this point,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method capable of easily and surely performing this operation when characters are temporarily output to an output device for preliminary confirmation.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-166235 discloses an editing device for character information. This device
For multiple characters that have the same character information such as a typeface, the character information is collectively converted to different character information. However, this device is concerned with confirmation of the output form of characters in proofreading,
For example, no consideration is given to displaying the character to be confirmed in a highly visible form.

[0006]

(1) The character output form confirmation method of the present invention is a method for confirming beforehand in which form the characters included in a document will be output when the document is output. Yes, font size, typeface and font
At least one of the output form elements of the character including the code
One for more elements, a condition setting step of setting a search condition, a classification step of output form of the characters to classify a character that does not satisfy said search condition is satisfied character, <br/> output form of the letter for characters that do not meet the search condition,
A conversion step of converting an output form of the character to a predetermined confirmation output mode, the output mode is the search condition is satisfied character of the character is still tentative output of the output form of the characters, whereas, before
Character output form of the serial character does not satisfy the search condition before
And a temporary output step of temporarily outputting in a predetermined confirmation output form.

According to the present invention, before outputting by a plate making device,
Regarding temporary output for confirmation purpose. Here, the "character output form" is determined by all the elements related to the appearance and appearance when a character is output, and is related to the character code as well as the typeface and character size. For example, even if the font size is the same as the character size, the output form is naturally different if the character code is different. The “search condition regarding the output form of characters” is a condition such as “the font is Gothic”.

Under the above premise, the search condition is first set in the condition setting step. Subsequently, in the classification step, a character whose output form satisfies the search condition (hereinafter referred to as “matching character”) and a character which does not satisfy it (hereinafter referred to as “non-matching character”) are classified. The output form of the non-conforming character is converted into a predetermined confirmation output form in the conversion step. In the case where the search condition is the above example, it is conceivable to collectively convert the characters of the typeface other than Gothic into the character "-". After that, in the temporary output step, the conforming characters are unchanged and the nonconforming characters are provisionally output in the confirmation output form. This provisional output is performed in the form of display on a display, for example, so that the output form of characters in the final printing can be confirmed in advance.

As described above, according to the present invention, since the nonconforming character is provisionally output in the confirmation output form, it is possible to visually and easily distinguish the conforming character from the nonconforming character.

(2) In one aspect of the present invention, the confirmation output form is a form determined by a specific character code. In the above example, the incompatible characters are collectively converted into "-".
Therefore, the confirmation output form in this case is determined by the character code of the character "-". According to this aspect, since the non-conforming character can be converted into a specific character, it is possible to set so that only the conforming character appears conspicuously, and the efficiency of the confirmation work can be improved.

(3) In one aspect of the present invention, the condition setting step simultaneously sets a plurality of search conditions regarding a character output form, and the classification process includes an output form satisfying all of the plurality of search conditions. Classify characters as other characters.

In this aspect, for example, two search conditions, "the font is Gothic" and "the character size is 10 points" can be set at the same time. In this case, the matching character is a Gothic 10-point character. Therefore, it is possible to easily find the character of the output form to be confirmed from a large number of characters in the document under a detailed condition.

Regarding (4) and (3), in one aspect of the present invention, the condition setting step sets a certain allowable range for each of the plurality of search conditions. For example, "typeface is Gothic or Mincho". Since (3) makes the AND condition of the search conditions a problem, the OR condition is introduced into each search condition in (4), so that the search condition can be flexibly set.

(5) In one aspect of the present invention, in the condition setting step, a desired set of search conditions is selected from a plurality of sets of search conditions prepared in advance according to the purpose of the document and set. . For example, even for the same paperback book, the designation of the character size is subtly different for each publisher. Therefore, a search condition regarding the character size is set for each publisher, and a search condition suitable for the publisher is selected. According to this aspect, it is possible to optimally classify the matching character and the unmatching character for each purpose of the document, and there is no need to set the search condition one by one.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings as appropriate. Here, for example, in a system including a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as “PC”) and a plate-making device, a method of confirming the output form of characters on the display of the PC before the document or the like is output on the plate-making film by the plate-making device will be described. . Therefore, the present invention is
It is used in the form of a software module implemented in C.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system comprising a PC 2 having a software group for implementing the present invention and an associated data storage device. As shown in this figure, this system includes a document data storage unit 16 for storing document data, a document input unit 4 for reading a document to be checked from the document data storage unit 16, and a condition setting unit 6 for setting search conditions. A condition determination unit 8 that applies a search condition to the document given from the document input unit 4 to classify the characters included in the document into compatible characters and incompatible characters; and a classification result storage unit 18 that stores the classification result. , When replacing an incompatible character into a predetermined character for confirmation, a replacement character designating unit 10 for previously designating the predetermined character (hereinafter referred to as a "replacement character"), and replaces the incompatible character based on the result of the classification. A character conversion unit 12 that replaces characters, a confirmation document data storage unit 20 that stores document data generated as a result of conversion, and an output that reads the document data and outputs it to a display. Consisting of 14. The condition setting unit 6 and the replacement character designating unit 10 each include a user interface (hereinafter, UI) for receiving an instruction from the user.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the procedure of confirmation work by this system. As shown in the figure, first, the document input unit 4 inputs the document data to be confirmed from the document data storage unit 16 (S2). The input document is sent to the condition determination unit 8 and the character conversion unit 12.

Subsequently, the UI of the condition setting unit 6 and the UI of the replacement character designating unit 10 are used to set search conditions and specify replacement characters for this document. Here, for example, the search condition: "the typeface is Roman in European language" and the replacement character: "=" are set. Of these, the search conditions are sent to the condition determination unit 8.

The condition determining unit 8 sequentially reads the characters included in the document data and refers to the typeface code of the character to determine whether the typeface of the character is Roman Roman. If it is not Roman, it is a nonconforming character, and the address of the character in the document is sequentially registered in the classification result storage unit 18.

The character conversion unit 12 refers to the address of the non-conforming character stored in the classification result storage unit 18, and replaces all characters at that address position in the document with the replacement character "=".
Convert to. As a result of the conversion, the compatible characters are unchanged, and the incompatible characters are converted into “=” to generate document data, which is stored in the confirmation document data storage unit 20. Output part 1
Reference numeral 4 reads out the document data from the confirmation document data storage unit 20, converts it into the display format of the display, and outputs it.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the document data displayed on the display as a result of the above processing. FIG. 3A shows the original document data "ABC is an alphabet".
If the three characters "ABC" are roman now, "ABC" is displayed as it is on the display and the other characters are displayed as "=" as shown in FIG. On the other hand, AB
If the characters other than C are Mincho typefaces, and "typeface is Mincho typeface" is set as the search condition, as shown in FIG.
Only the "ABC" part becomes "=". When the character size is 40 points for the "alphabet" and 30 points for other characters, the search condition is "character size is 4".
If "0 points" is set, only the "alphabet" is displayed in the original state as shown in FIG.

As for such a search condition, a plurality of conditions may be set at the same time. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a UI screen of the condition setting unit 6. As shown in the figure, the "item" column shows the items of the search condition, and the typeface, the character size, the long font, the italic font, the kerning, etc. are listed. What is "long body"?
It is a designation to make a character look tall by narrowing the width of the character, and the standard character width is 100%. "Italic" is a designation to incline a character diagonally, and is usually used for Japanese text that does not have italics. 90 ° for italics when there is no tilt
The inclination of the character increases as the value decreases to 0 °. The "kerning" is a designation to close the space between characters such as alphabets, and for example, it is possible to close the space between characters such as "AV" in which the hypotenuses of the characters have the same angle. If only kerning is used as the search condition, and "AV"
When kerning is set between them, only these characters are displayed as they are, and other characters are displayed as "=".

In the "valid / invalid" column of the figure, whether or not to look up the corresponding search condition at the time of search is set. "On" is a reference and "off" is a non-reference. Here, a character that satisfies all the search conditions of "on" is a matching character. The column of "range" in the figure shows an allowable range for each search condition. For example, in the case of a character size, if it is within a range of 30 to 40 points, it is regarded as suitable. As described above, the target character can be more accurately found by simultaneously setting a plurality of search conditions and setting an allowable range for each of the search conditions. For example, if the order specifications are 1. The typeface is Mincho, 2.
If the character size is 30 to 40 points, only the typeface and the character size are “o” as shown in FIG.
Confirm as "n". In this case, all characters should be conforming characters if the document meets the specifications.
Therefore, if there is a character displayed as "=" on the display, it is known that this character does not meet the specifications.

The above is the configuration and operation of the present embodiment. The following applied or modified techniques can be considered for the present embodiment.

(1) Normally, each orderer has a certain degree of specification. Therefore, in the condition setting unit 6, U shown in FIG.
Instead of the I screen, the UI screen shown in FIG. 5 may be provided. On this UI screen, it is possible to specify the publisher (company S, T, U in the figure) as the orderer and the type of printed matter (paperback, catalog, weekly magazine in the figure).

On the other hand, FIG. 6 is a table 30 in which specifications relating to the form of characters determined by the orderer and the type of printed matter are described.
a and b. This table is managed by the condition setting unit 6. Now, when the "paperback book" of "U company" is specified in FIG. 5, the condition setting unit 6 reads the table 30a in FIG. 6 and sets this specification as it is as a search condition. After that, it is possible to confirm that the document is finished according to the specifications through the procedure of FIG.

(2) In FIG. 1, the condition determination unit 8 and the character conversion unit 12 are drawn as separate components, but they can be integrated. That is, the character included in the document is read to determine whether it is a compatible character, and if it is found that the character is an incompatible character, it may be directly converted to a replacement character. In this case, the classification result storage unit 18 and the confirmation document data storage unit 20 can be integrated.

(3) In this embodiment, the non-conforming character is converted into the specific character "=". This is an example of converting the character code. In addition to this, a method of converting the typeface code or the character size can be considered. For example, there is a method of displaying all nonconforming characters in italics or reducing the character size. In any case, it may be displayed in a form different from the original output form for confirmation.

(4) The items of the search condition in FIG. 4 are mainly related to the appearance of characters, but conditions related to the character code itself such as "Hiragana" and "Numerals" may be set. . The condition setting unit 6 is "Hiragana"
For this setting, this may be replaced with a conditional expression based on a character code and sent to the condition determination unit 8. In the present invention, it is possible to freely set search conditions related to the output form of a character regardless of the appearance of the character or the character itself. In addition,
When using a character code as a search condition and searching for a specific character that is converted to the confirmation output form, for example, "=",
The specific character to be converted may be changed to another character, for example, "*", or the typeface code or character size may be changed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a PC having a software group for implementing the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a block configuration diagram of a system including a related data storage device.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a procedure of confirmation work by the system of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing document data displayed on a display as a result of the processing of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a UI screen of a condition setting unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing another example of the UI screen of the condition setting unit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a table in which specifications regarding character forms that are determined for each orderer and each type of printed matter are described.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 PC, 4 document input section, 6 condition setting section, 8 condition determining section, 10 replacement character designating section, 12 character converting section, 1
4 output unit, 16 document data storage unit, 18 classification result storage unit, 20 confirmation document data storage unit, 30a, b table.

Front page continuation (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G09G 5/22 G06F 17/21

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method for confirming in advance in what form characters included in a document will be output when the document is output, the method comprising: a character output form element including a character size, a typeface, and a character code . for at least one or more elements from within, a condition setting step of setting a search condition, a classification step of output form of the characters to classify a character that does not satisfy said search condition is satisfied character, the output form of the letter wherein the character that does not satisfy the search condition, a converting step for converting an output form of the character to a predetermined confirmation output mode, the output mode is the search condition is satisfied character of the character the
While temporarily output character output mode, whereas, character output form of the character does not satisfy the search condition is characterized by including a temporary output step of temporarily output by the predetermined confirmation output mode character Output form confirmation method. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the confirmation output form is a form determined by a specific character code. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the condition setting step simultaneously sets a plurality of search conditions regarding a character output form, and the classification step includes a plurality of output forms. A character output form confirmation method characterized by classifying a character satisfying all of the search conditions as other characters. 4. The character output form confirmation method according to claim 3, wherein the condition setting step sets a certain allowable range for each of the plurality of search conditions. 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the condition setting step selects a desired set of search conditions from a plurality of sets of search conditions prepared in advance according to the purpose of the document. Then, the character output form confirmation method characterized by setting this.