JP3689441B2 - Electronic filing device and electronic filing method - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an electronic filing apparatus and an electronic filing method having a print driver for performing electronic filing.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, since a DTP application stores data in a different format for each manufacturer that develops the DTP application, it has been difficult to exchange files between different manufacturers. Various filters have been provided as tools to solve this problem.
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
The required number of filters varies depending on the number of applications to be used. For example, the number of combinations of filters required by 10 types of applications is 10C2, so a huge amount of filter processing is required.
[0004]
However, once it is dropped to an intermediate file, the number is 10, but it is still necessary up to the number of applications.
[0005]
In order to realize a small and inexpensive electronic filing apparatus, a filing apparatus based on a commercially available personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a personal computer) is inevitably realized.
[0006]
As functional elements essential for electronic filing, a scanner, an OCR, a keyword search function, a (magneto-optical) disk device, and the like are provided. Basically, a document printed on “paper” is read and stored by a scanner. At that time, in order to facilitate the search, the character information is encoded by the OCR processing unit, and the keywords are automatically picked up and stored together.
[0007]
If it is a dedicated machine, these functions are sufficient, but for electronic filing based on a personal computer, the target document is not enough to be printed on “paper”. Therefore, it is necessary to handle DTP documents created in a unified manner.
[0008]
However, DTP documents have completely different file formats depending on the created application, and if they are saved in the form of files, the following problems (1) to (4) occur.
[0009]
(1) When a DTP document stored in a server on a network is accessed from a plurality of personal computers, there is no guarantee that the same application as that used for creation exists on all personal computers. It is a problem even if the versions are different.
[0010]
(2) If there are computers with different architectures on the network, even if files created by the same application are usually in different file formats, they cannot be accessed from each other.
[0011]
(3) Since commercially available applications usually do not have a keyword extraction function, when electronic filing is performed, the document information is transmitted via a file or cut / paste function. The operation procedure is complicated, time consuming and difficult to automate, so it is not practical.
[0012]
Also, consider data exchange between applications that differ in accuracy, such as commercially available applications such as scanner applications, word processors, and spreadsheet applications. It is very difficult to exchange data between these applications via a file.
[0013]
This is because the format of a file generated by an application having a different character such as a scanner application, a word processor, or a spreadsheet application is uniquely determined by each vendor, and is not compatible at all.
[0014]
In addition, industry standard formats such as “TIFF”, “PICT”, “EPS”, “GIF”, and “TGA” are not versatile because they are not suitable for applications.
[0015]
Furthermore, when the computer is a Macintosh (product name) or Windows (product name), there is a mechanism for exchanging using the “cut and paste” function, but the format is either “PICT” or “GIF”. Limited.
[0016]
The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic filing apparatus having a computer that executes an application program and a printer driver. The drawing information for printing transmitted by each application program is converted into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by a plurality of application programs, and stored in the database for electronic files, so that it is transmitted from each application program to the printer driver. It is to provide an electronic filing device and an electronic filing method capable of managing the drawn information as a document file that can be shared with each application program.
[0017]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of application programs, a print driver for performing electronic filing based on drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program, the application program, and the print driver are executed. An electronic filing device comprising:
The computer receives the drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program by executing the print driver activated in response to a printing instruction from the application program, and the received drawing information for printing Is converted into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by a plurality of application programs, and the converted drawing information of the common document file format is stored in a database for electronic filing.
[0018]
According to a second aspect of the present invention, the print driver is a general-purpose driver, and further includes a search driver that searches the drawing information in the common document file format stored in the database via the print driver. To do.
[0019]
In a third aspect of the present invention, the drawing information for printing is composed of drawing commands.
The computer, by executing the print driver, analyzes each drawing command of the printing drawing information transmitted from the application program, divides it into a plurality of parts, and based on the divided parts The drawing information for printing is converted into drawing information in the common document file format.
[0020]
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the plurality of parts to be divided are a character part, a vector drawing part, and an image part.
[0021]
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the print driver is a filing driver emulating a print driver,
When the computer stores the converted drawing information in the electronic filing database by executing the filing driver activated in response to a print instruction from the application program, the computer sends a print completion message. Features.
[0022]
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the optical character recognition, the computer executes the print driver to analyze the divided image portion and recognize and extract character information included in the image portion. The processing is executed, and the extracted character information is accumulated.
[0023]
According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus having a plurality of application programs, a print driver activated in response to a print instruction from the application program, and a computer that executes the application program and the print driver. An electronic filing method for controlling the computer to perform electronic filing based on drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program by executing the print driver,
By causing the computer to execute a print driver activated in response to a print instruction from the application program, the computer receives print drawing information transmitted from the application program, and receives the received print information. The drawing information is converted into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by a plurality of application programs, and the converted drawing information in the common document file format is controlled to be stored in an electronic filing database. .
[0029]
【Example】
Hereinafter, a detailed description will be given based on the illustrated embodiment.
[First embodiment]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an electronic file device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
[0030]
In the figure, reference numerals 1, 2, and 3 denote commercially available applications such as a scanner application, a word processor, and a spreadsheet application. It is very difficult to exchange data between these applications via files 4 and 5. This is because the format of the file generated by the scanner application, word processor, spreadsheet application, etc. is uniquely determined by each vendor, so there is no compatibility.
[0031]
However, when these applications print, the data delivered to the printer driver is QuickDraw (first output data) for Macintosh (first computer system) and GDI (first computer data) for Windows (second computer system). Second output data).
[0032]
As shown in FIG. 1, when the first computer applications 1, 2, and 3 pass print data to the printer driver 6, there are exceptions in part of the Postscript application, but most applications use QuickDraw drawing commands 7 , 8 and 9 are passed to the printer driver 6.
[0033]
The present invention pays attention to this feature and realizes a document conversion / storage function in the printer driver 6. In other words, QuickDraw drawing commands are computer-dependent drawing commands, and if limited to Macintosh only, there is a common language for most applications, but Windows uses GDI commands and is not compatible.
Therefore, the QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 performs conversion into data in a general document form that can be easily saved in the database 13, that is, common documents 12 and 14.
[0034]
The common documents 12 and 14 may be drawn, painted, or mixed. Drawing is a drawing method that expresses the thickness, color, and coordinate point of a drawing line with numerical values. The side that receives the drawing must also have a function to decode the numerical values.
[0035]
On the other hand, “paint” is a bitmap image, which increases the data size, but does not require a decoding function on the receiving side.
[0036]
An OCR apparatus 10-2 is used to encode a bitmap image, but in the case of draw information, the process is bypassed.
[0037]
A keyword extraction device 10-3 is used for picking up a word that can be used for searching from a common document converted from QuickDraw and accessing the common document as a set.
[0038]
A database API 10-4 is used to connect to a remote database 13 connected via a local or network (LAN) 11.
[0039]
The printer driver 6 matches the one provided by the system. However, since the printer driver 6 assumes only printing, the data flow is usually one-way, and the document extracted from the database 13 is converted back to the QuickDraw command. Thus, it cannot be sent to the applications 1, 2, 3 side.
[0040]
In order to solve this problem, the printer driver 6 of the present invention is in the form of a general-purpose driver. In order to perform bidirectional document conversion via the printer driver 6, it is necessary to change the OS and application. However, when dedicated document search software is used, bidirectional document conversion can be realized. The common document 12 is sent to the database 13 via the LAN 11.
[0041]
In order to use this apparatus as a document filing system, an original is usually read by a scanner 15. The control is performed by the scanner application 1. When the application prints, it is also converted to QuickDraw 7 and transmitted to the printer driver 6.
[0042]
Even though it is QuickDraw 7, in the case of a scanned image, the content is a bitmap. Therefore, the QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 restores the bitmap and compresses the image by a compression circuit (not shown) as necessary.
[0043]
The printer driver 6 needs to support all QuickDraw commands supported by the OS of the personal computer. Otherwise, the print request from any application cannot be satisfied.
[0044]
On the other hand, applications 1, 2, and 3 have no problem even if they support only a part of QuickDraw commands for their own convenience. However, in order to make the printer driver 6 bidirectional and display the QuickDraw command output by the QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1, it is necessary to support all the QuickDraw commands.
[0045]
This is because the document may have been created by a more sophisticated application.
[0046]
For this reason, if the printer driver 6 rejects that the draw command to be transmitted to the application cannot be understood by the application driver, the printer driver 6 converts the command into paint data and transmits it again.
[0047]
For applications without these error control functions, it is understood that QuickDraw operation has a level, and it is not understood even if it is classified into the first, second, and third levels, for example, JIS Kanji codes. If so, it may be converted into a low-level QuickDraw command and transmitted in advance.
[Second Embodiment]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an electronic file device according to the second embodiment of the present invention. Components identical with those shown in FIG. 1 are designated by like reference characters.
[0048]
In FIG. 1, the document storage from the commercial applications 1, 2, 3 to the database 13 has been described. However, the commercial application is not designed for document storage / retrieval. A dedicated search application (application program) 16 is required. The search application 16 is directly connected to the QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1. The data format is not QuickDraw but the common document format 17. The QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 is constructed as a general-purpose driver.
[Third embodiment]
FIG. 3 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an electronic file device according to the third embodiment of the present invention. Components identical with those shown in FIG. 1 are designated by like reference characters.
[0049]
FIG. 3 shows an embodiment in which the OCR accelerator 10-5 is used.
[0050]
Since the OCR accelerator 10-5 takes a long time for conversion, the OCR accelerator 10-5 is usually implemented by hardware in order to increase the speed by substituting dedicated hardware for processing.
[0051]
The QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 is realized by software as a printer driver / general-purpose driver.
[0052]
On the other hand, the OCR 10-2, the keyword extracting device 10-3, and the database API 10-4 are implemented as software or hardware as general-purpose drivers that run in the background, and do not interrupt other operations of the operator even when they are processed.
[0053]
FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a data processing system in the electronic file device shown in FIG.
[0054]
In the figure, 10-6 is a print queue, and 10-7 is a buffer memory.
[0055]
The QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 operates exclusively with the printer driver 6 and outputs to the print queue 10-6 in the foreground.
[0056]
On the other hand, the OCR 10-2 and below receive document data from the print queue 10-6 in the background and process it in parallel with the applications 1, 2, 3, and 16. The memory 10-7 is used for temporarily storing document data in the print queue 10-6.
[Fourth embodiment]
FIG. 5 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an electronic file system according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention. Components identical with those shown in FIG. 1 are designated by like reference characters.
[0057]
In the figure, the left half is the same as that of the personal computer of FIG. 1, and a branch number “a” is attached to a number necessary for explanation.
[0058]
On the other hand, the right half of the second personal computer with the branch number “b” is the same as the element with the same number with the branch number “a”. Although the first personal computer (left) is described with the scanner 15 left as it is, the state where the second personal computer (right) has no scanner is described.
[0059]
In this case, since the OCR, keyword search, and database API functions are unnecessary, the functions are stopped and used as shown by the inclined lines shown in the figure. As long as the data flowing on the network is a common document, the interface with the application may be a common document or another format, that is, QuickDraw.
[0060]
Since the data from the scanner 15 is converted into a common document by the printer driver 6, mutual communication is possible without any problem.
[Fifth embodiment]
FIG. 6 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of an electronic file apparatus according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention. Components identical with those shown in FIG. 1 are designated by like reference characters.
[0061]
In the figure, 20-1 is a QuickDraw-common document conversion driver interface, 20-2 is a unit, and is a set of an OCR unit, a parsing unit, and an inverse PDL unit. Reference numeral 20-3 denotes a file construction routine. In 20-1, the drawing code at the time of printing is analyzed by QuickDra and divided into a character portion, a vector drawing code portion, a bitmap image portion, and a halftone image portion. The bitmap image portion and the halftone image portion are subjected to OCR, and the character portion is extracted as a code.
[0062]
The vector drawing code portion is processed by the inverse PDL unit in units of several drawing code sets, and is divided into functional elements such as “table”, “draw”, “mark”, and “closed curve”. Items that do not fall within the functional elements are classified into “line”, “circle”, “square”, “ellipse”, “arc”, “free curve”, and the like.
[0063]
The parsing unit of the unit 20-2 mainly parses the syntax of the text part, and converts it into “title”, “chapter”, “section”, “paragraph”, “header”, “sentence”, “footer”. , “Page”, “Date”, etc. Those that do not fall into these categories are treated as “text”. The common document thus classified and analyzed is dropped into the common document 12 by the file construction routine 20-3.
[0064]
Once dropped in the common document 12, the editing application 19 that can understand the file format can be re-edited via the standard OS interface 18.
[0065]
The correspondence between this embodiment and each means of the first to sixth inventions and the operation thereof will be described below with reference to FIGS.
[0066]
In the first invention, a plurality of application programs (application programs 1, 2, and 3) conforming to a predetermined operating system (DOS / V, Kanji talk, etc., UNIX) are created, edited, a table set, Computer system capable of processing image file information, and print driver means for converting each drawing information transmitted from each application program that can be started by this computer system into a predetermined print data format defined by the predetermined operating system ( A printer driver 6) and conversion means for converting the print data converted into a predetermined print data format by the print driver 6 into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by the plurality of application programs (in this embodiment, the print driver). 6 subs A QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1) configured as a driver, and storage means (database 13) for storing a shared file in accordance with the common document file format converted by the conversion means, and a computer When each drawing information transmitted from each application program that can be activated in the system is converted by the print driver 6 into a predetermined print data format defined by the predetermined operating system, the QuickDraw-common document conversion apparatus 10-1 performs a predetermined process. Is converted into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by the plurality of application programs, and a shared file (common document 12) according to the converted common document file format is stored in a storage medium. Memorize and download from each application program The drawing information transmitted to the lint driver can be managed as a file that can be shared by each application program (see FIGS. 1, 2, 3 and the like).
[0067]
According to a second aspect of the present invention, a search driver (search application 16 or the like (see FIG. 3) incorporated in a computer system as a general-purpose driver for each application program stores a shared file according to a common document file format stored in a storage means (database 13) as QuickDraw. -Search through the common document conversion apparatus 10-1, and enable the shared file to be directly processed by each application program.
[0068]
In the third invention, the print driver 6 analyzes each drawing information transmitted from each application program, and divides it into a character part, a vector drawing part, a bitmap image part, and a halftone image part. Compressed data is generated by compressing the character portion, vector drawing portion, bitmap image portion, and halftone image portion, and the data volume registered in the storage medium can be made as small as possible.
[0069]
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the converting means (QuickDraw-common document converting apparatus 10-1) is a common document file format in which the plurality of application programs can directly refer to the compressed data converted into a predetermined print data format by the print driver. The compressed data obtained by compressing the drawing information transmitted from each application program to the print driver can be managed as a file that can be shared by each application program.
[0070]
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the optical character recognition processing means analyzes the bitmap image portion and the halftone image portion divided by the print driver 6, and the character information is obtained by the OCR device 10-2 (in this embodiment, the print driver 6 It recognizes and extracts (configured as a sub-driver), adds the extracted character information to the already divided character portion, and makes the character image in the image information available as character information.
[0071]
In the sixth aspect of the present invention, a shared file can be transferred between electronic file devices via a predetermined network (see FIG. 5 and the like), and is generated by each application program (application programs 1, 2, and 3) on the network. Can be processed as a shared file.
[0072]
According to each of the above embodiments, paying attention to the fact that the data format output when the application prints is standardized for each OS, the printer driver portion includes a "converting function to a unified file format", "OCR By constructing "function" and "keyword search function", it was possible to save documents created by any commercial application in one unified format, regardless of the difference in PC architecture.
[0073]
Further, according to the present embodiment, the document storage / retrieval apparatus that has been conventionally provided as a stand-alone machine for both hardware and software is based on a commercially available computer, and many commercially available applications are used as a front end. An inexpensive system that can be freely incorporated with a document storage / retrieval function can be provided.
[0074]
Note that the present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to a case where the present invention is achieved by supplying a program to a system or apparatus.
[0075]
Hereinafter, a file processing method in the electronic file system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
[0076]
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an example of the main processing procedure of the file processing method in the electronic file system according to the present invention. Note that (1) to (5) indicate steps on the application side, (6) to (13) indicate steps on the OS side, and (14) to (19) indicate steps on the filing driver side.
[0077]
In this embodiment, the processing operations of the application, the OS, and the driver behave as if they are independent tasks even if the OS is a multitasking or single task, as shown in FIG. It is not a problem to describe as three independent tasks. The portion indicated by the dotted arrow in the figure is actually a function call, but in the programming language (C ++) and class definition, the expression “message” is generally used. Let's learn from that example.
[0078]
First, when an application creates a document (1) and files it in the electronic file system according to the present invention, the same operation as a normal printing operation is performed. When the print menu is selected (2), a print start message is sent to the OS. At this time, the OS executes various OS services (6), enters an event loop (7), and starts a driver upon receiving a print start message (8).
[0079]
The filing driver returns an initialization completion message to the OS after executing initialization processing such as register setting and memory space reservation (14). During this time, the OS waits for a reply from the driver in a loop (9).
[0080]
Then, a message indicating that the driver is ready is sent to the application (10). In response, the application exits the loop of step (3) and outputs the GDI code to be drawn on the printer (4). The OS that has received the GDI code remains in the GDI code if the printer (driver) is a GDI printer, or rasterizes the GDI code in the OS and passes it to the printer driver if it is a bitmap printer (11). . A file driver emulates a printer driver and needs to be declared as either a GDI printer or a bitmap printer. Either of them is feasible.
[0081]
If it is declared that it is a GDI printer, the GDI code is sent as it is from the OS, so the GDI code can be easily analyzed in the driver, and if a bitmap is required, the OS system call Can be rasterized.
[0082]
If the printer is declared as a bitmap printer, a GDI service for converting GDI into a bitmap is executed in the OS (11), and a bitmap is passed to the filing driver (15).
If the OS is Windows, even if it is a bitmap, the original GDI code is written in one corner of the bitmap code, so in the present invention, a bitmap is declared.
[0083]
The filing driver analyzes the received GDI code (16), extracts the characteristics of the content written in the manuscript (17), and stores it in the database (18). When a printing completion message arrives from the filing driver to the OS, the processing exits from the loop (12) waiting for processing of the driver, and sends the printing completion message to the application (13). Swap out from. Upon receiving the print completion message from the OS, the application ends the print sequence (5). The filing driver releases the memory space (19) after it is stored in the database in step (18).
[0084]
FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a detailed procedure of GDI code analysis and feature extraction processing by the filing driver shown in FIG. In addition, (20)-(29) show each step.
[0085]
When the GDI code passed from the application via the OS is acquired (20), the GDI code is analyzed (21), and whether it is an image, a character or a draw is distinguished (21) to (23). In the present embodiment, the term “draw” refers to drawing using a line figure or a plane figure by a set of vector information.
[0086]
If YES in step (21), the GDI code representing the image is compressed using a compression algorithm such as JBIG, JPEG, or MMR, and stored in the image buffer (24).
[0087]
On the other hand, if YES in step (22), the GDI code representing the character is stored in the character buffer, and after receiving a determination as to whether it is a title in the character buffer processing, various information relating to the character (character code, Style and character color) are saved and registered as keywords (25).
[0088]
On the other hand, if YES in step (23), the GDI code of the draw part is subjected to table / graphic determination in a draw information processing routine (details will be described later), and further subjected to statistical processing (27).
[0089]
On the other hand, if NO in step (23), that is, if the GDI code is not one of the above, the control code is processed in step (26) because it is a control code. The contents of the control code are, for example, paper size designation, and may be paper orientation designation, resolution designation, margin designation, page number designation, print number designation, and page break.
[0090]
Next, that is, after steps (24), (25), (26), and (27), preparation for obtaining the next GDI code is started (28). If the control code is an end code, the GDI code analysis ends. If not, the process loops to step (2) to obtain the next GDI code.
[0091]
FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the detailed procedure of the character buffer processing routine shown in FIG. Note that (30) to (38) indicate steps, in which the character information stored in the character buffer is analyzed to determine whether it is a title character, and a process of registering it as a keyword is performed.
[0092]
In the case of the GDI code, the character code is not always expressed as a series of strings (sentences). The application that discharges the GDI code of a string is about software called an editor. The higher the DTP application is, the more often one character is drawn. A high-level DTP application expresses a high level of text that exceeds the expression capability of the GDI code, and thus often draws one character per character.
[0093]
First, the distance from the previous character is calculated (30), and it is determined whether it is smaller than 1/2 of the character height (31). If NO, that is, 1/2 of the character height. If it is more, it is determined as a word break (32), and the keyword is registered.
[0094]
Among them, the character that seems to be a title is specially stored and used as a title character for searching. The algorithm for determining a title is determined to be a title if the target character is within a quarter of the vertical dimension of the document (33) and the character of the maximum size is in the document (34), (35). . The other characters are registered as keywords other than the title (36). Needless to say, the title itself is also a keyword. On the other hand, if the determination in step (31) is YES, that is, if it is smaller than 1/2 of the height of the character, it is determined that it forms a word with the previous character (37), and the word In order to find a break, the character information is written into the character buffer (38), and the routine is terminated.
[0095]
FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a detailed procedure of the draw information processing routine shown in FIG. In addition, (40- (50) shows each step. Moreover, a processing operation is demonstrated with reference to the example of draw information shown in FIG.
[0096]
First, it is determined whether or not the GDI code is a straight line (40), and if it is a straight line, a routine for determining whether or not it is a table is entered, but a circle, ellipse, square, polygon, diagonal line, curve, etc. Simply add to the draw group (49) and save.
[0097]
On the other hand, if it is determined in step (40) that the line is a straight line, it is determined whether or not it touches a line in an already registered straight line group (41). The determination method is that any one of the X coordinates and Y coordinates of the two points (start point, end point) of the straight line matches one of the coordinates of the two points of the line in the straight line group, and other coordinates. Can be determined to be in contact with each other if within a predetermined range. For example, as shown in FIG. 11, when it is determined whether or not two lines A and B are in contact, it is only necessary to check whether X1 = X3.
[0098]
Since it is understood that the lines A and B are not diagonal lines, X1 = X3 = X4. Furthermore, since the Y coordinate of the line B must be between the start point and end point of A, it must satisfy Y4 ≦ Y1 ≦ Y3. That is, among the four types of X and Y coordinates having two straight lines, a component in which three coincide with each other is examined, and if they coincide, there is another between the other components of the straight line having two identical components. If the same coordinates are included, it can be determined that they are in contact. When this is true for both the X coordinate and the Y coordinate, the t2 straight lines A and B form a right angle.
[0099]
Therefore, the straight line determined not to contact any straight line group in step (41) is registered as one forming a new straight line group (50).
[0100]
On the other hand, the straight line that is found to be in contact is added as a member of the straight line group (42).
[0101]
Among the X coordinate and Y coordinate having a certain straight line group, the maximum and minimum four are defined as the rectangular area of the straight line group. This rectangular area is recalculated each time a new straight line is added (43). The number of types of only the X coordinate or only the Y coordinate constituting the straight line group is obtained, and the number obtained by subtracting “1” is derived as the number of cells (44).
[0102]
Similarly, the X-coordinate component and the Y-coordinate component are separately arranged in order of size, and the difference between the coordinates approaching each other is the cell size (45).
[0103]
It is determined whether or not a character enters the rectangular area of the straight line group (46). If a character is included, the character is specially registered as a character in the table (47), and the straight line group Is determined to be a table (48). A straight line group that does not contain any characters is not considered a table.
[0104]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, a computer executing an application and a printer driver can manage drawing information transmitted from each application program to the printer driver as a document file that can be shared by each application program.
In addition, each application program can directly process a document file that can be shared.
In addition, the data volume of drawing information in the common document file format stored in the database can be reduced as much as possible.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of an electronic file device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an electronic file device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an electronic file device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.
4 is a diagram for explaining a data processing system in the electronic file device shown in FIG. 3; FIG.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of an electronic file system according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of an electronic file device according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an example of a main processing procedure of a file processing method in the electronic file system according to the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a detailed procedure of GDI code analysis and feature extraction processing by the filing driver shown in FIG. 7;
9 is a flowchart showing a detailed procedure of a character buffer processing routine shown in FIG. 8. FIG.
FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a detailed procedure of a draw information processing routine shown in FIG. 8;
11 is a diagram showing an example of draw information used in the draw information processing routine shown in FIG. 10; FIG.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 Application
2 application
3 Application
6 Printer driver
10-1 QuickDraw-Common document converter
10-2 OCR equipment
10-3 Keyword extraction device
10-4 Database API (Application Program Interface)
12 Common documents

Claims (7)

An electronic filing apparatus having a plurality of application programs, a print driver for performing electronic filing based on printing drawing information transmitted from the application program, and a computer that executes the application program and the print driver. And
The computer, by executing the print driver is activated in response to a print instruction from the application program, receives the drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program, drawing information for printing the received a plurality of application programs into a common document file format that can see directly the electronic filing device comprising a Turkey to accumulate drawing information of the converted the common document file format database for electronic filing. 2. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print driver is a general-purpose driver, and further includes a search driver that searches through the print driver for drawing information in a common document file format stored in the database. The printing drawing information is composed of drawing commands,
The computer , by executing the print driver, analyzes each drawing command of the printing drawing information transmitted from the application program, divides it into a plurality of parts, and based on the divided parts 2. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the drawing information for printing is converted into drawing information in the common document file format.   4. The electronic filing device according to claim 3, wherein the plurality of divided parts are a character part, a vector drawing part, and an image part. The print driver is a filing driver emulating a print driver,
When the computer stores the converted drawing information in the electronic filing database by executing the filing driver activated in response to a print instruction from the application program , the computer sends a print completion message. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein Character the computer, by executing the print driver, which performs optical character recognition process for extracting and recognizing the text information contained in the image portion by analyzing the divided image portion is the extracted 5. The electronic filing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein information is stored. An apparatus having a plurality of application programs, and print driver is activated in response to a print instruction from the application program, and a computer for executing the application program and the print driver, the computer executes the print driver An electronic filing method for controlling to perform electronic filing based on drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program ,
By causing the computer to execute a print driver activated in response to a print instruction from the application program , the computer receives the drawing information for printing transmitted from the application program, and the received printing information The drawing information is converted into a common document file format that can be directly referred to by a plurality of application programs, and the converted drawing information in the common document file format is controlled to be stored in an electronic filing database. Electronic filing method.

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