JPH03146365A - Character modification - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a treatment to be easily performed to a broad range modification mode by a method wherein a stored dot start positional data and a dot continuous length data are taken as basic parameters, and those are varied according to various modification modes. CONSTITUTION:When a certain character is aimed at and there is a dot data in a first section, a dot start positional data AO and a dot continuous length data NO are fetched from a character generator, and operation for modification of the character is performed. Then, a value of A obtained by character modification operation is added to a reference address to which the character is to be set, which is taken as an address in modification of the character. Then, a dot printing data is set. All modification treatments are performed by common parameters A and N. Since it is not the operation by a byte unit and an address without any dot is not searched, the treatment can be made at high speed. Various treatments come capable of being performed only by changing operational contents to the common parameter and further, an enlargement ratio, a reduction ratio, an emphasis degree, and a gradient degree can be simply freely varied.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method for modifying characters, and in particular, from nonvolatile storage devices as character generators used in electronic typewriters, word processors, printers, matrix displays, etc. This is suitable for enlarging or reducing extracted character font data.

[Conventional technology]

In conventional character generators used in dot matrix printers, dot matrix liquid crystal displays, etc., the dots that make up a character are applied to a map made up of a matrix of 24 dots per row, and the characters are divided into the minimum horizontal units. It generates data such as information about the presence or absence of print data at each pin of the dot matrix, that is, each vertically resolved dot position, as well as information on character design, information on data format, and character codes. , stored in a non-volatile storage device such as ROM.

Such fonts are called bitmap fonts.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a dot matrix in a conventionally used character generator, and in this case, it is a prestige font rAJ. As shown in the figure, dots are arranged in a map of 24 rows and 31 columns. To convert this into data, each of the 24 rows in one column is expressed in hexadecimal numbers every four rows, and each column is defined as 3-byte data. It can be expressed as

In this conventional data structure, it is necessary to have data for the entire matrix for all points, including points that do not require dot printing, but in actual characters, there are many points that do not print dots, and this requires a large amount of memory. is required.

Furthermore, character modifications such as enlargement, reduction, emphasis, etc. are often performed on character data extracted from such a character generator. However, in the conventional dot memory as described above, character data is obtained by vertically decomposing characters, so for example, when enlarging, one column of empty data is added and an OR is taken; In some cases, there is a problem in that it is necessary to perform complex calculations such as ORing two columns of data and erasing unnecessary dots. Moreover, since such calculations are performed in byte (8 bits) or word (16 bits) units, enlarging by n times or reducing by 1/n becomes even more complicated when n is other than 2, which reduces printing speed. There is a problem of lowering the

The present invention was made to solve such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a character modification method that facilitates calculations.

[Means to solve the problem]

According to the character modification method according to the present invention, for a character to which dots are allocated on a bit map of m rows and n columns, printing dot start position data and dot continuous length given for the row or column where the dot exists A process of retrieving data from the storage device, a process of performing calculations according to character modification contents based on the printing dot start position data and dot continuous length data, and a process of updating the modification calculation result of the printing dot start position data. The present invention is characterized in that it has a step of setting a starting address and setting dot printing information for an address corresponding to the continuous length of dots obtained as a result of a modification operation.

[For production]

The same applicant as the present invention decomposes characters at a predetermined pitch in one direction, focuses on each section, and stores dot existing section data, dot start position data, and dot continuous length data for the section where dots exist. Character data compression methods have been proposed. Using the character data stored in this manner, dot start position data and dot continuous length data are taken out as basic parameters, and calculations for character modification are performed on these data. Then, the dot start address is changed based on the result of this calculation, and print dot information corresponding to the continuous length of dots is given. In this way, character modification results can be easily obtained.

〔Example〕

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

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing details of the character decoration method according to the present invention.

Here, for example, for the character rAJ shown in Fig. 3, the character generator includes dot presence information (Fig. 5) in each section when decomposed in the horizontal direction (line direction) as shown in Fig. 4, and dot start information. It is assumed that position data and dot continuous length data (FIG. 6) are stored.

First, focusing on a certain character, it is checked whether dot data exists in the first section (first line) (step 5IOI).

Here, if the data exists, dot start position data AO and dot continuous length data NO are extracted from the character generator (step 5102).

Perform operations for character modification based on these data (
Step 3103). Examples of this calculation include the following.

■ Enlarged by n times AnEX-nAO NnEX -nN.

■ 1/n reduction AnCON= I N T (AO/n) NnCON
= I N T (NO/n + 1) However, INT
represents the integer part.

■ Emphasis (emphasis level m) EM-AO NEM=NO+m However, m≧1 ■ n times enlarged emphasis (emphasis level m) AnEXEM -n AO NnEXEM = n NO+m However, m≧1 ■ 1/n reduced emphasis (emphasis level m) AnCONEM-, I N T (AD/n) NnC
ONEM -I N T (NO/n + 1 ■ X times enlargement, 1/Y reduction Ax/y = xAO/y +m) ■ X times enlargement, 1/y reduction lj\ emphasis (emphasis level m) Ax/
y=xAO/Y Next, the address to which these data are to be set is set (step S104). That is, the value of A obtained by the character modification calculation is added to the reference address at which a character is to be set, and the resultant address is used as the address for character modification. Note that in the case of italics, the degree of address shift for each line may be changed depending on the degree of inclination.

Dot print data is set at the address thus determined (step 5105).

Next, update the address to the address where the next dot is located (step 5106), check whether the remaining number of dots calculated in step 8103 has reached 0, that is, the last dot (step 5107), and if it is not the final dot, check Returning to step 5105, the process repeats until all calculated dot numbers are allocated.

When the last dot in the series is reached, go back to step 5101 to see if there are any more dots in that row or column, and continue to step 5101 as long as data exists.
The steps from step 5107 are repeated.

When there is no more data left to process in step 5101, the process moves to the next section (step S1
0g). The same process is repeated in the next section, and the entire character is modified.

In this manner, in the character modification method of the present invention, all modification processing is performed using the common parameters A and N, rather than byte calculations as in the prior art, and does not search for addresses where dots do not exist. Therefore, processing speed can be increased. Furthermore, various types of processing can be performed simply by changing the calculation contents for common parameters, and the enlargement rate, reduction rate, degree of emphasis, and degree of inclination can be easily and freely changed.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a device configuration for realizing the character decoration method according to the present invention, and takes up the case of a printer. A ROM 2 as a character generator, a RAM 3, a printer mechanism 4, an I10 interface 5, etc. are connected to the CPU which controls the entire system.

The dot start position data and dot continuous length data taken out from the ROM 2 are subjected to character modification processing by the CPU as shown in FIG. be exposed.

In the above embodiment, character modification processing was shown for sections in the row direction, but processing can be performed in exactly the same way for sections in the column direction when data is stored by a character generator.

Further, after the character decoration, a known kerning process may be performed to smooth the outline of the character.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the dot start position data and continuous dot length data stored in the character generator are used as basic parameters, and these are changed according to various modification modes to determine the dots to be printed. Therefore, it is possible to easily process a wide range of modification modes.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing the content of the character modification method according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of a device configuration for carrying out the invention, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a character font. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing data regarding the presence or absence of dots in each line when the characters shown in FIG. The figure is a chart showing an example of data representing the start position of dots and the continuous state of dots for the characters shown in FIG. 1... CPU, 2... ROM (character generator), 3... RAM, 4... Printer mechanism, 5... I10 interface.

Claims (1)

[Claims] For a character to which dots are allocated on a bitmap of m rows and n columns, a storage device stores printing dot start position data and dot continuous length data given to a row or column where dots exist. A process of performing an operation according to character modification content based on the printing dot start position data and dot continuous length data, and using the result of the modification operation of the printing dot start position data as a new start address. , a process of setting dot printing information for an address corresponding to the continuous length of dots obtained as a result of a modification operation.