JPH03257589A - Electronic equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To increase the number of characters to be displayed and to reduce the memory capacity by displaying the characters or patterns having large original sizes on a form after reducing them down to each prescribed size. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 2 controls an image scanner interface 7 and stores the image data inputted from an image scanner 8 into a storage area 11 of a RAM 4. Then the characters serving as a pattern forming the image data are extracted and the size of each extracted character is checked. Then the CPU 2 reduces the sizes of characters exceeding each prescribed size down to this prescribed size and stores these characters in a storage area 12 of the RAM 4. Then the CPU 2 displays those characters on a liquid crystal display unit 6 via a liquid crystal driver 5 based on the image data stored in the area 12. Thus it is possible to display many characters despite the large sizes of characters contained in the picture information read by a picture reader. Then the memory capacity is reduced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to electronic equipment, and particularly to an electronic equipment having a function of displaying an image input from an image reading device.

(Prior Art) Electronic devices such as word processors and portable electronic devices (so-called "electronic notebooks") that can display images read using image reading devices such as image scanners have been developed. In a conventional electronic notebook, which is one type of electronic device, as shown in FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b), an image consisting of characters read by an image scanner is used for address book management. Used as display data for.

FIG. 4(a) shows information on a paper surface 41 to be read by an image scanner, and the information on the paper surface 41 is converted by the image scanner into image data, which is a collection of dots, and is input into an electronic notebook. Figure 4 (
As shown in b), the information on the paper surface 41 is reproduced on the display screen 42 of the display unit provided in the electronic notebook based on the image data. In this case, Fig. 4 (b
), the relative sizes of the characters in the reproduced image are maintained.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In conventional electronic devices such as the above-mentioned electronic notebook, even large-sized characters among the characters in an image read by an image scanner are displayed in their original size. Therefore, depending on the size of the characters, a problem arises in that a sufficient number of characters cannot be displayed within a predetermined display area of the display screen. There may also be an inconvenience that large characters cannot fit in the display area. Furthermore, a large capacity memory is required to hold dot images of large characters.

The present invention was made in view of the current situation, and
The purpose of this is to be able to display a large number of characters even when the size of the characters in the image information read by the image reading device is large, and to reduce the memory capacity to hold the read characters. Our goal is to provide electronic equipment that can reduce

<Means for Solving the Problems> An electronic device of the present invention includes a determining means for checking the size of each pattern in image information input from an image reading device, and a determining means for determining the size of each pattern in image information inputted from an image reading device. means for reducing a pattern that is too large; and means for displaying a pattern reduced by the reducing means at a size determined by the reducing means, and displaying a pattern not reduced by the reducing means at its original size. This achieves the above objectives.

(Example) The invention will now be described with reference to examples.

In the embodiment described below, characters are taken as an example of a pattern to be subjected to reduction processing in image information, but patterns in the present invention may include various patterns such as symbols and figures.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an electronic notebook that is an embodiment of the present invention. The electronic notebook 1 includes a CPU 2 connected to a bus 9. A ROM 3, a RAM 4, an O crystal driver 5, and an image scanner interface 7 are connected to the bus 9, and these are controlled by the CPU 2.

The ROM 3 stores programs and the like executed by the CPU 2. The RAM 4 is mainly used as a storage device for various data. The liquid crystal driver 5 is a CPU
The liquid crystal display unit 6 is driven under the control of 2. The image scanner interface 7 is a circuit that allows the image scanner 8 to be connected to the electronic notebook 1.

The electronic notebook 1 can display characters in image information read by the image scanner 8 on the liquid crystal display unit 6. The procedure for inputting image information from the image scanner 8 and displaying characters in the image information in the electronic notebook 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. First, the CPU 2 controls the image scanner interface 7 to receive image data input to the image scanner interface 7 from the image scanner 8, and stores the image data in the storage area 11 in the RAMd (step Sl). The image data is obtained by reading the information on the paper by the image scanner 8 and converting it into image data that is a collection of dots. Next, in step S2, characters that are patterns constituting the image data are extracted from the image data in the storage area 11, and the size of each extracted character is checked. Check whether it is composed of a dot matrix of dots. The procedure for extracting characters from image data is well known and will not be described in detail here. In step S3, characters whose size is larger than a predetermined size are reduced so that their size falls within the predetermined size. The predetermined size is, for example, 24
A dot x 24 dot size is adopted. Character reduction is performed by appropriately thinning out the dots that make up the character. The character image data processed in step S3 is stored in the RAM d regardless of whether or not it has been subjected to reduction processing.
It is stored in the storage area 12 within. In step S3, considering the case where there are characters of various sizes in a line containing multiple characters, when one character in one line is reduced, all other characters in the same line are reduced. You may also perform row-by-row processing to reduce the size of the file. Finally, in step S4, based on the image data in the storage area 12, the liquid crystal driver 5
Characters are displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 6 using the .

Through the processing described above, characters or patterns that are originally large in size on paper are reduced to a predetermined size and displayed. Therefore, large-sized characters can be displayed in the same number as characters within a predetermined size. Furthermore, a situation in which large-sized characters cannot be accommodated in a predetermined display area is also prevented. Furthermore, storing character data expressed in a dot matrix requires a large amount of storage capacity, but in this embodiment, large-sized characters are reduced, and as a result, the number of dots per character is reduced. , the storage area for holding character data is small.

Note that instead of reducing large-sized characters or patterns to a certain size, the reduction magnification may be changed depending on the size of the characters or patterns. Also, without using the two storage areas 11 and 12 for character reduction processing,
Processing can also be performed within one storage area.

An example of character display in this embodiment is shown in Fig. 3(a) and (
This will be explained with reference to b). FIG. 3(a) shows information on the paper surface 31 to be read by the image scanner 8. In FIG. From the paper surface 31 in FIG. 3(a), the image scanner 8
The image information read by is processed by the electronic notebook 1 according to the procedure shown in the flowchart of FIG. As a result, a display on the display screen 32 as shown in FIG. 3(b) is obtained. In FIG. 3(b), the character string "Ken Kobayashi" is displayed in a reduced size. On the other hand, the character string "Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo..." is not reduced because the original size of each character is within the predetermined size. It will be understood that the relationship between the character size on the paper surface 31 and the character size on the display screen 32 is determined by the relationship between the resolution of the image scanner and the dot pitch of the display screen 32. Furthermore, the third
In figure (b), the character strings “name:” and “address:” are
This is a character string determined in advance to be displayed.

(Effects of the Invention) According to the present invention, even when the size of the pattern in the image information input from the image reading device is large, many patterns can be displayed, and the large-sized pattern can be displayed in the pattern display. Provided is an electronic device that can prevent the electronic device from falling out of the designated area. In the electronic device of the present invention, since large-sized patterns are reduced, such patterns can be stored with a small storage capacity. Furthermore, in the electronic device of the present invention, the area of the display unit for displaying the pattern input from the image reading device can be reduced, making it possible to downsize the entire electronic device.

4. No.: B Figure 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and Figure 2 is a procedure for inputting image data from an image scanner and displaying characters in the image data in the embodiment. Flowchart for explaining, Figure 3 (a) and (b)
4A and 4B are diagrams for explaining an example of character display in the embodiment, and FIGS. 4A and 4B are diagrams for explaining an example of character display in the conventional example.

I...electronic notebook, 2...CPU, 3...ROM,
4... RAM, 5... Liquid crystal driver, 6... Liquid crystal display unit, 7... Image scanner interface, 8... Image scanner, 9... Bus.

that's all

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Determination means for checking the size of each pattern in the image information inputted from the image reading device; means for reducing a pattern whose size obtained by the determination means is larger than a predetermined size; and reduction by the reduction means. An electronic device comprising means for displaying a pattern that has been reduced by the reducing means in a size determined by the reducing means, and displaying a pattern that has not been reduced by the reducing means in its original size.