JPH03262255A - Facsimile document transfer system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To decrease less data quantity for each transfer destination information and to obtain the printout output of each transfer destination information by sending picture information, a header and an additional header of a just preceding station to a succeeding transfer destination. CONSTITUTION:A request source dial signal is stored to a destination information storage section 12 from an operation section 11, a destination dial and a destination name are read from the storage section 12 to an additional header storage section 14 based on a command of sequential transfer and identification information. Then an NSF signal is confirmed at the call of an initial transfer destination and an additional header comprising a fixed header generated by a fixed header generating section 17 and destination information of the storage section 14 is sent by an NSS signal according to a fixed format of a fixed header storage section 18. Moreover, picture information is transferred from a memory 2. The storage sections 18, 14, 2 of each transmission destination store each reception information and a character generating section 16 applies image conversion to the fixed header and the additional header and sends the result to a print section 7a and the picture information is sent from the memory 2 to the print section 7a.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a facsimile document transfer method, and in particular, the present invention relates to a facsimile document transfer method, and in particular, header information having a fixed format,
The present invention relates to a facsimile document transfer method in which header information consisting of additional header information following this can be added to a transferred document.

(Prior Art) In facsimile communication, information such as the sender, destination, sending time, number of pages, etc. is added as header information (hereinafter simply referred to as a header) to the beginning of a transferred document and transmitted.

Since the header is created according to a fixed format, it is not possible to easily add information such as comments and messages to supplement the forwarded document other than information such as the sender and destination. .

Therefore, when adding information such as comments and messages to image information, it is necessary to prepare the document to be added separately from the main document and read it with a reading device and convert it into image information in the same way as the main document to be sent. , it was necessary to add it by hand to the main document.

By the way, in relay broadcasting and sequential transfer in which the same document is transferred to multiple destinations, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 189864/1989 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 64-3247, the source of the document, i.e. Who is the source of the transfer request?
Further, it may be necessary for each destination to recognize information such as the location of a station other than the own station to which the document is transferred.

However, the conventional fixed-format header only indicates the name of the direct partner station, that is, the immediately preceding transmitting station. I was unable to obtain any information.

On the other hand, there is a device that is configured so that when the operator inputs code information as a header, this code information is converted into an image, combined with image data (image information), and sent to the other station (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Publication No. 62-269551).

(Problem to be solved by the invention) The above conventional device has the following problems.

In other words, in this device, the header input by the operator is added to a fixed format header, and this header is converted into an image and combined with image information before being sent to the other station. There is a problem that the amount of data to be transmitted increases.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, and in sequential transfer and relay broadcasting, request source information and information on each transfer destination other than the own station can be transferred to each transfer destination with a small amount of data. The object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile document transfer method that allows these documents to be printed out.

(Means and Effects for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above-mentioned problems and achieve the objects, the present invention character-codes a header consisting of a fixed format header and an optional additional header and transfers it as protocol information. At each destination, the supplied header is converted into an image, added to the image information of the transferred document, and printed out.
The first feature is that the image information of the transferred document, the fixed format header of the own station, and the additional header supplied from the immediately previous station are configured to be sent to the next transfer destination.

The second feature of the present invention is that each transfer destination adds schedule information to the additional header and sends it to the next transfer destination.

In the present invention having the above-mentioned first feature, the header is composed of a header with a fixed form and an additional header, so in sequential transfer and relay broadcasting, the operator at each transfer destination can It is possible to recognize the request source and other stations that are scheduled to receive the same two-screen information as the own station.

Furthermore, since the present invention has the second feature, the operator at each transfer destination can recognize from the additional header the information added by the station that is earlier in the transfer order than the own station and has already received the image information. .

Furthermore, in the present invention, since the header can be transmitted in the form of a character code, the amount of data for transmitting the header does not increase more than necessary.

(Example) Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

First, a facsimile machine used in this embodiment will be explained. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, image information of a document read by a reading device 1 is compressed and encoded by an encoding/decoding circuit 3, and is then compressed and encoded by an image memory 2.
It will be stored once. The accumulated image information is modulated by the modem 4 and then sent to the line via the network control device 5.

These modem 4 and network control device 5 are controlled by a communication control section 6.

On the other hand, the signal taken from the line is demodulated by modem 4,
The image is stored in the image memory 2. The accumulated image information is decompressed by the encoding/decoding circuit 3, read out as appropriate, and recorded by the printing device 7. The printing device 7 is equipped with a character generator (not shown) for converting the header stored in the RAM 10 in the form of a character code into an image and printing designated character information.

The system control unit 8 is composed of a microcomputer,
Each of the above units is controlled according to a scheduled program stored in the ROM 9.

A dial number (hereinafter simply referred to as "dial") for calling a communication partner station and management data for communication are input from the operation unit 11. The management data includes information consisting of the dial of the requester and the dials of all transfer destinations (hereinafter referred to as destination information), and the image information is transferred to the scheduled transfer destination indicated in the destination information. Ru. Furthermore, the destination information can be printed out and used as a header together with the image information if necessary.

The destination information is incorporated in the form of a character code into a PIF (facsimile information field) of an N5S (non-standard function setting) signal in protocol communication, and is sent to the other party. The NSS signal includes sequential transfer instruction information so that each receiving station can identify that the communication is a sequential transfer, and relay broadcast information that allows the scheduled relay station to identify that the communication is a relay broadcast. Instruction information is included depending on each communication method.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the frame structure of the NSS signal in the case of sequential transfer.

As shown in the figure, the frame has a flag field F1.
Address field A1 Control field C1 Facsimile control field FCF, Facsimile information field PIF, and Frame check sequence FC8
It consists of

The facsimile control field FCF is a field for identifying the function of the signal, that is, the NSS signal. The facsimile information field PIF includes functional information such as document size, linear density, transmission speed, etc., and a portion indicating information for sequential transfer. The information for sequential transfer in the facsimile information field PIF is transferred to data D1 and D.
Indicated by 2. The last bit of data D1 is sequential transfer instruction information, and when this bit is 1'', it indicates that the communication is sequential transfer.In the case of relay broadcasting, this bit is the bit indicating relay broadcast instruction information. Become.

Data D2 is destination information, and the dial of the requester and the name of the requester are placed at the beginning, followed by the dial of the transfer destination and the name of the transfer destination corresponding to the transfer destination dial. When creating a new header by adding destination information to a header with a fixed format, "*"#'' indicates that the destination information is information that should be added to the new header.
A pre-arranged mark such as
Add it to the beginning of. Further, identification information is added to each data so that the receiving station can identify the delimiter of each data.

By arranging the forwarding destination dials and forwarding destination names in data D2 in the order of transfer, and setting the receiving station to determine the forwarding order based on the arrangement of the forwarding destination dials, the destination information can be received. The station can easily determine to which station the image information should be transferred next.

Next, the operation of the facsimile document sequential transfer method using the facsimile apparatus having the above configuration will be explained. Figure 1 is a functional block diagram of the main part of a facsimile machine to explain the operation of this embodiment, Figures 2 and 3 are flowcharts showing the operation of this embodiment, and Figure 6 is a diagram of the printed document. This is an example.

In Figure 6, a fixed header consisting of the reception time and date, the name of the transmitting station, and the number of document sheets (pages) is printed out at the beginning of the document, and following this fixed header, the name of the first transfer request for the document is printed. and an additional header consisting of the dial, the name of each transfer destination, and the dial are printed. Following these headers, image information is printed out.

The functions for obtaining the print output as described above are as follows.

In FIG. 1, a document sent from a requester is read by an image reading section 1a, and its image information is compressed and encoded and stored in an image memory 2. The image memory 2 also stores image information received from the communication partner station.

The destination information storage unit 12 stores destination information such as the dials of all expected transfer destinations, the transfer sales name corresponding to the dials, the dial of the request source, and the name of the request source, according to key input from the operation unit 11. .

Among the information stored in the destination information storage section 12, the data on the dial of the requester and the transfer destination to which the document should be transferred in the communication is read out from the operation section 11 according to keystrokes and stored in the additional header storage section 14. . For example, the storage format of the additional header storage unit 14 is configured so that the transfer priority is determined according to the order of key input, and the operator dials the transfer destination (identification data such as speed dialing may also be used) according to predetermined rules. By inputting , the additional header storage section 1 is saved when transferring the document.
4, documents can always be transferred in the scheduled transfer order. At the time of reception, the additional header received from the communication partner station is stored in the additional header storage section 14.

The transfer destination selection unit 13 selects the next station to which the image information should be transferred from the destination information in the additional header storage unit 14, reads out the dial to the transmission/reception control unit 15,
calls the next transfer station according to the dial supplied from the destination information storage section 12.

Upon detecting a response from the partner station to the call, the transmission/reception control unit 15 reads out image information and destination information from the image memory 2 and the additional header storage unit 14, respectively, and sends them to the partner station.

The first transfer destination at the transfer request source is not limited to the method of selecting from the destination information in the additional header storage section 14, but may be directly called by keystrokes from the operation section 11.

The fixed header creation unit 17 creates a fixed header according to a fixed format based on the time and date information obtained from the clock device, the number of document sheets obtained from the document number counter, and preset own station information (name, dial, etc.). is created. The created fixed header is temporarily stored in the fixed header storage section 18. The fixed header storage section 18 includes:
The fixed header received from the communication partner station is also stored. When the own station becomes the requester, the own station information (name, dial, etc.) is supplied to the additional header storage section 14 and can be used as the requester information of the additional header.

The character generating section 16 converts the character code inputted from the additional header storage section 14 and the fixed header storage section 18 into images and supplies the converted characters to the printing section 7a. The image-converted data and image information from the image memory 2 are supplied to the printing unit 7a, and a document to which a fixed header and an additional header are added is printed out based on these information. The character generation section 16 is, for example,
A well-known character generator such as that disclosed in Publication No. 0-23534 can be used.

The transmission/reception control section 15 is a control section for converting each signal and image information into codes or data that can be transmitted/received to/from the communication partner station, and is a control section for converting each signal and image information into codes or data that can be transmitted/received to/from the communication partner station, and is a control section for converting each signal and image information into codes or data that can be transmitted/received to/from the communication partner station. 5, and the communication control unit 6 that controls these.

In the above configuration, the operation of the document transfer request source will be described first with reference to a flowchart.

Before starting the operation shown in the flowchart of FIG. 2, the dials of all destinations to which there is a possibility that a document may need to be transferred, the destination name, and the dial of the requesting station are entered from the operation unit 11. The scheduled destination information is stored in the destination information storage unit 12 manually.

In step S1, it is determined whether sequential transfer is to be performed based on an instruction from the operation unit 11. If the instruction is for sequential transfer, the process advances to step S2; otherwise, the process advances to step S6.

In step S6, normal communication processing is performed.

In step S2, following instructions for sequential transfer, the operation unit 11
Based on identification information such as an abbreviated number inputted from the , the dial and destination name of the destination corresponding to the identification information are read from the destination information storage section 12 to the additional header storage section 14 .

In step S3, the first transfer destination is selected from the destination information in the additional header storage section 14, and the selected transfer destination is called. When the requester calls the transfer destination for the first time, the transfer destination may be directly designated by keystrokes from the operation unit 11.

In step S4, the NSF (non-standard function) signal from the transfer destination is confirmed, and the fixed header created by the fixed header creation unit 17 according to the storage contents of the fixed header storage unit 18, that is, the fixed format, and the additional header storage unit 14 are An additional header consisting of stored contents, that is, destination information, is sent as an NSS signal.

In step S5, the image information of the transfer document previously read and stored by the image reading section 1a is read out from the image memory 2 and transferred to the first transfer destination.

On the other hand, processing at each transfer destination is performed as follows.

In FIG. 3, in step S10, the received fixed header and additional header are stored in the fixed header storage section 18 and the additional header storage section 14, respectively.

In step S11, the received image information is stored in the image memory 2.

In step S12, it is determined whether or not the image information receiving operation has ended.

When the receiving operation is completed, the line is disconnected (step 51).
3).

In step S14, the fixed header and the additional characters are converted into images by the character generating section 16 and supplied to the printing section 7a, and image information is further supplied from the image memory 2 to the printing section 7a to print them out.

In step S15, the next transfer destination is selected from the destination information of the received additional header, and the next transfer destination is called according to the dial.

Step 316 confirms the response from the transfer destination, and transfers the fixed header created by the local station and the received additional header, that is, the destination information transferred from the request source.

In step S17, image information is transferred.

Note that since the received header and image information are stored in the storage means, these printouts, that is, the process of step S14, may be performed after the image information is transferred to the next destination.

In this embodiment, the addition data created by the request source is not changed and is transferred to each transfer destination one after another.
Schedule information may be added to the additional header at each transfer destination. For example, after receiving the image information, each transfer destination may add a predetermined character code representing a completed mark to the own station name in the destination information to indicate that the image information has been received. By adding a completion mark to the additional header at each transfer destination in this way, the station that has received the additional header and printed it out can communicate with other stations that should receive the same image information in addition to its own station. Among them, the operator can visually recognize which stations have already received image information.

As described above, in this embodiment, a header is composed of a fixed header and an additional header, and this header is transmitted to a transfer destination in a character code, so that it can be printed out together with image information at each transfer destination. The header can be printed out not only at each transfer destination but also at the request source, and can be used to confirm the transfer destination.

In this embodiment, request source information and transfer destination information are added to the header and transferred in the form of a character code, but only one of these may be transferred as an additional header. Further, the contents of the additional header are not limited to these, and may be comments, short messages, etc. to supplement the document.

The present invention can be implemented not only in sequential transfer as shown in this embodiment, but also in relay broadcasting. In relay broadcasting, the additional header may be created at the relay station requested to relay.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, necessary information can be added to the header in addition to the fixed format header while suppressing the increase in the amount of data to be transmitted to the necessary limit. can.

In the case of sequential forwarding, relay broadcasting, etc., each forwarding destination must confirm whether the document was requested to be forwarded or whether the forwarding destination is other than its own station.
It can be recognized by the operator or visually from the attached header.

Furthermore, the present invention has the advantage that data errors are less likely to occur because the additional header can be transmitted in character code.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a facsimile machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are flowcharts showing the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a hardware configuration of a facsimile machine according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of a frame of transmitted information, and FIG. 6 is an example of a printed document. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Reading device, 1a... Image reading part, 2... Image memory, 7a... Printing part, 11... Operation part, 12
... Destination information storage section, 13 ... Transfer destination selection section, 14
...Additional header storage section, 15...Transmission/reception control section, 1
6...Character generation section, 17...Fixed header creation section, 18...Fixed header storage section,

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a facsimile document transfer method that transfers the same document to multiple destinations, header information consisting of fixed format header information and optional additional header information is character coded and sent to the destinations as protocol information. At the forwarding destination, the supplied header information is converted into an image, added to the image information of the forwarded document and printed out, and the next forwarding destination is sent with the image information of the forwarded document and the fixed format created by the own station. A facsimile document transfer method characterized by transmitting header information as well as additional header information supplied from the immediately preceding station. (2) The facsimile document transfer method according to claim 1, wherein information set in advance is added to the additional header at each transfer destination and the information is sent to the next transfer destination.