JPH04127266A - Document processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prepare and edit a document by relating each frame to each other by providing a link means to link desired frame logically, and a control means to manage and control a character string developed in each linked frame or to be developed as a series of character strings. CONSTITUTION:The document is prepared by setting plural frames in each page, and developing the character string inputted from a keyboard, however, when an operator sets the frame, an area 32 for a frame header, a character code area 33, and a character attribute area 34 are secured in a RAM 3. The frame header area 32 is comprised of areas storing a frame number, link information, the size of the frame, the coordinate position of the frame, the number of characters in the frame, and the attribute information of the character, and the frames can be linked (coupled) by the link information. Therefore, it is possible to insert document information to the linked frame according to an insertion order, or to affect the following shift movement of the character on each linked frame by inserting/deleting the character, etc. Thereby, the preparation/edit of the document can be performed by relating each frame to each other.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document processing device, and more particularly to a document processing device for creating and editing documents.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, desktop publishing (so-called DTP) using computers and the like has been desired. Normally, when creating a document in this type of system, an operation is performed in which characters input from a keyboard or the like are expanded into each frame in which the document is expanded.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, when performing such operations, the operator must input documents while always keeping in mind the order in which the documents should be assembled, which places a heavy burden on the operator. The present invention has been made in view of such prior art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a document processing device that can create and edit documents by associating each frame with each other. A further object of the present invention is to provide a document processing device that allows information in any frame to be reflected in individual frames associated by an operator.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve this problem, the document processing device of the first invention has the configuration shown below. That is, a document processing device that creates and edits a document by expanding and displaying a character string in at least one frame set in a page, and a connecting means that logically connects desired frames. and a control means for managing and controlling each of the character strings connected by the connecting means and each effectively expanded or expanded as a continuous character string.

[Effect]

In this configuration of the present invention, the control means manages and controls the character strings in each frame that are connected by the connection means.

【Example】

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. <Description of System Configuration> FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of a document processing system in an embodiment. In the figure, 1 is a CPU that controls the entire system, and 2
3 is a ROM that stores a boot program at the time when the power is turned on, and 3 stores programs read from an external storage device (such as a program related to the flowchart in FIG. 7, which will be described later), and document information being edited. , a RAM used as a work area for the CPUI. 4 is a font memory (stores so-called outline fonts) that stores coordinate format data for generating character patterns; 5 is a VRAM that stores images to be displayed on the display screen; and 6 is a font memory that stores data in the form of coordinates to generate character patterns. This is a CRT display that displays images. Reference numeral 7 denotes a magnetic storage device, typically a floppy disk device or a hard disk device, which stores various programs (loaded into the RAM 3) related to document processing in this device, document information, and the like. 8 is a keyboard for giving predetermined instructions to the characters constituting the document or this system; 9 is a mouse for controlling the movement of a graphic cursor displayed on the display screen of the CRT display 6; Reference numeral 10 denotes an image memory that can develop an image for one page of recording paper when it comes to the actual printing process, and 11 an image memory 10.
This is a printer that forms a visible image on a recording medium based on the image developed in the image. Note that the printer 11 in the embodiment will be explained as a laser beam printer. Usually, CRT display devices only need to be able to confirm the edited content, so their resolution is lower than that of high-quality printers such as laser beam printers. When performing printing processing, a character pattern or the like matching the resolution of the printer is generated in accordance with the document information to be printed, according to the data read out from the font memory 4, developed in the image memory 10, and printed. Explanation of Frame> FIG. 2 shows an example of the layout of a frame that is a development area of a document in the embodiment. In the figure, 20 represents recording paper, and 21 to 23 represent each character string (
This is a frame for expanding documents. The size and settings of the frame are performed by operating the mouse 9. Specifically, by operating the mouse 9, you can freely scroll the recording paper displayed on the display screen, move the graphic cursor to any two points within it, and press the button provided on the mouse 9. When you press (hereinafter referred to as click), the two points are treated as the two end points of the diagonal of the rectangle (=frame). After this, a document is created by specifying an appropriate frame using the mouse, etc., and expanding the character string input from the keyboard 8 (hereinafter, in the example, a single character is included) into the frame. Note that even after inputting a document, etc., the layout and size of the frame can be changed freely. In the above-mentioned configuration, multiple frames are set within each page, and a document is created by expanding character strings input from the keyboard 8 into the frames. In the figure, 31-1.2...n indicates information on each page (hereinafter referred to as page information).As you can see from the page information 31-1 of the first page, In the example,
Data for one frame is composed of three pieces of information: a frame header area 32, a character code area 33, and a character attribute area 34. Each area will be explained below. The frame header area 32 stores data necessary for editing the frame. In the embodiment, as shown in FIG. 4, this frame header area contains the frame number, link information, frame size (length and width), coordinate position of the frame with respect to the recording paper, number of characters in the frame, and, It consists of an area that stores the attribute information. The frame number is a number for distinguishing the frame of interest from other frames, and no two frames have the same number. For example, this may be incremented by one each time the operator sets a new frame. The details of the link information will be described later, but this is information that specifies frames that logically precede and follow the frame of interest. In other words, it indicates which frame the frame of interest follows (hereinafter, this frame is referred to as the front frame), and which frame follows the frame of interest (hereinafter, this frame will refer to as the rear frame). The frame number is memorized. In addition, if the front frame or the rear frame does not exist, a number that cannot exist (for example,
“0” etc.) are stored. Incidentally, if both are "O", the frame of interest is an isolated frame. Further, the size, coordinate position, and number of characters are as described above. Finally, the attribute information of the frame header includes the type of frame (text, figure, image, etc.), document composition information such as whether the document in the frame is written vertically or horizontally, font size information (number of points), Character vertical and horizontal magnification information, font information whether it is a Western character or a mixed kanji character (for kanji characters, Mincho or Gothic, for European characters, Fourier, Heribetei, Times, etc.), distance information between lines, character spacing Distance information, angle information in italics,
It consists of information on the presence or absence of prohibition processing, information on whether the information in the frame is text or an image, etc. The attributes of this frame header are set to default values unless the operator actively instructs to change each piece of information. If the information in the frame is an image (read by an image scanner), the image data is stored in the character code area shown. Further, although the explanation will be repeated later, when the operator sets a frame, an area for the frame header, a character code area, and a character attribute area are each secured in the RAMB. Next, in the character code area in FIG. 3, individual character codes constituting the document developed within the corresponding frame are stored. However, if the information within the attention frame is an image, the character attribute area 34 is not generated, as a matter of course. Further, the character attribute area stores attribute information for each character in the corresponding character code area. There are various types of attribute information for individual characters, some of which include font size information, font type (type of font), decoration information (color of character decoration, presence or absence of underline, overline). The presence or absence of shading, the shading is the type of pattern, the presence or absence of surrounding ruled lines surrounding the character string, etc.), glyph information, font color, vertical position of characters, character spacing, and whether or not to invert the display pattern. Information, etc. Among these, there are two types of glyph information: front characters and shadow characters. For front characters, double the width (range 50-200%), double the height (range 50-200%)
% range), presence/absence of border, italic angle, italic direction,
There is information for setting the rotation direction (range of 0 to 360 degrees) and the type of fill pattern. Information for setting almost the same parameters as for front characters is also secured for shadow characters. Note that if the attributes of the frame header area and the character attributes of individual characters conflict, the character attributes take precedence. Explanation of frame link> As explained earlier, the frame header information 32 in the embodiment
Link information (see Figure 4) is secured inside the
It is possible to link (combine) frames. This makes it possible to flow document information, etc. into the connected frames in accordance with their order, and to have subsequent character shift movements such as insertion and deletion of character strings reflected in each connected frame. The operation of linking frames is extremely simple. First, you instruct the link process (for example, by selecting it from the menu), and as shown in Figure 5 (A), the outer frame of the page of interest and the items that exist within that page are linked. Display the outline of each feature (information inside the frame is hidden). In the illustrated case, there are four frames A within the page of interest. This shows that B, C, and D exist. If the operator wants to link frame B after frame A, the operator must press mouse 9
By operating , move the graphic cursor 80 into frame A and click (select the front frame). After this, move the graphic cursor 80 into frame B and select the end point, frame B (back frame). Select. During this operation, a straight line with an arrow will continue to be displayed between the specified starting point (the center of frame A will automatically become the starting point) and the point indicated by the graphic cursor 80 (moving point), so the operator can You can check your own operations. After this, by performing the same operation to specify frame B as the front frame and frame C as the rear frame, you can see how the eight frames are connected with a straight line with an arrow as shown in the figure. is a concatenation of eight patterns within a page, but
It is also possible to set it across pages. In this case, an instruction to perform link processing is performed by inputting an instruction to that effect. When this instruction is received, a plurality of pages before and after the page of interest and frames within each page are displayed on the display screen, as shown in FIG. 5(B), for example. The operation for linking frames is as described above. In the illustrated case, frames A, C, D, F, H, and I are linked in that order. Note that if a frame link has already been made and this process is specified, the contents (line segments with arrows) are displayed so that it is possible to check how the frame is linked. It is also possible to cancel a specific line segment 1, for example, the line segment between the frame and F in Figure 5 (B), insert a frame E between them, and link the frame, E, and F in that order. It has become. In any case, if link processing is specified, cpu
searches for the front frame and rear frame based on the coordinate position of the graphic cursor when the mouse 9 is clicked, and rewrites the link information in the header information of each frame. Details of the link information in the eight header information are shown in FIG. In the illustration, the frame number of the frame that is logically located before is stored in the column ``Previous frame number'', and the frame number of the frame linked after the frame of interest is stored in the column ``Later frame number''. The "link mode" will be described later. For example, when focusing on frame A in Fig. 5 (A), the "previous frame number" in the link information in the frame header information is "0"('', (There is no frame), the frame number of frame B is written in the "later frame number". The linking process proceeds according to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, in step S21, the coordinate position of the graphic cursor when a button on the mouse 9 is clicked is captured. Next, in step S22, it is determined which frame the obtained graphic cursor points to. This includes the coordinate position of the graphic cursor, the display status at that time (whether multiple pages or only one page was displayed, etc.), and the coordinate position and size information in the header information 32 of the 8-piece. Judgment can be made based on After that, the process advances to step S23, where, as in step S24, the coordinate position of the graphic cursor when the mouse 9 is clicked is fetched, and step S23 is proceeded to.
At step 24, it is determined which frame the graphic cursor is pointing to. In this way, once the starting point, the ending point, and the frame are specified, the process proceeds to step S25.
The corresponding part of the link information in the header information of each frame is rewritten with the frame number of the other party. After this, step S26
The above-described process is repeated until it is determined that an instruction to end the series of link operations has been given. By the way, the types of frame links in the embodiment include "text links" and "frame transparent links." i) Text links Text links are further divided into two complete links and independent links. Complete linking is a mode in which the format of the linked 8 styles is unified to the attributes of the first frame. For example, if you change the font size in the first frame, that change will be applied to all linked items. It is reflected directly in the frame. Furthermore, an independent link is the opposite of a complete link, in which each of the eight linked frames determines the output format according to its own attributes.
For example, it is possible to set the characters to have different sizes for each frame. In other words, for example, if a character string is inserted into frame A, the characters that overflow from that frame will be incorporated into the first position of frame B, which is connected to it, but if an independent link is set at this time, that character will be inserted into the frame. It is displayed according to attributes specific to B. ii) Frame transparent link Frame transparent link is a mode in which the data in the first frame is directly transmitted to the following frame. For example, when frames 100, 101, and 102 are linked in this order as shown in FIG. 8, if the character string "AI" is written in frame 100, it will be reflected in frames 101 and 102 as is. Naturally, this frame-transparent link can be made transparent not only to the same page, but also to any frame on another page.In this way, when linking a frame, it is possible to see in which mode the frame of interest is linked. Therefore, in this embodiment, as shown in Fig. 6,
A column is provided to store "°° link code" in the link information.As mentioned above, this column stores the identification codes of complete links, independent links, and frame-transparent links.It should be noted that if the frame of interest is a frame-transparent link, , and “ in the link information
If the content of "Previous frame number" is other than "O" (that is, if a previous frame exists for the frame of interest), the frame information for the frame of interest is only the header information area 32, and the character code area 331 characters. The attribute area 34 becomes unnecessary.Also, in the case of frame transparent links, it can be easily inferred from the above explanation that not only characters but also images can be transparent.The settings for each mode are as follows. , After the frame linking is completed, this is done by selecting one from the selection menus displayed on the display screen, and the explanation of the processing procedure is omitted here. When attempting to display a page, if it is determined that there is a frame set as a complete link or a frame transparent link on that page, it is necessary to search for the first frame in a series of linked frames. Therefore, it is possible to create a new area for storing the original frame number in the link information for each frame, thereby eliminating the need for search processing and speeding up the processing.However, in the case of a complete link, the beginning of the link If the operator changes the attributes of the frame located in , the header attributes of each subsequent frame will be automatically changed.
This becomes unnecessary. When a normal document processing device inserts or deletes a character string in a page of interest, it compresses or moves the subsequent character strings. In this embodiment, similar processing is performed for each connected frame, and detailed description thereof will not be given here. However, if an independent link is specified, the display format of each frame is controlled depending on the attributes of each frame. In addition, in the embodiment, sentences (hereinafter referred to as text data) stored in advance in the magnetic storage device 7 are
It is possible to read into the frame specified by the operator. The operator's operation in this case is accomplished by specifying a desired frame with the mouse 9 and then instructing to read the text. Since it is conceivable that a plurality of texts exist in the magnetic storage device 7, a list of them is naturally displayed, and by specifying one of them, the reading target is specified. The flowchart in FIG. 9 shows the operation processing contents of the CPU 1 at this time. First, in step S31, the operator specifies the frame in which the text information to be read is to be developed. Next, the process advances to step S32, and the text information designated by the operator is read into the frame work rear (not shown) in the RAM 3. The read text data is stored in the character code area 33 of the currently focused frame (the frame designated in step S31 in the initial state) in order from the first character. Hereinafter, step S34. In S35, the text filled up within the visible range due to the size of the attention frame, etc.
Alternatively, the process loops until it is determined that all text data has been stored. If it is determined that the read text data is small and has been expanded into the character code area 33 with all characters visible within the frame of interest, the process proceeds from step S35 to step S.
Proceeding to step 36, the actual information within the frame is displayed. In addition, if it is determined that the text data is full within the visible range within the frame of interest, the process proceeds from step S34 to step S37. Here, the following frame (following frame) is Determine whether it exists. If it is determined that there is no subsequent frame, the remaining text data is stored in the frame of interest, and display processing is performed in step 336. However, in this case, part of the text will be displayed in the attention frame (it is possible to change the amount of text displayed by changing the size of the frame). If there is a rear frame, the process advances to step S38, the frame of interest is moved to the rear frame, and the processes from step S33 onwards are repeated. In addition, in the example, depending on the text to be read, "I want to display this character string in the same frame" in that text
Or "I want to display only this string in one frame"
satisfies that requirement. To achieve this, a specific delimiter code is inserted in advance into the text to be read. CPtJ is achieved by updating the attention frame every time the delimiter code is detected, so a detailed description thereof will be omitted here. Through the above processing, it becomes possible to import a separately created text into this device. As explained above, according to the frame link processing of this embodiment,
You can easily compose consecutive sentences in complex ways. In this case, the display format of the entire text can be unified, or each frame can be displayed in an independent display format, making it possible to support a wide variety of text expressions. Furthermore, according to the frame transparent link of the embodiment, data in the first frame can be made transparent within each frame specified by the operator to be connected sequentially. It is possible to make the image transparent at any position on the page or at any position on different pages.

【Effect of the invention】

As explained above, according to the present invention, documents can be created and edited by associating eight frames. Further, according to another invention, it becomes possible to reflect information in any frame in each frame associated with the operator.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a document processing system according to an embodiment. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the layout of a frame serving as a document expansion area in an embodiment. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a data storage state in a RAM in an embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the data format in the header information in FIG. 3. FIGS. 5 (A) and (B) are diagrams showing the concept of frame links in the embodiment. FIG. FIG. 7 is a flowchart related to frame link setting processing; FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the concept of frame transparent links in the embodiment; FIG. 9 is a flowchart related to text reading. In the figure, 1-CPU, 2-ROWi, 3・RAM, 4
...Font memory, 5...VRAM, 6...C
RT display, 7... Magnetic storage device, 8... Keyboard, 9... Mouse, 10... Image memory, 1
1... It is a laser beam printer. -2ri Figure 2 Figure 4 Figure 5 (Δ) Figure 5 (B) Figure 6r11J Figure 7 Figure 8

Claims (7)

[Claims] (1) A document processing device that creates and edits a document by expanding and displaying a character string in at least one frame set within a page, and a connecting means that logically connects desired frames to each other. A document processing apparatus comprising: a control means for managing and controlling character strings expanded or expanded in each frame connected by the connecting means as a continuous character string. (2) The connecting means includes a display means for displaying the layout of each frame within the page of interest or multiple pages including the page of interest, and a display means for specifying two desired frames among the displayed frames, and specifying the two frames before and after them. 2. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising designating means for sequentially designating connection relationships. (3) The apparatus further includes a storage means for storing output format data specific to each frame, and the control means is a display means for displaying character strings in each frame according to the respective output format data. The document processing device according to claim 1. (4) The control means is a display means for displaying the output format of the character strings in each frame connected by the connection means in accordance with the output format of the frame at the logical head position connected by the connection means. The document processing device according to claim 1, characterized in that: (5) A document processing device that creates and edits documents by expanding and displaying character strings or images in at least one frame set within a page, and logically connecting desired frames with each other. The present invention is characterized by comprising: a connecting means; and a control means so as to transmit information in a logically leading frame in a group of frames connected by the connecting means to other frames connected to the leading frame. document processing device. (6) The connecting means includes a display means for displaying the layout of each frame within the page of interest or multiple pages including the page of interest, and specifying two desired frames among the displayed frames, and specifying the two frames before and after them. 6. The document processing apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising a designating means for continuously designating the connection relationship. (7) The control means includes a storage means for storing the context of each connected frame, and a storage means for storing the front and back relationship of each connected frame, and a storage means for storing whether or not connected frames exist in the page when a desired page is to be displayed. a discriminating means that discriminates based on content stored in the means; and when the discriminating means determines that a frame of interest in a page to be displayed is a linked frame, a frame within the first frame of a group of linked frames including the linked frame of interest; 6. The document processing apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising an output means for outputting the expanded information within the attention frame.