JPH05342325A - Document processor and form register device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily efficiently prepare a document having a form for presentation in accordance with contents of general document which is without preliminarily determining the position, the number of stages, and the number of characters. CONSTITUTION:This device is provided with an area dividing means 2 which divides the document picture held in a document picture holding means 11 into meaningful areas as document elements, an identifier giving means 3 which gives identifiers to divided areas respectively, a form data holding means 4 which holds form data including layout information of the document to be prepared and a form frame picture, a document constituting element converting means 5 which converts picture elements in each area in accordance with the identifier based on the form data, and a picture synthesizing means 6 which successively synthesizes converted elements into a form picture.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

[Industrial application] Overhead projector (OH
The present invention relates to a document processing apparatus for creating a document having a predetermined form frame such as a presentation document according to P) and a form registration apparatus for the document processing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, when giving a presentation using an OHP or the like, a manuscript is often put in a specific form or a character to be used is enlarged in order to improve visibility and appearance. Conventionally, when creating such a document, a desktop publishing (DTP) system capable of simultaneously handling characters and graphics was used, or a document image was enlarged or cut by a copying machine to create a document. However, the DTP system is expensive, has not spread, is not easy to operate, and cannot be used by anyone. On the other hand, the method of cutting using a copying machine can be done by anyone, but it is not efficient because it is a manual work done with glue and scissors. It may be. As a method for electronically and automatically performing the cutting work in a copying machine, there are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2-297464 and 1-24.
It is conceivable to use a technique for synthesizing a document image into a specific form as described in Japanese Patent No. 6665 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-246959. However, the conventional form synthesizing technique can only synthesize a region of a specific position and size on a document designed in advance into a form. In other words, it could not be applied to items with an indefinite number of paragraphs or characters, such as presentation materials.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, the contents of a general document created without previously determining the position, the number of columns, and the number of characters are electronically and automatically combined into a form having a predetermined layout. An object of the present invention is to obtain a document processing device capable of easily and efficiently creating a document having a form frame. Further, the present invention is
An object of the present invention is to obtain a form registration device capable of easily registering a form for a document processing device.

[0004]

A document processing apparatus according to the present invention is a document image holding means (1 in FIG. 1) for holding a document image.
An area dividing means (2 in FIG. 1) that divides the document image held by the document image holding means into meaningful areas as document elements, and an identifier is given to each area divided by the area dividing means. Identifier assigning means (3 in FIG. 1)
By referring to the form data holding unit (4 in FIG. 1) holding the form data including the layout information of the document to be generated and the form frame image, and the form data held in the form data holding unit, Document component conversion means (5 in FIG. 1) for converting the image element of FIG. 1 according to the identifier assigned by the identifier assigning means.
And image synthesizing means (6 in FIG. 1) for sequentially synthesizing each element converted by the document constituent element converting means into a form image.

Further, according to one aspect of the present invention, in the document processing apparatus having the above configuration, when each element is sequentially combined into a form image, it is determined whether or not the element is included in a form of one page, and the form is entered. A page overflow determination means is provided for instructing composition to the next page when it is determined that the page cannot be exhausted.

The present invention relates to a form data registration device for registering form data in the form data holding means of the document processing device having the above structure. The structure is such that a document image holding unit (1 in FIG. 2) holding a document image and a form analysis unit (FIG. 2) that analyzes the document image held in the document image holding unit and extracts the form image and the character area. 9), a character area attribute assigning means (10 in FIG. 2) for assigning an attribute to each respective character area based on the position of the character area extracted by the form analyzing means, and each character area is registered as a form. Form component selection means (11 in FIG. 2) for confirming to the user whether or not to do so, and form data holding means (4 in FIG. 2) for storing the layout information including the form frame image and the character region attribute extracted as described above. ) And.

[0007]

According to the operation of the present invention, first, the document image held in the document image holding means is divided by the area dividing means into meaningful areas such as character areas and graphic areas as document elements. The identifier assigning means assigns an identifier to each area divided by the area dividing means. The identifier represents a logical meaning of a document such as a material name, creator, creation date, text / heading, text / content, and the like. The form data holding unit holds layout information such as the layout of each item of the generated document and the character size, and form data including a form frame image, for example, in the form of a layout parameter table (FIGS. 7 and 8). .. The document component conversion means cuts out the image element in each area held in the document image holding means, refers to the form data held in the form data holding means for each identifier given by the identifier giving means, Determine the layout and size, and convert the image. The image synthesizing means synthesizes each element converted by the document constituent element converting means and the form image sequentially held in the form data holding means to generate an output image. As described above, according to the present invention, the target document image is analyzed by the area dividing unit and the logical identifier assigning unit, and the document image is processed based on the analysis result and the form data prepared in advance by the form holding unit. Since a predetermined output image is automatically generated by the above, a document in which the contents are laid out in the form frame can be obtained easily and efficiently. Further, since the form data includes the document design parameters, the user can obtain a good-looking document without knowledge of the document design.

The page overflow determination means determines whether or not the above-mentioned elements fit in the form of one page when synthesizing each element into the form image in sequence, and moves to the next page when it is determined that the elements do not fit. Since it instructs the synthesis of 2
It is possible to generate a good-looking document in which each page conforms to a certain form even for a document having more than one page.

Further, in the form registration apparatus of the present invention, the document image holding means holds the digital image of the form to be registered which is input by the appropriate input means.
For this image, the form analysis means extracts the form frame image and the character area of the document, and the form frame image is held by the form data holding means. The character area attribute adding means is
Attributes such as a body, a footer, and a header are added to the extracted character area based on its position. The form component selecting means determines whether or not to register as a form component according to a user's instruction, and in the case of registration, the character area attribute is held in the form data holding means. When the user wants to use a new form or has to use a designated form other than the overlay form built into the system, the user can easily input and use a desired form by using this form registration device. be able to.

[0010]

EXAMPLE An example in which the present invention is applied to a digital copying machine will be described. FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a presentation document processing apparatus of this embodiment. This apparatus reads a document original as a digital image and holds it, a document holding unit 1, an area dividing unit 2 that divides the held image of the document into meaningful regions as document elements, and a document item corresponding to each region. An identifier assigning unit 3 assigned as an identifier, a layout of a generated document, a form data holding unit 4 holding a form frame image, and referring to this data, an image element in each area is converted according to the assigned identifier. Document constituent element converting means 5, image combining means 6 for sequentially combining the converted elements into a form image, and whether to enter a one-page form when sequentially injecting each element in the image combining by the image combining means 6 Page overflow determination means 7 for determining whether or not the page is full, and for instructing to synthesize to the next page, and The made image has an image visualizing means 8 for visualizing.

First, the user sequentially creates the contents of each item such as the material name, the creator, the creation date, and the contents of characters used in the presentation using a word processor (W / P) or the like. At this time, it is not necessary to give special consideration other than inserting a blank line between each item. FIG. 3 shows an example of a presentation material manuscript created by a word processor.
The user places the original on the platen of the digital copying machine to which the present invention is applied and presses the copy start button to create an OHP document as shown in FIGS. 4a to 4c.

The operation will be described with reference to FIG. First, a document as shown in FIG. 3 created by a word processor is read by a reading system of a digital copying machine and taken into the document holding means 1. This image is then extracted by the area dividing means 2 into a character string or a character block. A state in which the character string is extracted is shown in FIG. As a method of extracting a character string, area division processing in document recognition technology may be used. That is, it corresponds to a process of inputting a digital image of a document and dividing it into a character area, a graphic area, and the like. This is realized by known techniques, for example, the techniques disclosed in JP-A-64-15889 and JP-B-61-32712. In the area division processing here, each area is divided into rectangles, and the position / size of the area, the lower element area sequence, and the classification (discrimination of the character area, the figure area, etc.) are output as a set. It goes without saying that preprocessing such as inclination correction may be performed before this processing. It should be noted that the rectangle representing the area has a side parallel to the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction of the original image, and is the smallest rectangle that surrounds the target area.

In this embodiment, only character images are targeted,
Since the character string is extracted, it is possible to apply a further simplified method. For example, a projection is taken in the horizontal direction with respect to an image whose inclination has been corrected, and a portion having a projection component is set as a character string candidate area. Next, a projection is taken in the direction perpendicular to this area. Since the range with the projection component is the character part,
In the character string candidate area, the range excluding the left and right projection component-free parts is the character string area.

Next, a character block corresponds to a paragraph and is composed of a set of character strings. Here, since a blank line is inserted at the time of creating an original so that the blank line can be detected with certainty, the blank line is detected. As a method of detecting a blank line, a histogram of Y coordinate intervals of the lower left point of a rectangle surrounding each character string can be used. How to obtain the Y coordinate is shown in FIG. The normal line spacing and the line spacing when one blank line is inserted appear as two peaks in the histogram. The peak with the wider spacing corresponds to the spacing of the blank lines. Since a wide line interval part becomes a blank line, it is divided into character blocks before and after being detected. It is also possible to extract the character block by using indentation or the like other than the blank line.

Next, each divided area (text block) is given a document item as an identifier in the identifier assigning means 3. Specifically, it is described in Japanese Patent Application No. 3-313186, “Apparatus and method for document logical structure recognition and document content recognition” (inventor: Masaharu Ozaki, Yusuke Ishida) previously filed by the present applicant. The method of matching with the model as disclosed in the existing technology is simplified. FIG. 6 shows an example of the document model. A document is composed of a document name, a creator, a creation date, and a body block in a hierarchical relationship. The top-bottom relationship is based on the size of the Y coordinate. The body block element has a repeating structure. In addition, the body block is a substructure,
Has a content line. Content lines allow repeating structures. The input manuscript previously divided into character blocks can be given an identifier to each block by sequentially matching the document model having the structure shown in FIG.
The blocks shown in FIG. 5 are identified as a material name, a creator, a creation date, a body block 1, a body block 2, and a body block 3 in order from the top.

Next, each identified document constituent element is converted by the document constituent element converting means 5 into the form data holding means 4
The layout character size and the like are converted according to the layout parameters stored in. FIG. 7 shows an example of layout parameters. The contents of each parameter in FIG. 7 will be briefly described. The vertical position specifies where to place the character string in the body area. If a positive numerical value is set, it indicates the position from the top of the text area. That is, the lower end of the character string is located at the specified position from the top of the area. -1
When set to, it means a relative position, and it is placed continuously at the top of the area or the bottom of the previous character line. The row left / right position indicates at which position in the left / right direction the area is placed when the row is placed. The left and right margins indicate how much margin is provided on the left and right of the area when the line is placed. The line spacing specifies how many lines are placed when placing lines and how many lines are placed repeatedly. Pre-block space specifies how far apart each text block is from the previous block (line). For the character size, specify the size of the characters to be composed (character height).

The size / position of the usable area in the OHP document is determined in relation to the position of the form frame. Each document component is first scaled according to the character size parameter. The magnification is based on the height of the character line when the character string is cut out, so that the character height after scaling corresponds to the specified number of points. If it is equivalent to 24 points as in the example, the height is set to about 8 mm. Therefore, if the height of the input character string is 4 mm, the size will be doubled. Next, since the horizontal width that can be used for each character line can be determined based on the width of the usable area, the left and right margins of each area, and the like, the characters of the enlarged character row are sequentially poured into this width. This character pouring is to rearrange an image cut out for each character so that the image fits within a certain width, and a known technique may be used. For example, there is a technique described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 122773/93. Alternatively, although not known, Japanese Patent Application No. 4 filed by the applicant earlier
It is preferable to use the technology of the invention of No. 090146 (“Document processing device”, inventor: Masayuki Kurahashi).

Character flow is described in Japanese Patent Application No. 4-09014 mentioned above.
In the case of using the invention of No. 6, the portion related to the pouring process is configured as shown in FIG. That is, the area dividing unit 2 stores a sub-character pattern extracting unit 164 that extracts a sub-character pattern from the document image held in the document holding unit 1 and information about the sub-character pattern obtained as a result of the extraction. A sub character pattern information storage unit 165 is provided. In addition, the document component conversion unit,
Based on the sub character pattern information stored in the sub character pattern information storage unit 165, each sub character pattern in the image information stored in the document holding means 1 is cut out,
A pouring processing unit 160 for rearranging in a desired area according to the arrangement rule is provided. The pouring processing unit 160,
An arrangement rule storage unit 163 that stores arrangement rules related to the arrangement of sub character patterns, a line end based on the sub character pattern information stored in the sub character pattern information storage unit 165 and the arrangement rule stored in the arrangement rule storage unit 163. A document stored in the document holding unit 1 based on the layout determination unit 162 that determines whether the beginning of the line is aligned, the determination result of the layout determination unit 162, and the sub-character pattern information stored in the sub-character pattern information storage unit 165. An arrangement processing unit 161 that cuts out a sub-character pattern from an image and arranges it in a desired area.

The sub-character pattern extraction unit 164 extracts a sub-character pattern by, for example, obtaining a rectangular area circumscribing a black pixel block in the image information and extracting a rectangular area that satisfies a certain condition. The sub-character pattern information storage unit 165 stores information on the extracted sub-character pattern, such as information on the position, range, and relative position of the circumscribed rectangular area with respect to the line height.

The pouring processing unit 160 cuts out each sub-character pattern from the document holding means 1 based on the sub-character pattern information, and pours it into a desired area according to the arrangement rule. The placement rule is,
It defines conditions for sub-character patterns that should not be placed at the beginning of a line. That is, the arrangement rule storage unit 153
Stores an arrangement rule that defines the condition of the sub-character pattern that should not be arranged at the end of the line or the beginning of the line when a line is broken, and the arrangement determination unit 152 stores the circumscribed rectangle stored in the sub-character pattern information storage unit 155. The attribute information of the sub-character pattern such as information is collated with the placement rule to determine the possibility of line breaks, the necessity of inserting a space between the sub-character patterns, and the like. The placement processing unit 161 reads the sub-character pattern from the document holding unit 1 based on the position and range information in the sub-character pattern information, and performs the rearrangement process according to the determination result of the placement determination unit 152. By pouring each character line of each block into a usable width, an image having a size and arrangement when each constituent element (character line) is finally combined is obtained. The same applies to the character string in the header / footer area.

Next, the images generated here are sequentially combined with the OHP form image. The synthetic procedure is as follows. At this time, the page overflow determination means 7 controls the input document to be combined into a plurality of documents. 9a and 9b are flowcharts showing the processing procedure. I in the flowchart is the character block number,
j indicates the number of a character line (heading line, content line) in each character block. The header and footer character images are combined with the S1 OHP form frame image. In the area inside the S2 OHP form frame, the material name, creator,
Create date character line is synthesized. (Cover page) S3 Set the character block number i to 1. From the converted image of the S4 character block i, the height hi of the block is obtained. Let H be the height of the usable area in the S5 form. S6 Save the composite image. The header and footer character images are combined with the S7 OHP form frame image. If S8 hi is larger than H, the block division process is executed and then the process proceeds to step S13. If hi is smaller than H, go to step S9. S9 The image of the character block i is combined with the OHP form image. Let H = H ◆ hi and i = i + 1. S10 Does the character block i exist? .. If it does not exist, exit. If it exists, go to step S11. S11 The block height hi is obtained from the converted image of the character block i. If S12 hi is smaller than H, go to step S9. If hi is greater than H, go to step S5. S13 i = i + 1 (next character block). S14 Does the character block i exist? .. If it does not exist, exit. If it exists, go to step S4.

Next, the procedure of block division processing will be described. This is the processing when one character block does not fit in the OHP form of one page. Similarly, the processing flow is shown in FIG. S15 Character lines included in the character block i (heading line,
The content line) is a character line j. Let j = 1. S16 Obtain the height hj of the character line j from the converted image. S17 If hj is smaller than H, step S21
What. If hj is larger than H, go to step S18. S18 The composite image is saved. The header and footer character images are combined with the S19 OHP form frame image. Suppose the height of the usable area in the S20 form is H. S21 The image of the character line j is combined with the OHP form image. Let H = H ◆ hj. Let j = j + 1. S22 Does the character line j exist? .. If it exists, go to step S16. If it does not exist, the process ends and returns to the process of FIG. As described above, the images of the plurality of OHP documents are combined, and the pages other than the final page are saved. Next, as a final process, the combined document image and the saved image are sequentially sent to the marking unit of the digital copying machine to generate an OHP document.

The above description is for the case where the user uses the overlay form built in the system as it is. However, as a user, there are cases where the user wants to use a new form or has to use a designated form. In this case, referring to FIG. 2 how to register a new form,
explain. For example, suppose that the user wants to register and use an OHP form as shown in FIG. The user first converts the form into a digital image by the document reading unit of the digital copying machine and takes it into the document holding unit 1. From this image, the form analysis unit 9 extracts the form frame image and the character string of the document. As the method, the above-mentioned area separation method can be applied. Since the normal form frame image is extremely larger than the character image as a single connected image, it can be separated based on the size of the image. Even when the form frame is divided into upper and lower parts, each image is large, and therefore each is extracted. By integrating the remaining character images, as shown in FIG.
It can be extracted as 19. As an analysis result,
The image of the form frame image 13 itself, the form reference frame data indicating the existing position of the form frame image, and the position size data of the rectangle including each character string are obtained. The form reference frame is created so as to include the whole when the form frame image is divided into two or more and extracted. The position of the form reference frame 12 is indicated by absolute coordinates. In addition, each character string 14
To 19 are indicated by relative coordinates from the form reference frame 12.

Next, the operation of the character area attribute adding means 10 will be described. First, check the vertical relationship of character strings within the range that does not exceed the form frame image. If there are upper and lower strings, create a circumscribed rectangle as one area. An example of the result is shown in FIG. By doing this, the header part,
It is possible to extract character blocks that are equivalent to the body part and footer part. Since the synthesizable area of the body is usually larger than the extracted body part, it is detected by another procedure. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 14, first, the center point 21 of the form reference frame is obtained, and then the horizontal and vertical scanning is performed to search for the location 22 where the form frame image is first detected. Although this is the maximum synthesizable area, a certain margin area is actually provided from the viewpoint of visibility. It corresponds to the hatched area in the figure. The size of the margin is, for example, 8 mm vertically and 12 m horizontally.
Take about m. With this, the size and position of the text part can be determined. The height obtained by subtracting the margin from the height of the maximum synthesizable area corresponds to the height H of the usable area in the flowchart of the previous synthesizing procedure. Normally, H is set to about 150 mm and the character string layout parameter of the first page to be combined is set, but if it deviates by more than this value, the line vertical position parameter of the layout parameter of FIG. 7 is changed proportionally. To do.

Next, the text area portion of the header / footer portion is given different attributes depending on the existing position. There are three possible positions for the characters in the header / footer: left, center, and right. Therefore, as shown in FIG.
The positional relationship between the center coordinates of each character string rectangle in the X-axis direction and a reference line that horizontally divides the form reference frame into three equal parts is examined. Reference line 1
If it is on the further left, it is the left header or footer, if it is between the reference lines 1 and 2, it is the center header or center footer, and if it is on the right of the reference line 2, it is the right header or right footer. Use the lower left corner of the string rectangle for the left header / footer, the lower center of the string rectangle for the center header / footer, and the lower right corner of the string rectangle for the right header / footer as the origin of character composition. .. The position of the thick arrow in the figure. The character size is the size corresponding to the height of the character string.

Next, the form component selecting means 11 specifies which footer / header and how to use it. This is done by designating at each footer / header position what number element of the document to synthesize, as shown in FIG. As a user interface, the display panel and the numeric keypad of the digital copying machine can be used. Display the following messages in sequence on the display panel and let the user enter a number. “In what order should headers and footers be used? Please enter the order. Enter 0 if not used. Header (center)? 1 "Confirmation" footer (left)? 3 [Confirmation] footer (right)? 2 [Confirmation]

After that, confirmation may be displayed. Also,
In this example, we decided to use all of them, but there may be headers and footers that are not used. In this case, 0 may be input. The underlined portion in the above example is the user input. [Confirm] is a dedicated key for setting confirmation. The order to confirm with the user does not need to be specified, but only the areas detected by the previous form analysis are displayed in the order of left header, center header, right header, left footer, center footer, right footer, etc. do it.

With this, the form data is stored in the form data holding means 4 together with the form frame image and the like as a layout parameter based on the attributes previously given to the body area of the first page and the character area selected and instructed. It A parameter description example of the layout of the header and footer is the same as in FIG.

The example in which the present invention is applied to a digital copying machine has been described above. However, the present invention is not applied only to digital copying machines. For example, in a presentation system that uses a scanner and projector,
It is also possible to read a normal document and display it by combining with a form. Although the present invention is premised on processing image level input, the input document is an electronic document generated by a word processor, the document layout is analyzed at the character code level, items are automatically extracted, and a form is created. It can be realized by the same idea. Further, the description method of the layout parameter of the document is not limited to the one used in the description of the embodiment. Further, although the form frame image and the character string are used as the form in the description, they may be extended to a logo image and the like.

[0030]

According to the document processing apparatus of the present invention, the contents of a general document created without previously determining the position, the number of columns, and the number of characters can be automatically and electronically combined into a predetermined form. This makes it possible to easily and efficiently create a document having a predetermined form frame. That is, according to the present invention, the target document image is analyzed by the area dividing unit and the logical identifier assigning unit, and the document image is processed and predetermined based on the analysis result and the form data prepared in advance by the form holding unit. Since the output image of is automatically generated, a document having a form frame can be obtained easily and efficiently. Further, since the form data includes the document design parameters, the user can obtain a good-looking document without knowledge of the document design.

Further, according to the present invention, by providing the page overflow determining means, it is possible to generate a good-looking document in which each page conforms to a fixed form even in a document having two or more pages.

Further, according to the form registration means of the present invention, the form can be registered by a simple operation, and the user's desired form can be used.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a presentation document processing apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a form registration device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a word processing document to be input.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an output OHP document.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a result of area division of a word processor document.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a document model.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of layout parameters.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of header / footer layout parameters.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a synthesis processing procedure.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a block division processing procedure.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of an OHP foam to be used.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a form analysis result.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example in which character strings are integrated.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing detection of a text compositable area.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing detection of a character string existing position.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a configuration for character flow.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Original document holding means, 2 ... Area dividing means, 3 ... Identifier assigning means, 4 ... Form data holding means, 5 ... Document component conversion means, 6 ... Image combining means, 7 ... Page overflow determination means, 8 ... Image generation Means, 9 ... Form analysis means, 10 ... Character area attribute imparting section, 11 ... Form component selection means, 12 ... Form reference frame, 13 ... Form frame image

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A document image holding means for holding a document image, an area dividing means for dividing the document image held by the document image holding means into meaningful areas as document elements, and an area dividing means. An identifier giving means for giving an identifier to each area, a form data holding means for holding form data including layout information and a form frame image of a generated document, and a reference to the form data held by the form data holding means By doing so, a document constituent element converting means for converting the image element in each area according to the identifier given by the identifier giving means, and an image for sequentially synthesizing each element converted by the document constituent element converting means into a form image A document processing apparatus comprising: a synthesizing unit. 2. When synthesizing each element sequentially into a form image, it is determined whether or not the element is included in a form of one page, and if it is determined that the element cannot be included in the form image, an instruction to synthesize to the next page is issued. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising page overflow determination means. 3. A document image holding means for holding a document image, and analyzing the document image held by the document image holding means,
Form analysis means for extracting a form image and a character area, character area attribute assigning means for assigning an attribute to each character area based on the position of the character area extracted by this form analysis means, and each character area Form component selection means for confirming to the user whether or not to register as, and form data holding means for storing the layout information including the form frame image and the character area attribute extracted as described above. A form registration device for the document processing device of claim 1.