JPH06268793A - Telephone and facsimile combination equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a telephone and facsimile (FAX) combination equipment whereby automatic transmission is executed in a telephone and FAX to a tele phone number and a FAX number described on a general name card. CONSTITUTION:The telephone and FAX combination equipment provided with both telephone function and FAX function is provided with a reading means 1-9 reading the telephone number and the FAX number described on the name card, a detecting means 14 detecting whether or not FAX transmission paper is set and a control means which permits automatic transmission to be executed to the FAX number read by the reading means 1-9 while the detecting means 14 detects FAX transmission paper and permits automatic transmission to be executed to the telephone number read by the reading means 1-9 unless the detecting means 14 detects FAX transmission paper. When the reading means 1 reads the general name card with the telephone number and the FAX number in a state where FAX transmission paper is set, automatic dialling (11) is executed to the FAX number described on the name card. When the name card is read in the state that FAX transmission paper is not set, automatic dialling (11) is executed to the telephone number described on the name card.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a telephone / fax combination device having both a telephone function and a fax function,
In particular, the telephone number or the fax number printed on the business card is read so that the telephone or fax can be automatically sent.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there has been proposed a method of printing a bar code of a telephone number on the back of a business card and having the telephone set read the bar code to automatically make a call to the owner of the business card. .

[0003]

However, this type of conventional telephone cannot be used in the case of a general business card in which the telephone number is not printed as a bar code.

The present invention solves these conventional problems, and provides a telephone / fax combination apparatus capable of automatically making a telephone call or a fax to a telephone number or a fax number written on a general business card. Is intended.

[0005]

Therefore, according to the present invention, in a telephone / fax combination device having both a telephone function and a fax function, a reading means for reading a telephone number or a fax number written on a business card, and a fax transmission sheet. If the detecting means detects whether or not is set, and the detecting means detects the fax transmission paper, the fax number read by the reading means is automatically called, and the detecting means detects the fax transmission paper. When not available, a control means for automatically calling the telephone number read by the reading means is provided.

[0006]

Therefore, in the combined telephone / fax device of the present invention, when a general business card having a telephone number and a fax number is read by the reading means with the fax transmission sheet set, the fax described in the business card is faxed. The number is automatically dialed.

Further, when the reading means reads a general business card in which the telephone number and the fax number are written without setting the fax transmission paper, the telephone number described in the business card is automatically dialed.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS As shown in FIG. 1, a telephone / fax combined apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention has, as a functional block, an image input section 1 for inputting an image on a business card by converting it into binary data by photoelectric conversion. , A character string cutout unit 2 that cuts out a character string from the input image data, and a number area estimation unit 3 that determines the order of the character strings extracted by the character string cutout unit 2 in the order of high possibility of a telephone number or a fax number. And a character slicing unit 4 for sequentially slicing characters from the determined character string having a high order, and a character recognizing unit 5 for collating the character pattern cut out by the character slicing unit 4 with a dictionary 12 and outputting a corresponding character code. , A character string collating unit 6 for checking whether or not the character string obtained by the character recognition includes a specific character string representing a telephone number or a fax number, and a character string collation unit 6 for detecting a character string. Telephone number storage unit 7 for storing a number
And a fax number storage unit 8 for storing the fax number detected by the character string collation, a reject character correction unit 9 for correcting a character (reject character) that could not be confirmed by character recognition, and the insertion of a fax transmission sheet. The paper detection unit 14, the number selection unit 10 that selects one of the numbers stored in the telephone number storage unit 7 and the fax number storage unit 8 based on the detection result of the paper detection unit 14, and the number selection unit 10 A dial transmission unit 11 for automatically dialing the dialed number and a dial input number storage unit 13 for storing the telephone number and the fax number when the operator makes a telephone call or a fax by manual input.

The character recognition unit 5 extracts characteristic data from the character pattern cut out by the character cutting unit 4, and collates this with the data registered in the dictionary 12 to identify the character. Further, the reject character correction unit 9 corrects the reject character by collating with the number stored in the dial input number storage unit 13. Also, the number selection unit 10
When the paper detection unit 14 detects the insertion of the fax transmission paper, the fax number is selected, and when the insertion of the fax transmission paper is not detected, the telephone number is selected.

As shown in FIG. 2, the telephone / fax combined device has an image scanner 15 which outputs a read document in the form of bit data as a hardware block.
A keyboard 27 for inputting commands and data, a display unit 26 for displaying a character font of a stored telephone number or fax number, a paper detection unit 14 for detecting insertion of fax transmission paper, and a dial transmission. Telephone / fax 25 provided with section 11, processing circuit 21 for executing control of this apparatus according to a control program, and R as storage means.
It has an AM (random access memory) 16 and a ROM (read-on memory) 22.

The RAM 16 has an image area 17 for storing bit data sent from the image scanner 15, and an image area 17
A character pattern area 18 that stores the coordinates of the circumscribed rectangle of the character area extracted from the image inside, a characteristic data area 19 that stores the characteristic data extracted from the character pattern in the character pattern area 18, and a telephone or fax 25 manually A dial number storage unit 13 for storing the input number and a telephone number storage unit 7 for storing a character string corresponding to a telephone number among the recognized character strings obtained by collating the contents of the characteristic data area 19 with the dictionary 12. A fax number storage unit 8 for storing a character string corresponding to a fax number, and a work area 20 used in control processing.

On the other hand, the ROM 22 includes a dictionary 12 and a processing circuit 21.
A program storage area 23 for storing the control program of
It has a keyword storage unit 24 for storing a keyword for displaying a fax or a telephone.

Further, the telephone number storage unit 7 or the fax number storage unit 8 stores the 10-digit telephone number or the fax number, which has been recognized, in the data structure shown in FIG. 3 (a). In this figure (a), "No." is the number of digits of the number, and the first candidate, the second candidate, and the third candidate are candidates for the numbers for which characters have been recognized. The candidate recognized as the most probable becomes the first candidate, and the recognition of certainty decreases as it becomes the second and third candidates. When the reject signal is 1, it indicates that one candidate has not been confirmed, and when it is 0, it indicates that the candidate has been confirmed.

In this example, the fifth digit is recognized as "2" and the sixth digit is "5" with the highest probability, followed by "8" and otherwise "3". Is recognized.

The dial input number storage unit 7 stores the numbers manually input from the telephone or fax 25.
It is stored in the data structure shown in (b). This figure (b)
In, the i direction is the number of digits (10 digits) and the j direction is the number of numbers. Here, n 10-digit numbers are stored.

Processing circuit of this telephone / fax combination device
21 proceeds with the process according to the flowchart of FIG.

Step 1: Set the business card in the image scanner 15, and then step 2; based on the information from the paper detection unit 14, determine whether or not the paper for fax transmission (fax transmission paper) is inserted in the fax. ,
If it is inserted, step 3; the fax number is read from the business card, and the fax number is automatically dialed through the dial sending part 11. The flowchart at this time will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

Step 4; In Step 2, if the flow chart transmission sheet is not inserted, it is judged whether or not a preset time has elapsed, and if not, the procedure returns to Step 2. When the set time has elapsed, step 5; the telephone number is read from the business card, and the telephone number is automatically dialed through the dial transmission unit 11.

The processing for automatically transmitting to the fax number is carried out in the procedure shown in FIG. 5, and step 30: a character string is extracted from the business card image. This can be extracted by the distribution of a histogram obtained by scanning the image in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction. Next, step 31: Among the extracted character strings, the character strings are ranked in the order in which they are highly likely to include the fax number. This is to detect fax numbers quickly. Next, step 32; the character string having the highest possibility of being the fax number is selected, step 33: the characters in the selected character string are cut out, and step 34: the characteristic data extracted from the cut out character is extracted. It is stored in the feature data area 19 and this content and dictionary
Recognize the characters cut out by comparing with 12.

Step 35; Next, in the recognized character (recognized character), a keyword ("fax") representing "fax" stored in the keyword storage section 24 is displayed.
It is determined whether or not there are "facsimile", "fax", "FAX", etc.), and step 36; if there is a keyword, the numbers of the recognized characters are stored in the fax number storage section 8. Next, step 37; it is judged whether or not there is a reject character in the numbers stored in the fax number storage section 8. If there is a reject character, step 38: it is stored in the dial input number storage section 13 in advance. The rejected character is corrected by collating the stored number with the number including the rejected character stored in the fax number storage unit 8. The procedure of this correction will be described later in detail with reference to FIG.

Step 39: If there is no keyword representing "fax" in the recognized characters in step 35, it is judged whether or not the selected character string is the last character string, and the last character string is used. If so, step 4
1; The message of abnormal termination is displayed and the process ends. If the selected character string is not the last character string, step 40; the character string that is more likely to include the fax number next is selected, and the operation after step 33 is repeated.

Step 42; The number stored in the fax number storage unit 8 is displayed on the display unit 26, and Step 43;
The operator is made to judge whether or not the displayed number has a recognition error. If there is an error, step 44; after causing the operator to correct the misread character, step 4
5: The fax number stored in the fax number storage unit 8 is automatically transmitted through the dial transmission unit 11.

The correction of the reject character is performed by matching all digits of the numbers stored in the fax number storage unit 8 out of the numbers stored in the dial input storage unit 13 except the reject character. Regarding the digit of the character, a method is employed in which a number matching any one of the first, second, or third candidates of the reject character is searched for and the reject character is determined as the character of the matching candidate.

In this correction procedure, the first candidate, the second candidate, the third candidate and the reject signal in the fax number data structure diagram of FIG. 3A are arranged in the arrays a [i], b [i], c.
[I] and d [i] (where i is 1 to 10), and the dial input number data group of FIG.
Two-dimensional array e [j] [i] of 0 (j is 1 to n, i is 1
To 10), they are represented as the flowchart of FIG.

Step 51; i and j are initialized to 1. Step 52: The first candidate of the first digit is compared with the first digit of the first dial input number. If they do not match, step 53; it is judged whether or not the unmatched characters are reject characters, and if they are reject characters, step 54; the second candidate of the first digit and the first dial input number. Compare with the first digit of. If they also do not match, step 55; the third candidate of the first digit and the first digit of the first dial input number are compared. If it also does not match, go to step 56; collation with the next dial input number, step 57; judge whether or not collation with all dial input numbers has been completed, and if not, step 5
Return to 2. If the matching with all dial input numbers has been completed, the process proceeds to step 42 without correction.

If the characters other than the rejected characters do not match in step 53, step 56 is immediately executed.
And the next dial input number is checked.

In step 52, if the first candidate of the first digit and the first digit of the first dial input number match, step 60; the next digit collation, step 61; It is determined whether or not all the 10-digit collations have been completed. If the collations have been completed, the process proceeds to step 22. If not completed, the process returns to step 52 to collate the next digit.

Similarly, in step 54 or step 55, when the second candidate or the third candidate matches the dial-in number, the matching candidate is determined as the first candidate.
Store in the candidate array (step 58, step 59),
The process moves to step 60 to start collation of the next digit.

When the telephone number is transmitted, the fax may be replaced by the telephone. "Telephone", "tel", "TEL", etc. can be used as a telephone keyword.

As described above, in this combined telephone / fax device, the telephone number and the fax number are read from the business card, and the fax number is automatically dialed and not inserted when the fax sheet is operated. When operating in the state, you can automatically dial the phone number.

[0031]

As is apparent from the above description of the embodiments, the telephone / fax combined device of the present invention can automatically make a telephone call or a fax using a general business card without a bar code printed thereon. it can. Therefore, it is possible to save the trouble of inputting a telephone number or a fax number, and it is possible to automatically use the telephone and the fax at the time of transmission, which is excellent in convenience.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional configuration block diagram of an embodiment of a combined telephone / fax device of the present invention,

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a combined telephone / fax device of the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a data configuration diagram (a) of a fax number storage unit and a data configuration diagram (b) of a dial input number storage unit in the apparatus of the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of the apparatus of the embodiment,

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a procedure for automatically transmitting a fax number by the apparatus of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure for correcting a reject character in the apparatus of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 image input unit 2 character string cutout unit 3 number area estimation unit 4 character cutout unit 5 character recognition unit 6 character string collation unit 7 telephone number storage unit 8 fax number storage unit 9 reject character correction unit 10 number selection unit 11 dial transmission unit 12 Dictionary 13 Dial input number storage section 14 Paper detection section 15 Image scanner 16 RAM 17 Image area 18 Character pattern area 19 Characteristic data area 20 Work area 21 Processing circuit 22 ROM 23 Program area 24 Keyword area 25 Telephone / fax 26 Display section 27 keyword

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A telephone / fax combination device having both a telephone function and a fax function, which detects whether a telephone number or a fax number written on a business card and a fax transmission sheet are set. Detecting means, and when the detecting means detects the fax transmission paper, the fax number read by the reading means is automatically transmitted, and when the detecting means does not detect the fax transmission paper, the reading means. A device for both telephone and fax, which is provided with a control means for automatically calling the telephone number read by.