JPH06276328A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow the facsimile equipment to confirm whether or not transmis sion documents are all printed out. CONSTITUTION:A sender side A generates communication management information when number of communication results to a same destination reaches a predetermined number or over and the generated communication management information is sent to a receiver side B. The receiver side B stores the received picture information to a picture information memory 2b. When the stored reception information is a usual reception document, a print section 11 prints out the document. On the other hand, the picture information stored in the picture information memory 2b is the communication management information fed from the sender side A, a bar code indicating the content of the communication management information is decoded. The decoded communication management information is fed to a comparator section 21. The communication management information of its own station is fed from a communication management information storage section 19 to the comparator section 21. When there is any reception picture information not printed out yet, a message to inform it is displayed on a display section 7.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile machine, and more particularly to a facsimile machine suitable for confirming whether a transmitted document is received and reproduced by a receiving side.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a facsimile apparatus using a page printer such as a laser printer has been increasingly used as a reproduction apparatus for received data. In this type of facsimile apparatus, received information is temporarily stored in a storage memory, and after storing one page or all pages, the stored information is output by a printer.

[0003]

The above-mentioned conventional facsimile apparatus has the following problems. For example,
After the communication is completed, there may occur a trouble that the stored document cannot be printed due to a failure such as power failure or recording paper jam (jam) while outputting the stored document to the printer.

Even if such a trouble occurs,
Since the communication itself has been completed normally, the sending side determines that the sent document has arrived at the receiving side. That is, since the transmitting side checks the communication management information of its own station to judge whether the communication is abnormal or normal, it is impossible to recognize the trouble on the receiving side after the communication. In other words, in a facsimile machine which receives a memory and outputs it to a printer later, even if the communication is normally completed,
This means that it cannot be determined that the document has reached the other party.

Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 3-85959 proposes a facsimile apparatus which outputs a receipt for notifying whether or not a confidentially transmitted document has arrived at the other party. However, with this facsimile machine,
There has been a problem that the operator on the receiving side cannot know how many documents have been transmitted from the transmitting side and accumulated in the memory.

The object of the present invention is to solve the above problems,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile device that allows the receiving side to easily check how many documents are transmitted from the transmitting side.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION To solve the above problems and to achieve the object, the present invention provides a communication management information storing means for storing a communication result of each communication, and a communication management information storing means for storing the communication management information. It is characterized in that it is provided with a management information editing means for classifying each destination and editing it in a predetermined format and a transmission control means for transmitting the edited management information as facsimile information to the other party.

[0008]

According to the present invention having the above characteristics, the receiving side can easily confirm how many documents have been transmitted, based on the transmitted management information.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a principal block diagram showing the hardware structure of the facsimile apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, the reading original is read by the reading unit 1 and converted into an electric signal, that is, image information. The image information read by the reading unit 1 and the image information received from the outside are converted into compressed data by the image processing unit 3 and accumulated in the image information memory 2. The image processing unit 3 performs compression encoding of the transmission image information and decoding of the reception image information.

The line control unit 4 controls the facsimile communication in the G3 communication mode and the G4 communication mode. The line control unit 4 is connected to the communication line via the network control unit 5.

The operation unit 6 is provided with operation switches for giving an instruction to the facsimile apparatus by an operator.
The display unit 7 includes a panel of a liquid crystal display system or the like for displaying the operating state of the facsimile apparatus. The ROM 8 stores a program for controlling the entire facsimile device,
A program for controlling the line control unit 4 and the network control unit 5 is stored. The RAM 9 is a work area used for executing the program.

The system control unit (CPU) 10 uses the R
According to the programs and control data stored in the OM 8 and the RAM 9 and the instruction input from the operation unit 6, the control process and the transmission control procedure process of the entire facsimile apparatus are executed. The printing unit 11 is used to output the information stored in the image information memory 2 as a print.

Next, an example of a control procedure in the facsimile apparatus having the above hardware structure will be described. FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the transmission operation and the operation accompanying it by the facsimile device.

In FIG. 3, in step S1, the operation unit 6
Enter the recipient's number entered using the numeric keypad of
Read in AM9. In step S2, a start instruction input from the operation unit 6 is waited for. If there is a start instruction, the process proceeds to step S3, and the document set in the reading unit 1 is read and stored in the image information memory 2.

When reading and storing are completed, the R
A call is made based on the other party's number read by AM9, and the stored transmission document is sent out (step S4).

When the communication is completed, the process proceeds to step S5, and the result of the communication is collected and stored in the RAM 9. It should be noted that when storing the communication results, each party is classified.

In step S6, it is determined whether or not the communication result number n for each communication partner has reached the planned number N. If the communication result number n has reached the planned number N, the process proceeds to step S7, and based on the stored communication results,
Create communication management information according to the expected format.

In step S8, the created communication management information is converted into image information and stored in the image information memory 2. In step S9, the destination is called by the destination number stored in the RAM 9. If the line is connected,
The communication management information is read from the image information memory 2 and transmitted (step S10). FIG. 5 shows an example of the communication management information (transmission confirmation report).

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. According to the above-described embodiment, the receiving side that receives the communication management information can confirm whether or not the displayed document is normally received and printed based on this management information. In the second implementation, this confirmation operation can be automatically performed.

That is, on the transmitting side, communication management information is created using a notation system by code display so that the contents can be recognized by the facsimile machine on the receiving side. For example, communication management information whose communication result is represented by a bar code is created, and the receiving side reads the bar code to recognize the content of the communication management information.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the receiving side in the second embodiment. In the figure, in step S100, the presence or absence of an incoming call is determined. If an incoming call is detected, the process proceeds to step S101 to perform a receiving operation. The received information is stored in the image information memory 2.

When the reception is completed, the line is released in step S102. In step S103, the received information stored in the image information memory 2 is searched, and it is determined whether the received information is the communication management information represented by the bar code. This determination is, for example, that the image information in the scheduled area (for example, the upper left corner) of the first page of the received information is recognized, and if the scheduled pattern is detected in that area, it is the communication management information represented by a bar code. I will decide.

If the communication management information represented by the bar code is recognized, the determination in step S103 becomes affirmative, and the process proceeds to step S104. In step S104, the image information indicating the barcode of the communication management information is analyzed and compared with the communication management information of the own station (reception side).

In step S105, step S104
As a result of the comparison, it is determined whether or not all the documents relating to communication indicated by the communication management information sent from the transmitting side have been printed.

If there is an unprinted received document, the process proceeds to step S106, and a message indicating that there is an unprinted received document is displayed on the panel of the display unit 7. Further, the printing unit 11 may output a report indicating that there is an unprinted received document as needed.

On the other hand, when it is determined in step S103 that the received information is not the communication management information represented by the bar code but the normal received document, step S10
Proceed to 7.

In step S107, the print document 11 outputs (prints) the received document stored in the image information memory 2.
To do. When printing is completed, the process proceeds to step S108, and "print completed" is stored as the communication result. In step S109, the accumulated information in the image information memory 2 is erased.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of communication management information (transmission confirmation report) represented by a bar code. In the figure, the L-shaped mark 13 in the upper left corner of the transmission confirmation report 12 is a mark indicating that this paper is the transmission confirmation report, and has a predetermined shape.
The lower area 14 of the transmission confirmation report 12 is the communication management information indicated by the bar code. However, details of the barcode are omitted.

Next, the main functions of the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. In the figure, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 2 indicate the same or equivalent parts.

The image information memory 2a on the transmitting side A has a reading section 1
The image information read in is accumulated and sent to the receiving side B via the communication control unit 15. The transmission result of the image information is registered in the communication management information storage unit 16. Communication management information creation unit 17
When more than the expected number of communication results for the same destination are accumulated, this is edited to create communication management information.

The communication management information creating unit 17 creates the communication management information in a human-readable data format (see FIG. 5) or a machine-readable data format (see FIG. 6), and the image information is created. Are stored in the image information memory 2a. The communication management information creation unit 17 has at least one of a character generator (CG) 17a for creating communication management information and a bar code generator 17b. The accumulated communication management information is transmitted to the receiving side B via the communication control unit 15.

On the other hand, the receiving side B fetches and stores the image information received via the communication control unit 18 in the image information memory 2b. If the stored received information is a normal received document, it is transferred to the printing unit 11 and printed. In the communication management information storage unit 19, the communication result and the print result in the printing unit 11 are registered.

The image information stored in the image information memory 2b is
When the communication management information is represented by a bar code and is sent from the transmitting side A, the bar code analysis unit 20 decodes the bar code. The content of the decrypted communication management information is supplied to the comparison unit 21.
Further, the communication management information of the receiving side B is supplied from the communication management information storage unit 19 to the comparison unit 21.

In the comparing section 21, the two are compared, and if unprinted received image information is detected,
An instruction is sent to the display unit 7, and a message indicating that there is unprinted information is displayed.

[0035]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the receiving side can easily determine how many documents are sent from the transmitting side by the communication management information accumulated on the transmitting side. Can be recognized. Therefore, the unprinted document can be easily found by matching the communication management information with the communication management information on the receiving side.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main function of a facsimile apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a facsimile apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation on the transmitting side.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation on the receiving side.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of communication management information.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of communication management information in which a communication result is represented by a bar code.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Reading unit, 2 ... Image information memory, 6 ... Operation unit, 7
... Display section, 11 ... Printing section, 16, 19 ... Communication management information storage section, 17 ... Communication management information creating section, 20 ... Bar code analyzing section

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Kazutaka Saito 3-7-1, Fuchu, Iwatsuki City, Saitama Prefecture Fuji Zerox Co., Ltd. (72) Minoru Yoshida 3-7-1, Fuchu, Iwatsuki City, Saitama Prefecture Inside Xerox Co., Ltd.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A communication management information storage means for storing a communication result for each communication, a management information editing means for classifying the stored communication management information for each destination and editing the communication management information in a predetermined format, A facsimile apparatus comprising: transmission control means for transmitting communication management information as facsimile information to a destination. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the communication management information is represented by machine-readable code information.