JPH0679863B2 - Document creation printer - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document creation / printing apparatus, and more specifically, a document in which a print range for printing a document can be specified in units other than page units. The present invention relates to an improvement of a production printing device.

[Conventional technology]

When the print range is specified using the document creation printing apparatus, conventionally, the start page and the end page of the document to be printed are specified in page units.

In addition, the prior art relating to the document creating and printing apparatus is
Newton separate volume "All the latest editions of word processors" (education company) 1983 p 165 is described.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the prior art, however, no consideration has been given to the fact that the print range can be specified in units other than pages, so the print range can only be specified in page units.

An object of the present invention is to provide a document creation / printing apparatus capable of designating a print range in chapter units in addition to pages by making it possible to select whether to designate a print range in page or chapter units. That is, when printing an arbitrary chapter of a document, it is possible to easily specify the print range by specifying only the number of chapters without paying attention to the number of pages. The present invention aims to provide a document creation printing device.

[Means for solving problems]

The purpose is to input characters, commands, etc., and
A document is created according to an input command based on the characters input by the input unit, and a document creating unit having a mechanism for managing the created document page by page, a storage unit for storing the created document, and the document are displayed. In a document creating apparatus having a display unit and a printing unit for printing the document, the print range is switched to a page, by changing a designated unit of the print range.
This is achieved by providing a print range setting means that can be specified in any of the chapter units.

[Action]

Thus, according to the present invention having the above-described configuration, by providing the print range setting unit described above, the print range can be specified not only in page units but also in chapter units, and any chapter of a document can be printed. At this time, since it is possible to specify only the number of chapters without paying attention to the number of pages, it is possible to easily specify the print range and improve the operability of the document creation / printing apparatus.

〔Example〕

The present invention will be described below with reference to one embodiment of the drawings. FIG. 1 is a processing flow chart of a print information setting processing unit (indicated by reference numeral 6 in FIG. 2) which most characteristically represents the present invention. 2, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall structure of the document creation / printing apparatus, FIG. 3 is a processing flow chart of the document creation mechanism control unit indicated by reference numeral 3 in FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 is an example of the structure of document data. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the print information setting screen 51, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the print information management table 61,
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the chapter / page range correspondence table 71.

In FIG. 2 showing the overall configuration of the document creation / printing apparatus, a code input device for inputting characters and commands, such as a keyboard, is used to input the input characters and command codes.
Pass to. The input analysis unit 2 receives the character code and the command code from the code input device 1, and passes the character code as it is to the processing unit in the document creating mechanism 4 which is being activated.
In the case of a command, the content is notified to the document creation mechanism control unit 3.

The document creation mechanism 4 includes a document processing unit 5, a print information setting processing unit 6,
The print processing unit 7 and other processing units required to create and print a document are included. The document creation mechanism control unit 3 controls the processing units included in the document creation mechanism 4. The processing flow of the document creation mechanism controller 3 will be described below with reference to FIG. 2 and based on FIG.

In FIG. 2, the document creation mechanism control unit 3 is activated upon receiving a notification from the input analysis unit 2 or the processing unit in the document creation mechanism 4 that is being activated, and first analyzes the notification (steps in FIG. 3). 301), and if it is the command code from the input analysis unit 2, the command is analyzed (step 30).
2) If the command is one that can be processed by the processing unit that is being activated, then pass that command to the processing unit that is being activated (step 30).
3) If not, check whether the processing unit for that command can be activated (step 304),
If the processing can be started, the processing of the processing section that is currently being started is interrupted (step 305), and the processing section for newly processing the input command is started (step 306). On the other hand, if the processing unit for the input command cannot be activated,
An error message such as an input error is displayed (step 307). Further, when the notification received at the time of activation is the notification of the end of the processing from the processing unit in the document creation mechanism 4, the processing of the processing unit suspended by the activation of the processing unit is restarted (step 308).

In FIG. 2, the document processing unit 5 is started when the document creation mechanism control unit 3 analyzes that a new creation or update of the document is instructed, and when the operator edits the document, the document editing unit 5 Creates and updates data. Here, the document data is, as shown in FIG. 4, a chapter management table 40, a page management table 41, an area management table 42 in each page, element data [data described in each area (for example, character data , Graphic data, graph data, etc.)] 4
3. Further, a page format table [eg, a format table of the size and direction of the paper (portrait or landscape), etc.] is configured.

The chapter management table 40 manages whether the entire document is made up of several chapters, and further has page pointers 401 and 402 indicating the top / bottom pages of each chapter, so that each chapter has from how many pages to how many pages. Manage what is configured up to. In this way, a chapter refers to a page managed by a plurality of pages (one page or more).

The page management table 41 includes a page format pointer 412 indicating which format table is used for each page, and an area pointer indicating the start / end area of the area set in the page.
Having 411, 413 manages how the page is organized and there are several areas within the page.

The area management table 42 is pointed to by the page management table 41 and is linked to each other by the backward pointer 421 and the forward pointer 422 between areas within the same page. This area is linked from a low priority area to a high priority area, that is, from the lowest area to the highest area in the page. Further, the area management table 42 sets the area setting position within the page to the area upper left x-coordinate 423, which is the upper left of the page excluding the margin portion from the page.
In addition to having coordinates 424, lower right x-coordinate 425, and y-coordinate 426, an area type 427 indicating the type of table (element data 43) in the area, and a data pointer 428 pointing to the table (element data 43) in the area. Have.

When creating a new document, the document processing unit 5
First, create document data consisting of page and one page format data.

Here, the chapter and page addition / deletion processing, which is part of the document editing operation, will be described. When the operator presses the "add chapter" key while editing the document, the page currently displayed on the display screen, that is, the page containing the page currently being edited is newly added to only one page. When a chapter is added and the "Chapter delete" key is pressed, the chapter containing the currently displayed page is deleted. Similarly, if the "add page" key is pressed, a new page is added next to the page currently displayed, and if the "delete page" key is pressed, the currently displayed page is deleted.

As will be described later in detail, the print information setting processing unit 6 shown in FIG. 2 is activated when the document creating mechanism control unit 3 analyzes that the print processing is instructed. For example, the print information setting screen as shown in FIG. The display data necessary for displaying 51 is read from the storage device 12 and passed to the display control unit 8 to display the display screen 9
To display. Here, the display data for displaying the print information setting screen 51 is stored in the storage device 12 in advance, and the number of print copies is 1, the designated unit of the print range is page, and the start page of the print range is 1 page. The last page of the document data to be printed is displayed as the end page as the initial screen of the print information setting screen 51. Then, the operator specifies the print information such as the print range and the number of copies in the print information setting screen 51, and then "execute".
When the key is pressed, the print information setting processing unit 6 displays the print information in the print information management table 61 as shown in FIG.
Then, the process is terminated, and at that time, the document creation mechanism control unit 3 is notified that the setting of the print information is finished, and if the "Cancel" key is pressed, the set information is invalidated, The document creation mechanism control unit 3 is notified that the print information settings have been canceled.

The display control unit 8 expands the display dot pattern data from the display data given from the document creating mechanism 4, and displays it on the display screen 9.

The print processing unit 7 is activated when the document creation mechanism control unit 3 receives a notification from the print information setting processing unit 6 that the print information setting processing is completed, and generates print data for printing the specified document and prints it. The document is printed by passing it to the control unit 10. At that time, according to the operator's instruction, the data set in the print information processing table 61 of FIG. 6 such as the number of print copies and the print range is referred to, and the instruction set in the print information management table 61 is set. Then, the specified document is printed.

The print control unit 10 expands print image data from the print data provided by the print processing unit 7 and controls the printing apparatus 11 to perform control.

The storage device 12 also stores the document created by the document creation mechanism 4, the contents of the print information management table 61, and the display data of the print information setting screen 51.

Next, a method of specifying the print range in this embodiment will be described. When the operator gives an instruction to print the document, the fifth
A print information setting screen 51 as shown in the figure is displayed. In this screen 51, select one of the items of chapter and page in the specified unit menu of the print range, and then select the start and end of the print range. Enter a numerical value. At that time, if a chapter is selected in the print range specification unit menu, the unit of the print range numerical value input area is switched to chapter, and that page is included for the start page and end page set before the unit switching. The chapter value is displayed as the start chapter and the end chapter respectively, and when the page is selected, the unit of the print range numerical value input area is switched to the page, and the first page and the end chapter of the start chapter set before the unit switching are changed. The last page is displayed as the start page and the end page, respectively. Then, when the setting of the print information such as the setting of the print range is completed, the "execute" key is pressed to complete the setting of the print information. The process relating to the setting of the print range is performed by the print information setting process unit 6 described above. Next, the process of the print information setting process unit 6 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 4 to 7. This will be described in detail with reference to the flow of FIG. 1 while referring to it.

In FIG. 2, the print information setting processing unit 6 is started when it is determined that the print processing instruction is given by the document creation mechanism control unit 3, and first, the chapter management table of the document data shown in FIG.
40, referring to the page management table 41, a chapter / page range correspondence table 71 for managing pages in the entire document of the first page and the last page in each chapter as shown in FIG. 7 is created (step of FIG. 1). 101), the print information setting screen 51 as shown in FIG.
Is displayed (step 102). Then, when a key on the code input device 1 is pressed, the determination process of the key is performed (step 103), and if the key is the cursor key, designation between the menu item and the numerical value input area in the print information setting screen 51 is performed. Move the cursor in the direction (step 104),
If it is a numerical value, the numerical value input in the numerical value input area where the cursor is currently displayed is displayed (step 105), and if it is the "Target" key, the display that the item at the current cursor position is selected, In other words, the circle mark in front of the item is changed to a black circle (step 106), and if it is the "execute" key, the specified unit of the print range set in the print information setting screen 51 and its range, print Information such as the number of copies is set in the print information management table 61 shown in FIG. 6 and the processing is ended (step 107). If the key is the "cancel" key, the specified data is invalidated and the processing is ended ( Step 108).

Here, the processing for the "target designation" key will be described in detail. When only one item can be selected for a certain menu, the target designated item is set to the selected state, and at the same time, the previously selected item is selected. Is deselected, that is, the circle in front of the item is turned into a white circle (step 106). Then, when the selected item is the item of the unit designation menu of the printing range (step 109), the unit of the printing range numerical value input area is switched to the selected unit. At that time, when the unit of the print range is switched from page to chapter, the chapter / page range correspondence table 71 is used to find in which chapter the start page and the end page set before the unit switching are located respectively. Display the values as the start chapter and end chapter. When the print range is specified from chapter to page, the start page and end page of the start chapter are determined from the values of the start and end chapters and the chapter / page range correspondence table 71 set before the unit change. The last page of the chapter is obtained and the values are displayed as the start page and the end page, respectively (step 110).

When the setting of print information is completed as described above, the print processing unit 7 refers to the print information management table 61 to generate print data necessary for printing according to the setting information, The document is printed by passing it to the print control unit 10. At this time, the print range first refers to the area of the designated unit in the print information management table 61, and if the designated unit is a page, refers to the area containing the print range data in page units as the print range If the page in the range set in is printed and the unit is a chapter, refer to the area containing the print range data for each chapter in the print information management table 61, and set the start chapter set in that area. From the end chapter value and the chapter / page range management table 71, the start page of the start chapter and the end page of the end chapter are obtained, and the range is printed.

〔The invention's effect〕

The present invention is as described above, and as is clear from the description of the illustrated embodiments, according to the present invention, the designation of the print range is specified by page,
By making it possible to specify the print range in chapter units, in addition to pages, by making it possible to select in which unit the chapters are specified, that is, the number of pages when printing an arbitrary chapter of the document. It is possible to obtain an improved document creation / printing apparatus excellent in operability in which the print range can be easily specified by consciously specifying only the number of chapters without paying attention to the above.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a process flow chart of a print information setting processing unit (indicated by reference numeral 6 in FIG. 2) which most characteristically represents the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a document. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the overall construction of the producing / printing apparatus, FIG. 3 is a processing flow chart of the document producing mechanism control section indicated by reference numeral 3 in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the arrangement of document data, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the print information setting screen 51, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the print information management table 61, and FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a chapter / page range correspondence table 71. 1 ... Code input device, 2 ... Input analysis unit, 3 ... Document creation mechanism control unit, 4 ... Document creation mechanism, 5 ... Document processing unit, 6 ... Print information setting processing unit, 7 ... Printing Processing unit, 8
...... Display control unit, 9 ... Display screen, 10 ... Print control unit,
11 …… printing device, 12 …… storage device, 40 …… chapter management table, 41 …… page management table, 42 …… area management table,
43 ... Element data, 44 ... Page format table, 401 ... First page pointer, 402 ... Last page pointer, 411 ... Area pointer, 412 ... Page format pointer, 413 ... Area pointer, 421 ... Rear Pointer, 422 …… Forward pointer, 423
…… Area upper left x coordinate, 424 …… Area upper left y coordinate, 425 ……
Lower right area x-coordinate, 426 ... lower right y-coordinate, 427 ... area type, 428 ... data pointer, 51 ... print information setting screen, 61 ... print information management table, 71 ... chapter / page range Correspondence table.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. Input means for inputting characters, commands, etc.,
A document is created according to an input command based on the characters input by the input unit, and a document creating unit having a mechanism for managing the created document page by page, a storage unit for storing the created document, and the document are displayed. In a document creating apparatus having a display unit and a printing unit for printing the document, the print range is switched to a page, by changing a designated unit of the print range.
A document creation / printing apparatus comprising a print range setting means capable of designating in any of chapters. 2. The invention according to claim 1, at the time of switching from the chapter of the designated unit of the printing range to the page, the first page of the start chapter and the last page of the end chapter set before the unit switching. A document preparation printing apparatus in which the print range setting means is provided with means for obtaining the above values and displaying these values as the start page and end page of the print range, respectively. 3. In the invention according to claim 1, when switching from a page of a designated unit of a printing range to a chapter, a chapter including a start page and an end page set before the unit switching is obtained. A document creation / printing apparatus in which the print range setting means is provided with means for displaying these values as the start chapter and end chapter of the print range, respectively.