JPH08256235A - Facsimile server - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To specify the electronic mail client of a destination on a LAN and to send a facsimile through a public telephone network without performing a special operation. CONSTITUTION: This FAX server 10 is provided with a local loop interface part 30 for supporting a direct inward dialling function. A direct inward dialling number is supplied to an address table part 32 in the local loop interface part 30. In the meantime, facsimile pictures are received in a facsimile reception part 34 and stored in a file storage part 40. In the address table part 32, the direct inward dialling number is converted to an electronic mail user name. The converted electronic mail user name and the facsimile pictures of the file storage part 40 are combined and an electronic mail is prepared and sent out onto the LAN 12.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a so-called facsimile server, and more particularly to a facsimile server capable of delivering facsimile data received through a public telephone network to terminals in a local area network as image information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A local area network (hereinafter referred to as L
AN) enables efficient sharing of data and resources,
It is widely used because it makes it easy to access various data. Facsimile devices are also widely used in society as means for transmitting documents as image information to remote locations.

In recent years, with the progress of digital technology, it has become possible to easily handle image data even in various personal computers and the like. Therefore, a facsimile machine and an L
Various connections with AN have been proposed.

Most basically, a configuration is conceivable in which a facsimile server is shared on a LAN like a printer or the like. With such a configuration, a document or the like created by each terminal connected to the LAN can be transmitted as image information from a facsimile server to a facsimile device or the like at a remote place via a public telephone network. . On the contrary, the facsimile server receives the facsimile data as the image information transmitted from the facsimile device at the remote place via the public telephone network, and each terminal on the LAN to which the facsimile server is connected is connected to this facsimile server. A configuration is also conceivable in which the facsimiles addressed to the own station are respectively taken out by accessing.

Thus, in principle, each terminal on the LAN can exchange data with an external facsimile device via the facsimile server connected to the LAN. According to a conventionally used facsimile server, a method has been adopted in which an operator of the facsimile server monitors the received facsimile data, discriminates the destination thereof, and manually sends it to each terminal as an electronic mail. At this time, the image data of the facsimile is sent as, so to speak, additional information of the electronic mail.

However, according to this method, it is necessary for the operator to discriminate the image data of the transmitted facsimile, and it takes a lot of time and labor. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-289756 discloses an example of the configuration of a facsimile server that solves this problem. According to the invention described in the publication,
When a sender of a facsimile sends a facsimile to a predetermined terminal on a LAN via a public telephone network, it has been proposed to send a personal identification number together with image data of the facsimile. Then, the facsimile server which receives the personal identification number and the image data of the facsimile converts the personal identification number into an electronic mail address on the LAN,
An electronic mail having facsimile data as image data is constructed. The facsimile server sends the thus constructed electronic mail to the destination terminal on the LAN as electronic mail.

As described above, according to the invention described in the above publication, it is possible to send a facsimile to the terminal of a predetermined destination on the LAN via the public telephone network. In addition, a facsimile server that uses OCR to read the destination of facsimile documents has also been proposed.

On the other hand, in the case of electronic mail, for example, it is possible to send an electronic mail designating the terminal directly to a predetermined terminal on the LAN from a remote terminal via a public telephone network. This is because in the case of email, the email address of the email is always added, so the email post office on the LAN determines the email address and delivers the email to the desired terminal. It is.

Such an electronic mail delivery system is
For example, it is described in JP-A-6-232976. The e-mail delivery system described herein provides an e-mail delivery system that can retrieve received messages again after the e-mail has been delivered.

[0010]

As described above, unlike an electronic mail, a facsimile has no equivalent to a mail address in principle. Therefore, an operator can determine the destination on the facsimile server, or The sending side must send a predetermined personal identification number to the facsimile data. However, according to the former method, the work of the operator is complicated, and according to the latter method, the facsimile server which receives the facsimile data must have the function of discriminating the personal identification number. There is no established method in the industry for such a function, and it becomes a special function with poor interchangeability.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to specify a predetermined terminal on a LAN via a public telephone network within the range of existing telephone device standards and facsimile device standards. It is to provide a facsimile server capable of transmitting a facsimile.

[0012]

To solve the above problems, the first invention is a subscriber connected to a public telephone network and having a dial-in function for accommodating a plurality of telephone numbers in one line. An interface unit, mail user name conversion means for converting a dial-in number received by the subscriber interface unit into an electronic mail user name, and facsimile data included in the facsimile signal received by the subscriber interface unit, A facsimile server comprising: an electronic mail forming means for forming an electronic mail by combining with an electronic mail user name; and a sending means for sending the formed electronic mail on a local area network.

A second aspect of the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the facsimile server of the first aspect of the present invention, the sending means sends the electronic mail to an electronic mail post office existing on the local area network. It is a facsimile server characterized by sending mail.

[0014]

The mail user name conversion means of the first aspect of the present invention converts the dial-in number into an electronic mail user name. Therefore, it is possible to easily combine electronic mail with facsimile data sent via the public telephone network.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the electronic mail constructed by using the facsimile data is sent to the electronic mail post office on the local area network, the electronic mail post office can send the same facsimile as the existing electronic mail. It is possible to handle data.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The characteristic feature of this embodiment is L
This means that the facsimile server (hereinafter referred to as FAX server) connected to the AN has a so-called dial-in function. That is, the FAX server according to the present embodiment is a device that accommodates a plurality of telephone numbers. Thus, by using the existing dial-in service, each terminal (hereinafter, referred to as a client or mail client) on the LAN is designated by the dial-in number.

As is well known, the dial-in service is capable of registering a plurality of telephone numbers on one physical line, and a PBX or the like connected to this line sets a predetermined digit of the telephone number. It is determined as a sub address and is connected to a predetermined extension telephone or the like. A feature of this embodiment is that the client on the LAN is specified by using the subaddress used in the dial-in service as described above.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system configuration to which the FAX server 10 according to this embodiment is applied. As shown in FIG. 1, the FAX server 10 has a LAN 12
One of the above clients, a plurality of mail clients 14, a file server (e-mail post office) 16 and the like are connected to the LAN 12. And
An external facsimile device 22 can be connected to the FAX server 10 via the public telephone network 20.

FIG. 2 shows a functional block diagram of the FAX server 10 in this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, the FAX server 10 has a subscriber line interface unit 30. The subscriber line interface unit 30 has a function of supporting the dial-in service described above. That is, the dial-in number (hereinafter, also referred to as DI number) and the facsimile image transmitted through the public telephone network are input and the DI number is recognized. In addition, in FIG. 2, the DI number is
A facsimile image is represented by. As shown in FIG. 2, the subscriber line interface unit 30 divides the input DI number and the facsimile image into a DI.
The number is supplied to the address table unit 32. On the other hand, the facsimile image is supplied to the facsimile receiving unit 34.

The address table section 32 receives the input D
The I number is converted into an e-mail user name based on the address table 36. As shown in Figure 2,
The address table 36 is in the form of a table in which DI numbers and electronic mail user names are arranged, and is recorded in, for example, an external hard disk. The address table unit 32 supplies the user name of the converted electronic mail to the electronic mail client unit 38 based on the address table 36. Note that, as shown in FIG. 2, the user name of the converted electronic mail is represented by.

On the other hand, the facsimile receiving section 34 makes a so-called incoming call, receives a facsimile image transmitted through the public telephone network, and stores the data in the file storing section 40. The file storage unit 40 is a unit that stores the facsimile image received by the facsimile reception unit 34 as an image file, and can use, for example, a hard disk or another file device. Then, this image file is supplied to the email client unit 38 in the same manner as the email user name. Note that, as shown in FIG. 2, the image file is represented by.

In this manner, the electronic mail user name and the image file are supplied to the electronic mail client unit 38. Then, an electronic mail message is created in the electronic mail client unit 38 with the electronic mail user name as the destination and the image file as the attached file. This email message is supplied to the LAN interface unit 42, and the LAN interface unit 42 sends the email message to the file server 1.
Send to 6 (email post office). Note that, as shown in FIG. 2, the electronic mail message is indicated by in FIG.

Finally, the email client 14
The file server 16 (e-mail post office) is accessed and the e-mail addressed to itself is taken out. Then, the image data of the facsimile is taken out as an attachment file of the e-mail. The image data can be processed as desired by using an image file editor or the like on the electronic mail client 14, for example.

As described above, according to this embodiment, since the subscriber line interface unit 30 that supports the dial-in service is provided in the FAX server, the client of the destination of the facsimile is designated by using this dial-in number. It is possible to specify. Therefore, LAN1
It is possible to easily send a facsimile via the public telephone network by using dial-in to the desired client on the above. That is, it is not necessary to input a predetermined number for instructing a client prior to sending a facsimile as in the conventional case, or an operator on the LAN does not need to judge the destination and perform distribution, and each client can be easily distributed. It is possible to send a fax directly to.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment showing an application example when the FAX server 10 having the principle as shown in FIG. 2 is used. As described above, according to the FAX server 10 shown in FIG. 2, it is possible to specify the electronic mail client 14 on the LAN 12 and send the facsimile without any special operation. on the other hand,
E-mail client 1 received in this way
Since the facsimile image in No. 4 is image data, it can be freely edited. Therefore, it is possible to edit the received image data, so to speak, to send an e-mail using it again. The e-mail having the image file re-edited in this way is again sent to another e-mail client 14b via the file server 16 (e-mail post office) or another facsimile machine 22b via the public telephone network 20. It is also possible to transfer.

As described above, since the facsimile image can be handled only as an image file and can be transferred even without passing through the paper even once, it is possible to realize a so-called paperless operation procedure. Further, it becomes possible to reduce the time and effort required for facsimile transmission and reception (movement, printout, replenishment of paper, etc.). LAN12
From the above e-mail client 14b to the public telephone network 20
The FAX server 10b for transmission is required to send a facsimile to the facsimile device 22b via the, but such a FAX server 10b for transmission has begun to be widely used in recent years. This is because, basically, since the other party is the single facsimile machine 22b, it is possible to send the image data in the same manner as the conventional facsimile machine, so that it can be realized relatively easily. FAX for this transmission
In the server 10b, CF conversion (character facsimile conversion), image-MH conversion, ESC / P-M
H conversion or the like is performed. The CF conversion is a conversion of character data into a facsimile format, and the image-MH conversion is a conversion of a digital image image into an MH code which is a compression encoding method of a facsimile.
The C / P-MH conversion is conversion of a printer control code into an MH code.

As shown in FIG. 3, the public telephone network 2
Edit the facsimile image sent via 0,
The detailed operation when transmitting to the external facsimile device 22b via the public telephone network 20 will be described below with reference to the flowchart.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart and an explanatory diagram thereof when the facsimile server 10 receives a facsimile image via the public telephone network 20 and sends the mail to the file server 16 (electronic mail post office). ing.

As shown in FIG. 4A, first, in step ST4-1, an incoming call is made from the subscriber line.

Next, in step ST4-2, the DI number is stored. Then, the DI number stored in step ST4-3 is the email user name (address).
Is converted to. This conversion is performed according to the contents of the address table 36 shown in FIG. An example of the contents of the address table 36 is shown in FIG. For example, if the DI number is 1111, PostO
It becomes tanaka in the face_01.

On the other hand, in step ST4-4, the facsimile image is received. This reception is performed by the facsimile receiving unit 34 in the same manner as in ordinary facsimile communication.

The facsimile image thus received is stored in the file storage unit 40 as an image file in step ST4-5. The accumulated image file in this case is stored with a file name as shown in FIG. 4C, for example. FIG.
It is preferable to store the data by using, for example, serial numbers as shown in (c).

Next, in step ST4-6, an e-mail message is created from the user address of the e-mail and the stored image files.
This creation is performed in the electronic mail client section 38 as described above. An example of the content of the specifically created e-mail message is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 4D, the destination is tanaka at PostO as described in FIG. 4B.
It becomes "fice_01". Since the sender is always the FAX server 10, a fixed name is used. As the date and the priority, the date at the time of transmission and the desired priority are set. In addition, it is preferable to use a fixed name so that the subject and the text can be recognized as a facsimile. Further, the file name of the image file is stored as an attachment. In the example shown in FIG. 4D, for example, 0001. bmp is used as the name of the attached file.

The operation shown in FIG. 4 is performed in the LAN 12 having the structure shown in FIG. 5, for example. That is, as shown in FIG. 5, the e-mail clients are tanaka14c and satoh1.
4d, Takahashi14e, and Yamada1
4f and Watanabe 14g. DI numbers 1111 to 1115 are assigned to each client as shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 shows ta of the electronic mail client.
A flowchart showing an operation in which the naka 14c takes out a facsimile addressed to itself from the file server 16 (e-mail post office) is shown. Figure 6 (a)
As shown in step ST6-1, the e-mail client tanaka 14c logs in the file server 16 (e-mail post office) in step ST6-1.
To do.

Next, in step ST6-2, the received mail box is opened. Then, in step ST6-3, the mail addressed to itself is received. By receiving the mail addressed to itself in this way, it is possible to view an image file, which is a facsimile image, as an attached file.

Incidentally, in step ST6-1, l
When signing in, it is necessary to enter the user name tanaka and a predetermined password as shown in FIG. 6 (b). Further, as shown in FIG. 5, in the present embodiment, an example in which there is only one file server 16 (e-mail post office) is shown, but this changes the number part of PostOffice_01, for example. Therefore, it is also preferable to provide a plurality of post offices on the same LAN.

FIG. 7 shows a case where the client tanaka 14c, which has received a facsimile, edits and processes an image file, which is a facsimile image, and also sends the facsimile to another facsimile device 22b via the public telephone network 20. A flow chart of operation is shown. As shown in FIG. 7A, step ST7
-1, first, the client tanaka14c
Is a file server 16 (email post office)
Log in to.

At the time of this login, it is necessary to input tanaka as the user name and a predetermined password as shown in FIG. 7B.

In step ST7-2, the client tanaka 14c opens its own received mail box.

After that, the mail is received in step ST7-3. Next, the attached file of the received mail is stored in the local drive in step ST7-4.

Next, in step ST7-5, the application for facsimile transmission is activated in the client.

In step ST7-6, an attached file application for editing the attached file is started.

Next, in step ST7-7, the attached file of the electronic mail is opened using the attached file application.

In step ST7-8, the attached file is corrected using the attached file application and the corrected data is saved. This saving may be performed by changing the name of the file, or by overwriting the original file.

Next, in step ST7-9, a transmission command (print) is executed. In the present embodiment, the facsimile sending is activated by a print command. That is, the print data created by the print command is hooked by the facsimile sending program and sent to the external facsimile device 22b via the FAX server 10b instead of the printer. In addition, from this step ST7-9 to the following step ST7-
Up to 12 are functions provided in the conventional transmission FAX server 10b.

In step ST7-10, the print output output by the print command is hooked,
Converted to an image file for fax transmission. This is converted into the MH code, for example, as described above. The image file converted in this way is stored in the file server.

In step ST7-11, the destination telephone number is input and added to the image file stored in the file server. This will provide the necessary data for the fax.

In step ST7-12, the FAX server 10b for transmission polls the file server in which the data for the facsimile provided with the telephone number is stored, and the file for the required facsimile is obtained. And take out the fax automatically.

As described above, according to this embodiment, F
The AX server 10 supports the dial-in function, and it is possible to send a facsimile by designating the client of the other party by the dial-in number from the external facsimile device 22 via the public telephone network 20. Therefore, the operator does not need to input a specific number for identifying the client from the facsimile device 22 or use the OCR device prior to sending the facsimile, and simply input the telephone number of the other party. Since it is sufficient, the facsimile transmission to the clients included in the LAN 12 can be performed without any difference from the ordinary facsimile transmission. That is, since the FAX server 10 in this embodiment plays a role of a gateway connecting the LAN and the external facsimile device 22 as it were, and the mail is automatically sent to the client by the dial-in number. It is possible to construct a system that does not require operation by.

[0052]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to provide the facsimile server capable of designating the destination by the dial-in number.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, since the electronic mail is sent to the electronic mail post office, each client opens the BOX of the own electronic mail and freely receives the facsimile addressed to itself as the electronic mail. It is possible to provide a facsimile server capable of performing the above.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a LAN using a FAX server 10 of this embodiment.
12 is an explanatory diagram showing a state where 12 and a facsimile device 22 are connected via a public telephone network 20. FIG.

FIG. 2 is a functional configuration diagram of the FAX server 10 according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an application explanatory diagram showing an application when facsimile data is exchanged using the FAX server 10 according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation in the case of receiving a facsimile sent from the outside as an electronic mail via the FAX server 10.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a detailed configuration of the LAN 12 when the operations shown in FIGS. 4, 6 and 7 are executed.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation when the client tanaka 14c receives an e-mail from the post office 16.

FIG. 7: The client tanaka14c uses the FAX
6 is a flowchart showing an operation when a facsimile is sent to an external facsimile device 22b via the server 10b.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 FAX server, 12 LAN, 14 mail client, 16 file server (e-mail post office), 20 public telephone network, 22 facsimile machine, 30 subscriber line interface section, 32 address table section, 34 facsimile receiving section, 36 address table, 38 E-mail client section, 40
File storage unit, 42 LAN interface unit.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location H04M 11/00 303 H04N 1/21

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A subscriber interface unit connected to a public telephone network and having a dial-in function for accommodating a plurality of telephone numbers in one line; and a dial output from the public telephone network received by the subscriber interface unit. Mail user name conversion means for converting the IN number into an electronic mail user name, and facsimile data included in the facsimile signal received by the subscriber interface unit is combined with the electronic mail user name to form an electronic mail. A facsimile server comprising: an electronic mail forming means; and a sending means for sending the formed electronic mail onto a local area network. 2. The facsimile server according to claim 1, wherein the sending unit sends the electronic mail to an electronic mail post office on the local area network.