JPH09222879A - Character processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a character processor capable of using the proper hint information in response to the output form. SOLUTION: When the output form contains a specified character request, the outline data of the requested character are read out from an outline data memory means 2, and the hint information corresponding to the specified output form is read out from a hint information memory means 4. A deployment correcting means 5 corrects the read-out outline data with the read-out hint information, and a deploying means 3 deploys the outline data corrected by the deployment correcting means 5 and generates a character output image. The efficient character process according to the using environment can be made. When a cashe means storing the hint information is provided, the reading- out speed of the hint information is improved.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character processing apparatus for generating a character output according to a designation of an output mode for an output device such as a printing / display device, for example, a request for a print quality level or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a method has been used in which a hint is added to outline data in character output, a bitmap is generated by using the hint in consideration of various devices / resolutions, and the bitmap is displayed / printed. The hint information is information for modifying the contents of expansion when the outline data is expanded into a bitmap to obtain higher quality display / printing.

However, since the font data (shape) and the hint information are linked in a one-to-one manner and the hint information is used for processing even when the print quality requirements are different, unnecessary hint information may be used depending on the quality requirement. Yes, on the contrary, this did not match the required quality, or was accompanied by extra processing.

Therefore, a method for solving the above problem has been proposed (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-147189). In this method, a coordinate flag is directly provided on the coordinate value of the outline data, and the coordinate conversion is performed by controlling this. Specifically, the flag is additional information for deleting the coordinate value itself. According to this method, it is possible to omit the control points and perform processing in response to a print request, and it is possible to generate characters in accordance with the quality requirement without performing extra processing.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, the control points themselves are mainly tampered with, and the font data (shape) and the hint information are still 1: 1.
Therefore, there is no quality requirement that changes over time, and there is no change in hint information according to the output resolution, and an output that meets the desired quality requirement cannot be generated.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems of the conventional method. That is, an object of the present invention is to provide a character processing device that can use appropriate hint information according to an output mode such as a quality request or an output resolution that changes with time.

[0007]

According to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, an output mode (for example, main printing on a printer, trial printing on a printer, preview on a display, layout display on a display, etc.) is provided. Output mode designating means 1 for designating, outline font data storing means 2 for holding outline font data, expanding means 3 for expanding outline font data to generate a character output image, and outline font by the expanding means 3 Hint information storage means 4 for storing hint information for correcting the expansion content of data in association with an output mode, and the hint information corresponding to the specified output mode is read from the hint information storage means 4, A development correction hand for correcting the development content of the outline font data by the development means. 5 and a character processing apparatus having a.
It is possible to add a cache unit for caching hint information to the character processing device.

[0008]

When there is a character request for which the output mode is specified, the outline data of the requested character is read from the outline data storage means 2 and the hint information corresponding to the specified output mode is read from the hint information storage means 4. The expansion correction unit 5 corrects the read outline data with the read hint information, and the expansion unit 3 expands the outline data corrected by the expansion correction unit 5 to generate a character output image. Therefore, it is possible to perform efficient character processing according to the usage environment. When the cache means for caching the hint information is provided, the reading speed of the hint information is improved.

[0009]

FIG. 2 shows a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. 1 shows in detail the configuration of a character processing unit that is a feature of the present invention. The output device 20 includes an output image generation unit 21, a CPU 22, a character processing unit 23, and an output image buffer 24, which are connected to each other. Examples of the output device 20 include a printer and a display device. The output image generation unit 21 has a function of generating an output image in response to an external output request a,
For the character portion in the output request a, a character request is made to the character processing unit 23 to request a character image, and the character processing unit 23 is caused to generate a character image. The image generated in response to the output request a is held in the image buffer 24,
Get the output b. The CPU 22 is a unit that executes programs for necessary processing in each unit.

The character processing unit 23 receives the character request portion of the output request a and generates desired character data (bitmap). The character processing control unit 231, the priority addition hint processing unit 232, and the outline data storage. Part 23
3, a hint information holding unit 234 with priority, a new hint information management unit 235, and a learning hint information holding unit 236.

When the character processing control unit 231 receives the character request, the output mode designating information (for example, preview, high quality, or the like indicating the output mode) input from the external output mode designating unit 25. Which hint information has priority. Information for deciding whether to use it for a specific purpose and is also referred to as priority judgment information), and passes the information to the hint processing unit 232 with priority, and
The prioritized hint processing unit 232 processes. The priority-added hint processing unit 232 uses the output mode designation information to store the outline data holding unit 233 and the priority-added hint information holding unit 23.
The data is fetched from No. 4 and returned to the character processing control unit 231. The character processing control unit 231 generates a desired character based on the outline data and the hint information with priority.

The function of the priority hint processing unit 232 is to return data (outline data and hint information) in response to a request from the character processing control unit 231. Therefore, the outline data of the requested character is read from the outline data holding unit 233, and corresponding hint information is taken out from the priority-added hint information holding unit 234 based on the priority determination information. However, regarding the hint information, the data is cached by the new hint information management unit 235 and the learning hint information holding unit 236, and the previously used data is the learning hint information holding unit 23.
Since it is stored in 6, first the new hint information management unit 23
5 inquires whether the necessary hint information is held, and if so, the new hint information management unit 235.
The hint information is obtained from the learning hint information holding unit 236 via. If there is not, it is taken out from the priority-added hint information 234.

As described above, the new hint information management unit 235 has a function of managing and holding a set of hint information that has been used once and a character request that uses the hint information. When the requested learning hint information does not exist in the learning hint information holding unit 236, the new hint information management unit 235 detects it as new hint information and retrieves the learning hint information when extracting data from the prioritized hint information holding unit 234. Part 236
Learn hint information by registering at. In this way, the new hint information management unit 235 and the learning hint information holding unit 236 act as a cache of hint information.

The character processing unit described above is shown in FIG.
There is a case where the printer is registered as an output device as shown in FIG. 2 or a case where the printer is registered as a printer server as shown in FIG.

Next, the operation of the character processing unit 23 when a character output request is made by the output image generation unit 21 will be described in more detail. As the output mode (also called a quality request) requested from the output mode designating unit 25 to the output device, there are, for example, the following four modes in which the quality of output display and the resolution can be combined. (1) When the quality requirement is high quality and high resolution (actual printing with a printer). (2) When the quality requirement is low and the resolution is high (trial with a printer). (3) When the quality requirement is high quality and low resolution (preview on display). (4) When the quality requirement is low quality and low resolution (layout display on the display).

The output mode can also be classified according to the change over time in the usage status. (A) A person sends or repeats the quality requirements (1) to (4). (B) It is conceivable that a plurality of people may repeat main printing / trial at the same time for one printer.

In addition, when setting the output quality to the rasterizer mounted on the printer in the development stage of commercialization, some hint information should be prepared and the final hint information should be selected (in this case, in this case). The hint information may be fixed to the printer).

For example, a person first creates a document, re-thinks the document while repeating test printing with a printer several times, and then performs actual printing at a certain stage. The operation of the character processing unit 23 in the case of confirming this, performing the trial printing, and performing the final main printing will be described as an operation example.

When an attempt is made to print a document, whether to perform this in trial printing (the output mode (2)) or in main printing (the output mode (1)) is properly designated (not shown). ), This person sets and requests the printer to print. Then, on the printer side, the character processing control unit 231 receives, for example, the trial printing of the output mode (2) as the output mode specified by the requester, and the hint processing unit 232 extracts the hint information corresponding to the test print. Then, the returned character is output to the character processing control unit 231 together with the outline data 233. In the very first trial printing, since the hint processing unit 232 does not cache the hint information in the learning hint information holding unit 236,
The hint information is directly retrieved from the priority-added hint information holding unit 234. At this stage, the new hint information management unit 235 holds the hint information used now in the learning hint information holding unit 236 and caches it.

After this, trial printing is performed again. In this case, since the hint information has already been cached, the hint processing unit 232 with priority is already cached from the new hint information management unit 235. The hint information held in the learning hint information holding unit 236 is taken out, the outline data is taken out from the outline data holding unit 233, and these data are returned to the character processing control unit 231. The character processing control unit 231 outputs a character.

Next, when the main print is selected, if it is the first time, the same processing as the first time of the trial print is performed. If the caching has a sufficient size, depending on the capacity of the learning hint information holding unit 236, the hint information in the trial printing and the hint information in the actual printing are both held, and the subsequent processing is performed as a trial. Since the hint information that has been cached is used for both printing and actual printing, the processing speed can be increased.

As another operation example, when a plurality of people are simultaneously working, some people are in the trial printing stage, and some people are in the main printing stage. As in the case of the work, the hint information corresponding to each output mode (each required quality) is initially the hint information holding unit 2 with priority.
It is retrieved from 34 and is cached. That is,
When a person out of a plurality of people performs main printing, the hint information for main printing is taken out from the prioritized hint information holding unit 234, which is used and cached. When another person performs trial printing, hint information for trial printing is taken out from the priority-added hint information holding unit 234, which is used and cached. After this, if the cache has a sufficient size, by using hint information in which the output character corresponding to the request is cached, for each of the person who performs the main print and the person who performs the trial print, It will be processed at high speed. Further, even when a person changes from trial printing to actual printing, if the hint information for actual printing is already cached, it can be used.

Next, FIG. 4 shows the processing in the case where a character generation request is made to the character processing section 20 of FIG. 2 and the character request and output mode designation information (priority determination information) are inputted to the character processing control section 231. It is a flowchart which shows a flow.

First, priority judgment information (output mode designation information)
It is determined whether or not the hint information based on this is already cached (step S1). When the desired hint information is already cached, the hint information is selected and acquired from the new hint information management unit 235 (step S
3). If the hint information is not cached, desired hint information is acquired from the priority-added hint information 234 (step S2).

When the hint processing unit 232 receives the hint information, if the hint information has already been cached, the hint processing unit 232 acquires the outline data as it is (step S5), and the obtained hint information and the outline data are acquired. To the character processing control unit 231, and the character processing control unit 23
In No. 1, the outline data is corrected with hint information and expanded into bitmap data to generate a character (step S6), and the generated character is returned to the request source (step S).
7).

If the obtained hint information is not cached, the new hint information management unit 235 manages the information and the learning hint information holding unit 236 holds the hint information (step S8). Then, the processes of steps S5 to S7 are performed.

Next, an example of the data structure of the actual priority-added hint information and the data structure used for the cache will be described.
The outline data (O / L) has a structure as shown in FIG. 5A, and basically has only character shape information (actual contour information). The hint information (e.g., character width) b unique to one outline data is also held as being associated with the outline data. The hint information data structure has a structure as shown in FIG. 5B, and has hint information corresponding to each required quality. This hint information f ~
i is managed by the hint information table e, and hint information corresponding to each required quality can be taken out.

The data structure for cache management is shown in FIG.
It has a structure as shown in FIG. 2, and is used for managing the caching by using the font attribute k and the hint information table m corresponding to it with the priority judgment information j as a key, and for fetching and holding the cached hint information. It
The hint information table m is actually like a pointer to the hint information held in the learning hint information holding unit 236.

[0029]

According to the present invention, while the outline data is corrected by using the hint information corresponding to the designated output mode, the outline data is expanded and the desired character output is obtained. Efficient character processing can be performed. In addition, when the cache means for caching the hint information is provided, the reading speed of the hint information is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a system configuration example of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a processing flow of a character processing unit.

5A is a data structure example of outline data, FIG.
(B) is a data structure example of hint information, (c) is a data structure example of cache management data.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Output mode designating means, 2 ... Outline data storage means, 3 ... Expansion means, 4 ... Hint information storage means for each output mode, 5 ... Expansion correction means, 20 ... Output device, 21 ... Output image generation part, 22 ... CPU, 23 ... Character processing unit, 24
… Output image buffer.

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Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. Output mode designating means for designating an output mode, outline font data storage means for holding outline font data, expansion means for expanding outline font data to generate a character output image, said expansion Hint information storage means for storing hint information for correcting the expansion content of the outline font data by means corresponding to the output mode, and reading hint information corresponding to the specified output mode from the hint information storage means. And a development correction means for correcting the development content of the outline font data by the development means. 2. The character processing device according to claim 1, further comprising cache means for caching hint information.