JPH10150462A - Facsimile server - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the need of a special application for facsimile data reading by converting message information into a system used in a personal computer(PC) and a work station(WS) such as a graphics interchange format(GIF) and the like. SOLUTION: A message conversion part 23 converts picture information into a picture format used in PC and WS such as GIF and generates the message of the hyper text mark up language(HTML) document in a system into which picture information is inserted. Then, it is accumulated in a film system 35 with a uniform resource locator(URL) being location information. A location information transmission part 34 decides the electronic mail address of a receiver and transmits a facsimile reception notice by an internet mail. A receiver starts a word wide web(WWW) browser by a client and refers to and obtains message information managed by a WWW server 36.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention provides a service relating to facsimile communication which is connected to both a network and a general public line and uses a plurality of personal computers (hereinafter abbreviated as "PC") and workstations (hereinafter abbreviated as "WS") as clients. The present invention relates to a facsimile server which is an apparatus for performing the above, and more particularly to the distribution of received image data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A facsimile server has a role of distributing received image data to a corresponding recipient. A proposal of the distribution of received data by a conventional facsimile server is, for example, a "facsimile apparatus" (hereinafter referred to as Conventional Example 1) described in JP-A-7-288668.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a first conventional example. In the first conventional example, the address information of the transmission destination is obtained from the first page of the received data by the OCR analysis unit, and the second and subsequent pages are transferred to a file server (not shown). Further, an e-mail notifying the reception of the facsimile data is transmitted to the client of the transmission destination address, and the recipient who has received the e-mail activates the software for browsing the facsimile data on the client, and receives the received data stored in the file server. Browse.

[0004] The above-mentioned conventional facsimile server has the following problems. A first problem is that in the first conventional example, image data is stored in a file server in a unique facsimile format. Since the facsimile's unique format is not a file format that can be generally handled by PCs and WSs, it is necessary to prepare a dedicated browsing application in the client in order to browse the received data stored in the file server. This browsing application is not very versatile in use, and although there is no general purpose other than receiving facsimile data, a recipient of facsimile data cannot receive a facsimile unless he or she learns the operation.

A second problem is that since the received image data is stored in the file server, the client and the facsimile server must support the same file system in order to use the service of the facsimile server. It is. For this reason, in order to receive the facsimile data, the facsimile server, the PC, and the WS have the same LAN (Local Area Network).
Therefore, for example, even if an e-mail notifying the reception of a facsimile is received via the Internet at a destination, the contents of the facsimile cannot be browsed.

[0006]

A first object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile server which does not require a special application for browsing received facsimile data.

A second problem is to provide a facsimile server that can receive services from PCs and WSs that are not connected to the same LAN if they can use Internet services.

[0008]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a facsimile server according to the present invention comprises a message converting means for converting the format of image information of facsimile communication information, and an image information converted by the message converting means. Message storage means for storing location information that is information relating to the location where the image information is stored, and message control means for transmitting image information via the network in response to a request for image information including location information via a network And a network connection unit which is an interface to the network.

[0009]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a network configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention. The facsimile server 1 is connected to a general public line 2 and a LAN 3. PC4, PC5 as clients on LAN3
And WS6 are connected. The LAN 3 is connected to the LAN 8 via the Internet 7.
Are connected to the PC 9 and the WS 10. According to the present invention, not only the PCs 4, 5 and WS 6 connected to the same LAN 3 as the facsimile server 1, but also different LAs
The PC 9 and the WS 10 connected to the N8 can also use the service as clients of the facsimile server 1.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the facsimile server according to one embodiment of the present invention.

In the facsimile server 20 of the present embodiment, the facsimile procedure control unit 22 which has received the facsimile communication information via the communication line 21 converts the image information format of the facsimile communication information into a GIF format or JPEG PC and WS, such as format
Is converted to the image format generally used in the above, and based on this, the message information actually received by the recipient of the facsimile communication information is created, and this message information is location information indicating the position where it is stored Are stored in the message storage unit 24 in pairs.

The facsimile server 20 is connected to a network 26 by a network connection unit 25. The recipient makes an inquiry based on the location information via the network 26, and the message control unit 2
7 retrieves the corresponding message information from the message storage 24 and sends it to the recipient.

[0013]

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.

The facsimile server 30 according to the first embodiment includes a facsimile procedure control unit 31, 32, a message analysis unit 33, and a location information transmission unit 34 in addition to the basic configuration described in the embodiment. The file system 35, the WWW server 36, and the LAN I / F unit 37 correspond to the message storage unit 24, the message control unit 27, and the network connection unit 25 of the embodiment, respectively. The LAN 39 is connected to the Internet by a device (not shown).

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the first embodiment.

The facsimile communication information transmitted to the facsimile server 30 via the communication line 21 is received by any one of the facsimile procedure control units 22, 31, and 32 and transmitted to the message analysis unit 33 via the LAN 38 ( S1).

The message analyzing unit 33 receives information on the recipient such as the name and mail address of the recipient, the reception date and time of the facsimile, and the facsimile number from one or both of the header information of the facsimile communication information and the first page of the image information. Facsimile-related information including information related to the received facsimile communication information such as transmission source information such as a title and the like. The facsimile-related information is obtained from the sub-address in the header information, obtained by character recognition of the first page of the image information, or obtained by defining a unique protocol (S2). If the destination is not specified, the user specified in advance as the destination of the facsimile whose destination is unknown is set as the recipient.

The second and subsequent pages of the image information are passed to the message converter 23. The message converter 23 converts the image information into an image format generally used in PCs and WSs such as GIF (S3), and then embeds the converted image information in HTML (Hyper Text M).
The message information of the archive language document is created (S4). This message information is URL (Uniform Resource) which is location information.
e Locator) with the file system 35 (S5).

The location information transmitting section 34 receives the facsimile-related information from the message analyzing section 33 and receives the URL from the message converting section 23 (S6). The location information transmitting unit 34 determines the e-mail address of the recipient based on the facsimile-related information, and transmits a facsimile reception notification for notifying the recipient of the facsimile-related information and the URL by Internet mail (S7). FIG.
Is an example of a facsimile reception notification.

The recipient receives the facsimile-related information and the location information from the notification mail, knows the facsimile reception and the URL, activates a WWW browser with a client connected to the Internet, and receives the message information managed by the WWW server 36. See, get. Here, if mail software that can directly start a WWW browser by clicking the URL information of the mail is used, the usability is further improved.

In the second embodiment, a facsimile list page which is a WWW page on which a list of received facsimile is posted on the WWW server 36 is prepared. As a result, the user can check the message information by viewing the facsimile list page from outside without referring to the facsimile reception notification. In this case, facsimile-related information is displayed on the facsimile list page, and by clicking on it, the corresponding message information can be viewed. In the case of the second embodiment, since the transmission of the facsimile reception notification is not necessarily required, the location information transmitting unit 3
4 can be omitted.

The third embodiment is an example in which facsimile reception notification is performed by facsimile instead of electronic mail. In the case of the third embodiment, the location information transmission unit is not a network connection unit such as a LAN I / F unit.
A facsimile reception notification is transmitted to the recipient as facsimile communication information via the facsimile procedure control unit.

In any of the first, second and third embodiments, by adding an authentication means to the WWW server, it is possible to prevent a user other than the recipient from referring to the message information. In addition, by providing the WWW server with a message information management means for monitoring message reference and automatically deleting message information referred to by all recipients, maintenance of the file server can be facilitated. Further, a facsimile or e-mail is provided at the transmission source of the message information determined by all the recipients to be transmitted by the message information management means, to provide a facsimile or electronic mail. May be a facsimile server that provides a service that allows the sender to confirm that the recipient has been referred to by the recipient.

The facsimile procedure control unit is provided in the facsimile server 20 itself in the facsimile server 20 and is provided in another device connected by a LAN in the facsimile server 30. The object of the present invention can be achieved. Also, when facsimile communication information is received via a plurality of facsimile procedure control units as in the facsimile server 30, the facsimile related information includes which facsimile procedure control unit has received the information, ie, which facsimile number has been received. Thereby, the convenience of the recipient can be achieved.

[0025]

The first effect of the present invention is that, since the message information is converted into a format such as GIF which is generally used in PCs and WSs, a unique application is applied to each client PC and WS. Facsimile communication information can be referred to by a general application such as a web browser without the need for
Another advantage is that message information can be easily reused by another application.

The second effect is that the received message is HTML
Since the data is stored in a format that can be used from the Internet service, the limitation on the client is relaxed as compared with the conventional facsimile server. Conventionally, it has been assumed that the clients are on the same LAN. However, according to the facsimile server of the present invention, if the Internet service can be used, the facsimile service can be used as the client.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a network configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a facsimile server according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an example of a facsimile reception notification.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a conventional facsimile machine.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 20, 30 Facsimile server 2, 21 Communication line 3, 8, 38, 39 LAN 4, 5, 9 PC 6, 10 WS 7 Internet 22, 31, 32 Facsimile procedure control unit 23 Message conversion unit 24 Message storage unit 25 Network connection unit 26 Network 27 Message control unit 33 Message analysis unit 34 Location information transmission unit 35 File system 36 WWW server 37 LAN I / F unit

Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification symbol FI H04N 1/00 107 H04L 11/00 310D 1/32

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A facsimile server connected to a communication line and connected to a facsimile transmission / reception device for transmitting / receiving facsimile communication information, wherein the message conversion means converts a format of image information of the facsimile communication information; Message storage means for storing location information that is information relating to the stored image information and the location where the image information is to be stored; and in response to a request for the image information including the location information via the network, the image information A facsimile server comprising: a message control unit that transmits a message via a network; and a network connection unit that is an interface to the network. 2. A facsimile server, wherein the facsimile server is connected to a communication line, facsimile procedure control means for transmitting and receiving facsimile communication information, message conversion means for converting a format of image information of the facsimile communication information, and conversion by the message conversion means. Message storing means for storing location information, which is information relating to the image information and the location where the image information is stored, and, in response to a request for the image information including the location information via the network, transferring the image information to the network A facsimile server comprising: a message control unit that transmits data via a network; and a network connection unit that is an interface to a network. 3. The facsimile server according to claim 1, further comprising: a message analyzing unit that determines a mail address of a recipient of the facsimile communication information from the facsimile communication information; Location information transmitting means for transmitting a facsimile reception notification, which is an electronic mail for notifying the facsimile communication information and the location information of the image information stored in the message storage means, to the mail address obtained by A facsimile server comprising: 4. The facsimile server according to claim 1, further comprising: a message analyzing unit that determines a mail address of a recipient of the facsimile communication information from the facsimile communication information; Location information transmitting means for transmitting a facsimile reception notification, which is a facsimile document for receiving the facsimile communication information and notifying the location information of the image information stored in the message storage means, to the mail address obtained by A facsimile server comprising: 5. The facsimile server according to claim 1, wherein the message conversion unit converts the image information of the facsimile communication information into a GIF (Graphics Interface).
HTML (H) in which the image is converted into a GIF image which is an image in an angle format (an format) and the GIF image is inserted.
hyper Text Markup Languag
e) generating a document, wherein the message storage means includes the GIF image and the HT
An ML document and a URL (Un
If the message control means stores a WWW (World Wide Locator),
(e) A facsimile server, which is a Web server.