JPH10171784A - Device for preparing document - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a document preparing device by which the updated content of a data base can be easily reflected on a document. SOLUTION: When an input template 10 of a document is read and displayed at a document displaying part 12, a data capturing part 14 retrieves a tag '<?name>' in the input template 10. A retrieval command is prepared by using a merchandise name described following the found tag '<?name>' as a retrieval key, and a data base 16 is retrieved by using this retrieval command. The data base 16 returns the read data to a data synthesizing part 18. The data synthesizing part 18 buries the read data in a position at which the tag '<?value>' is described in an output template. Thus, the data of a document are automatically updated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] The present invention relates to an apparatus for creating a document,
In particular, the present invention relates to a document creation device that can automatically reflect an update in data managed in a database when the update occurs in the document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A database is widely used to manage data such as product information and product information. According to this database, product information and product information can be efficiently extracted. Therefore, when a document is created, an operation of extracting product information and the like from this database and embedding it in the document is widely performed in the creation of the document. In addition, when creating an estimate or a catalog, the unit price of a product is often extracted from the database when checking the unit price of a predetermined product.

As described above, by centrally managing product information and product information using a database, it is possible to provide unified information to a plurality of users, and to provide useful information for producing quotes and catalogs. It has become.

[0004]

As described above, when data in a database that manages data such as product information and product information is changed, a document using the data before the change is It must be updated based on the new data after the change. For this reason, when creating a new document or using an old document at the document creation site, it is necessary to search the database each time and always use the latest data. Was.

However, at the site of the conventional document creation, it is necessary to fully understand the database used by the user who creates the document. Furthermore, when transcribing database data to a document, there is a great possibility that data is erroneously entered (input error).

A technique for solving the problem of a mistake in transferring data from a database is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-14747.
No. 04. The method described in the same gazette uses the product distribution destination as a database key,
This is a method of using a product catalog database in which a control number is registered. It also has a document database in which the latest documents are registered with the product distribution destination as a key. The method of this publication is a method of managing documents and data using two databases in this way.

However, even in such a method described in the publication, the document and the data do not cooperate with each other. Therefore, for example, when an update occurs in a product database, it is necessary to update a document using the data one by one.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide a key (for example, a product name) for searching data in a database in a document so that a document managed by a user can be provided. An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing system in which data in a document is automatically updated to the latest information when is opened.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, an input template described in a document display language for controlling display of a document is interpreted, and display is performed according to the document display language. Interpreting / displaying means for performing, if the input template includes a database inquiry command, a search means for searching a database using a key designated by the inquiry command; An embedding position setting instruction for specifying an embedding position of the specified data, an embedding position searching means for searching from the output template of the document, and an embedding position searched by the embedding position searching means, An embedding unit for embedding data retrieved by the retrieval unit.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document creating apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein
Control means for activating the search means when a predetermined document is opened, and for searching a database based on a database inquiry command in an input template of the opened document. is there.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document creating apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein
The interpretation / display unit includes a markup language interpreting unit that interprets a predetermined markup language as the document display language, and the search unit uses a predetermined tag of the predetermined markup language as the inquiry command. First search means for searching, wherein the embedding position searching means includes second searching means for searching for a predetermined tag of the predetermined markup language as the embedding position setting instruction. Document creation device.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document creating apparatus according to the third aspect, wherein
The markup language interpreting means includes a hypertext markup language interpreting means for interpreting a hypertext markup language.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document creating apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein
The document creation apparatus is characterized in that the search means includes means for searching the database for data including at least one of a text, a photograph, and a numerical value.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a document creating apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein
The document creation apparatus is characterized in that the embedding position searching means includes means for searching the embedding position setting command from the same output template as the input template.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram showing the entire configuration of a document creation system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the document creation apparatus according to the present embodiment inputs an input template 10 of a document to be edited, and
The document is displayed based on. The document is displayed on the document display unit 1.
2 is performed. The document display unit 12 corresponds to an interpretation / display unit in the present invention. The user can create and edit a document while viewing the document displayed on the document display unit 12. Also, it is preferable to use a markup language, for example, a hypertext markup language (HTML) as the input template 10.

A feature of the document creation system according to the present embodiment is that the data acquisition unit 14 checks whether or not there is a database inquiry command in the input template of the document displayed on the document display unit 12. It is to be. When the data acquisition unit 14 determines that the input template includes a database inquiry command, the data acquisition unit 14 sets a search key based on the database inquiry command and searches the database 16. In this embodiment, a predetermined tag is used as the database inquiry command. As is well known, HTML is a language for controlling the display of a document using a predetermined tag, and a database inquiry command, which is a characteristic configuration of the present invention, is also expressed using this tag. That is, the document creation system according to the present embodiment uses HTML having an extended command (tag). The specific contents of the extended instruction will be described later in detail.

The database 1 is acquired by the data acquisition unit 14.
6 is performed and data is obtained, and the data is embedded in the output template in the data synthesizing unit 18. As described later, in the database inquiry command, a search key for searching the database is specified, and predetermined link information for specifying an embedding position setting command for embedding the obtained data is also set. I have. The data synthesizing unit 18 receives the link information from the data acquisition unit 14, and searches the output template for an embedding position setting instruction to embed the data read from the database 16 based on the link information. Then, the data read from the database 16 is embedded at the position where the searched embedding position setting instruction exists. Although the output template is not shown in FIG. 1, it is described in HTML as in the case of the input template 10. of course,
The input template 10 and the output template can be set to the same template. In this case, the input template 10 is updated because predetermined data is embedded by the data synthesizing unit 18.

In this way, the data synthesizing section 18 embeds predetermined data in the output template. The document display unit 12 interprets the output template in which the data is newly embedded and displays the output template.

As described above, when the document creation system according to the present embodiment reads the input template 10, interprets the content, and displays it on the document display unit 12, the above-described series of operations are automatically performed, and the database is created. By creating a document, a document updated with the latest data is created.

Therefore, when a user opens a document managed by the user, the data in the document is automatically replaced with the latest information, and an automatically updated document can be obtained. As described above, since the means for automatically updating the document data when the document is opened is provided, the document database and the information are stored as in the invention described in JP-A-3-144704 described above. It is not necessary to have a separate database or the like to store. Further, since it is not necessary to transfer the data manually by the user, there is an effect that the labor of the user is greatly reduced.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing in detail the operation flow of the document creation system according to the present embodiment. The flowchart shown in FIG.
For example, it is a flowchart showing a process of reading a unit price of a product from a database in a document of an estimate, and reflecting the unit price on the estimate.

Therefore, the database 16 is a database representing the unit price of each product, and the product name is a key for the search. Then, in the input template of the quote, a tag “<? Na” indicating that it is a search key of the database is used.
“me>” and a product name are inserted as appropriate. Specific contents of the input template will be described later. Also, a tag “<? Value>” is appropriately inserted into the output template. Then, as described above, this tag “<?
The data corresponding to the position of "e>" is appropriately inserted, and the document is updated.

First, in step S2-1, an input template for an estimate is opened. Specifically, a so-called document opening operation (opening a document of an estimate) is performed by an editor or the like in the document creation system according to the present embodiment.

In step S2-2, the document display unit 1
2 interprets the HTML content of the input template and displays the content of the quote document.

Next, the tag “<? Na” is included in the input template of the document displayed on the document display unit 12 as described above.
The data acquiring unit 14 searches for the contents of “me>”. If the tag “<? Name>” exists, the product name described following the tag is extracted and used as a search key of the database. Then, in step S2-4, a search command is created using the search key as a product name.

On the other hand, if the tag “<? Name>” does not exist in step S2-3, the process proceeds to step S2-3.
The process shifts to 2-9, and the synthesized document, that is, the document is displayed based on the HTML of the output template.

The data acquisition section 14 sends the search command created in step S2-4 to the database 16. The database 16 is provided with a database management unit, and the database management unit uses the database 1 based on the sent search key.
6 and returns the search result to the data synthesizing unit 18.
In step S2-5, this data is received by the data synthesizing unit 18.

Next, in S2-6, the data synthesizing unit 18 interprets the contents of the document for output (ie, the output template). In the interpretation of the output template, the data read as appropriate is embedded as described above.

In step S2-7, first, the presence or absence of the tag "<? Value>" in the output template is checked. As a result of this inspection, if there is a tag of “<? Value>”, the process proceeds to step S2-8.

In step S2-8, the database 16 is located at the position of the found tag "<? Value>".
Is inserted. Then, the process proceeds to step S2-7 again, and the tag “<? Val
ue>"is checked. The tag “<? Value>” searched in S2-7 is stored in the S
A tag corresponding to the tag “<? Name>” found in 2-3. For one “<? Name>”, a plurality of tags “<? Value>” may be present in the output template. is there. In this case, the data read from the database 16 is inserted at the positions (plural positions) of the corresponding tags “<? Value>”. When the data is inserted at all the positions of “<? Value>”, the search result becomes “none” in step S2-7, and the process shifts to step S2-3 again.

When the process proceeds to step S2-3 again, the presence or absence of the next tag "<? Name>" is checked.

Hereinafter, the tag “<” in the input template 10
? This process is continued until all the “name>” are retrieved. When the process is completed for all the tags “<? name>”, the final document updated in step S2-9 is displayed.

In the example shown in FIG. 2, a product name is used as a search key, and a unit price corresponding to the product is read from the database. By reading out this unit price, it becomes possible to update the document of the estimate according to the database.

An example of the specific contents of the input template and output template of the estimate described in the flowchart of FIG. 2 and the search command (database description) will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 shows a specific example of an input template and the like.

First, the "document format (input template)" in FIG. 3 shows the specific contents of the input template 10. The tag “<tab” of this input template 10
le>", a table is created. In the first square of this table, the tag “<? Name> A-
"Color CMICS" by the trade name "A-Colo"
rCMICS "is displayed and the database 16
The product name that is the key for the search for is specified. That is, the tag “<? Name> A-ColorC
"MICS" is a tag that displays a product name at the corresponding square and specifies a search key. In the present embodiment, an HTML having such a tag extension is used.
Is used.

The data acquisition unit 14 determines such a tag “<? Name> A-ColorC” from the input template.
MICS ", the product name" S-Co
lorCMICS ”is used as a search key to create a search command. The created command is also shown in FIG. For example, corresponding to this product “A-ColorCMICS”, “? Name =“ A-ColorCMICS ”,? V
A search command “alue = '',” is created.

As shown in FIG. 3, the input template 10 also describes a product "Able-4299", but a search command is similarly created for this product.

Such a search command is transmitted to the database 1
6, the database description as a result of the search is sent to the data synthesizing unit 18. FIG. 3 also describes a database description as a search result. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the unit price of the product “A-ColorCMICS” is “86000
0 ”, and the unit price of the product“ Able-4299 ”is“ 5 ”.
40000 ".

In this way, the unit price of each product is embedded in the output template based on the search result sent from the database 16. Data synthesis unit 18
Is the tag "<? Val" from the output template of the quote.
ue>", and the unit price of each product read from the database 16 is assigned to the corresponding tag"<? value ".
>". FIG. 3 also shows how the unit price of each product is embedded in the output template. In the example shown in FIG. 3, the tag “<? Val
Since “ue>” is located in one predetermined cell of the table, the unit price of each product to be input is also embedded in one cell of the table.

In the example shown in FIG. 3, the input template and the output template are treated as different templates. However, in practice, the input template and the output template can be shared. For example, it is of course possible to insert a tag “<? Value>” in advance in the input template as shown in FIG. 3, and this tag has no meaning in the data acquisition unit 14. The data synthesizing unit 18 uses the tag as a tag indicating the position where the unit price of the product is inserted.

FIG. 4 shows an example of an actual display of a quote written in HTML as shown in FIG.
Note that FIG. 3 shows only the HTML of the portion of the quotation table shown in FIG. 4, but the template of the entire quotation includes tags describing the title and a predetermined message in FIG.
HTML.

As shown in FIG. 4, for example, the trade name "A-ColorCMI" is displayed in the cell (cell) of the table.
CS "," Able-4299 ", and the like. Also, the squares (cells) in the unit price of this table are (Fig. 4
) Is blank. In this blank portion, as described in FIG.
The unit price of the product read from 6 is inserted.
For example, according to FIG. 3, "860000" is inserted into the cell (cell) of the table of the unit price of the product corresponding to the product "A-ColorCMICS". Similarly, "540000" is inserted into the cell (cell) of the unit price of the product "Able-4299" according to FIG.

As described above, even when the product unit price in the database 16 is updated, the data acquisition unit automatically searches the database 16 when reading the estimate document, reads out the latest product unit price, and reads it. The price of the issued product was inserted into the quote. Therefore, the user can always obtain a quote reflecting the latest contents of the database 16 without any special work.

FIGS. 3 and 4 show examples of quotes for reading the unit price of a product from the database 16 using the product name as a search key. However, the present invention can of course be applied to catalogs, product specifications, proposals, and the like. For example, when used for a catalog, it is preferable to read out the color, size, price, etc. of the product using the product name as a search key. As a result, it is possible to always obtain the latest catalog even when the content of the product is changed.

Further, when used in a specification, it is preferable that the name of the part described in the specification is used as a search key and the description of the part is read from the database. With such a configuration, it is possible to obtain a specification that always reflects the latest description of the component.

It is also preferable to read the specific contents of the document from the database using the name of the document as a search key. As a case where the name of such a document is used as a search key, for example, a proposal or the like is given. In this proposal, it is possible to create a proposal reflecting the latest comments of each individual when the contents of proposals of each individual are combined into one proposal. That is, the latest comment of each person is stored in the database.

In the above embodiment, text data such as the unit price of a product, a comment on the product, and the content of a proposal has been described. For example, it is also preferable to store photograph data representing the appearance of a product in a database. is there. When the appearance of the product is changed, it is possible to easily create a document or the like in which the change is reflected. Of course, the data read from the database can handle various data such as text data, numerical values, and image data.

[0049]

As described above, according to the present invention, the database is searched based on the database inquiry command in the input template, and the contents of the document are automatically updated. Documents can be easily created.

Further, according to the present invention, the updating operation is performed when the document is opened, so that the user can create the latest document without being aware of the updating operation.

Further, according to the present invention, since the input template of the document is formed in the markup language, the tag in the markup language can be used for a database inquiry command or the like, and the document creation apparatus can be easily configured. it can.

When a hypertext markup language is used as a markup language, an existing program environment can be used, and development of a document creation device becomes extremely easy.

Further, according to the present invention, since a text, a photograph, or numerical data is used as data to be searched from a database, a document creating apparatus applicable to a wide range of documents such as catalogs and quotes is provided.

Further, according to the present invention, since the input template and the output template are configured to be the same, it is possible to obtain a document creating apparatus that can easily create and manage the template.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a document creation system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the document creation system according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing specific contents of an input template, an output template, a search command, and a search result in the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a quote displayed based on the content shown in FIG. 3;

[Explanation of symbols]

10 input template, 12 document display section, 14 data acquisition section, 16 database, 18 data synthesis section.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A document creation apparatus comprising: an interpretation / display unit that interprets an input template described in a document display language for controlling display of a document and performs display according to the document display language. If there is a database inquiry command, a search means for searching a database with a key specified by the query instruction; and an embedding position setting instruction for specifying a position to embed data specified by the inquiry instruction, An embedding position searching means for searching from an output template of a document; and an embedding position searched by the embedding position searching means,
An embedding unit for embedding the data searched by the searching unit. 2. The document creation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when a predetermined document is opened, said search means is started, and a database is searched based on a database inquiry command in an input template of said opened document. A document creation device, comprising: control means; 3. The document creation device according to claim 1, wherein the interpretation / display unit includes a markup language interpreting unit that interprets a predetermined markup language as the document display language. First search means for searching for a predetermined tag in a predetermined markup language as the inquiry command, wherein the embedding position searching means sets the predetermined tag in the predetermined markup language to the embedding position setting A document creation apparatus comprising: a second search unit that searches as an instruction. 4. The document creating apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said markup language interpreting means includes a hypertext markup language interpreting means for interpreting a hypertext markup language. 5. The document creation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said search means includes means for searching the database for data including at least one of a text, a photograph, and a numerical value. Document creation device. 6. The document creating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the embedding position searching means includes means for searching for the embedding position setting command from the same output template as the input template. Characteristic document creation device.