JPH11122415A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a facsimile equipment whose operability is satisfactory in which the load of a user related with address book registration can be reduced. SOLUTION: When electronic mail data are received, an address extracting means 12a in an address book managing part 12 extracts the electronic mail address of the origin of transmission from the header of the electronic mail data. Then, when the extracted electronic mail address is not registered in an address book 13, an address registering means 12b in the address book managing part 12 allows the address book 13 to store the electronic mail address for operating automatic registration.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus for transmitting and receiving images in an e-mail format via a computer network such as the Internet, and more particularly to a method for registering an e-mail address in an address book.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional facsimile apparatus transmits image data via a telephone line in accordance with a facsimile procedure specified by an international standard.

[0003] In this case, since a telephone system in a public telephone network or the like adopts a fee system in which the communicable time per unit fee is shortened according to the distance, the communication fee becomes larger as the distance becomes longer. come.

[0004] In order to reduce the communication cost, for example, as proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-242326,
A facsimile apparatus has been proposed in which an image is represented by e-mail format data and communicated by e-mail via the Internet.

[0005] In the Internet, there is no communication cost for clients for data transmission between providers (internet connection companies). That is, the communication cost for the client is only the communication cost for data transmission between the client and the provider, regardless of the distance to the final data transmission destination. Therefore, the cost merit increases as the distance becomes longer.

FIG. 6 shows the configuration of a facsimile apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-242326.

This facsimile apparatus is, as shown in the figure,
It has a CPU 1, a ROM 2, a RAM 3, an external storage unit 4, a format conversion unit 5, a format reverse conversion unit 6, a scanner unit 7, a panel unit 8, a compression / decompression unit 9, a LAN control unit 10, and a printer unit 11.

In this facsimile apparatus, a facsimile document is set on the scanner unit 7 and the panel unit 8
The transmission procedure is started in response to the input of the destination e-mail address and the pressing of the start button. In this transmission procedure, the facsimile document is read by the scanner unit 7 to generate image data. After the image data is compressed by the compression / decompression unit 9, the binary compressed data obtained by the compression is temporarily stored in the external storage unit 4 such as a hard disk device.

After that, the format conversion unit 5 converts the binary compressed data into character code data composed of a combination of 7-bit character codes, and adds a destination e-mail address, a source e-mail address, A header describing a data format, a character code conversion method, and the like is added, and the data is converted to e-mail data in an e-mail format. The e-mail format is, for example, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) which is a standard of e-mail.
Shall be followed.

[0010] Then, in the LAN control unit 10, for example, SMT
Using an e-mail transfer protocol such as P (Simple Mall Transfer Protocol), the e-mail data obtained by the format converter 5 is transmitted to a computer network such as the Internet.

An electronic mail server (not shown) for managing electronic mail is connected to the computer network. Upon receiving the e-mail data sent as described above, the e-mail server transfers the e-mail to the destination address indicated in the header.

On the other hand, this facsimile machine periodically requests the electronic mail server to transfer electronic mail data addressed to itself. If there is e-mail data addressed to itself, the e-mail data is transferred from the e-mail server. Thus, the e-mail data is received and temporarily stored in the external storage unit 4.

Thereafter, the format reverse conversion unit 6 converts the character code data into binary compressed data,
The image data is reproduced by being decompressed by the compression / decompression unit 9, and the image data is temporarily stored in the external storage unit 4.

The image data stored in the external storage unit 4 is supplied to the printer unit 11, and an image corresponding to the image data is printed.

In a conventional facsimile apparatus which transmits and receives images via a computer network, the image transmission method is different from that of a general facsimile apparatus using only a telephone network. The operation is almost the same. However, the destination must be specified not by a telephone number consisting of only numbers, but by an e-mail address consisting of a combination of alphanumeric characters and symbols.

In general, an e-mail address is more complicated than a telephone number, so that the user must perform a complicated operation in specifying the e-mail address, and must perform a more careful operation to specify the e-mail address without error. For this reason,
A conventional facsimile apparatus using a computer network has lower operability than a general facsimile apparatus using only a telephone network.

Therefore, an address book for storing the e-mail addresses registered by the user is prepared, and when one of the e-mail addresses stored in the address book is selected and designated, By accepting email addresses as recipients,
It is conceivable to suppress the decrease in operability.

As a method of registering an e-mail address in an address book, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 8-242326 discloses a method for registering an address book in a format uniquely determined in advance by a user, which is transmitted from a personal computer or the like to the facsimile apparatus. Is shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the format of the e-mail data for registering the address book.

As shown in FIG. 1, electronic mail data is roughly divided into a header and a text, and the data format of the text is determined by the header. “Content-type: text / plain in header
The character string "" indicates that the body is character code data. The registration process in the address book requires that the body be character code data. "Subject: !! $" in the header The character string "" indicates that the text is an instruction for performing a registration process in the address book.
The subject of this e-mail is usually placed after the character string "Subject:", but the character string "!! $" is a special character string and can be distinguished from the title. An e-mail address to be registered is described in the text, and a character string "! LIST" is defined at the beginning.

The facsimile apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-242326 recognizes that, when receiving the e-mail data in the above format, the facsimile command is a command for performing a registration process from the subject part of the header to the address book. And
The body is analyzed and the e-mail address described here is registered in the address book.

[0022]

As described above, the conventional facsimile apparatus performs the registration processing in the address book using the e-mail data in a special format. You must know the format to specify. Even if the user knows this format, it is necessary to create e-mail data for registering the address book according to this format without error, and the operation is troublesome. Furthermore, in spite of registering the address book with the facsimile machine at hand, the e-mail data for registering the address book is transmitted to the e-mail server and the e-mail data for registering the address book is transmitted to the e-mail server. Communication costs for receiving from the server are incurred.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile apparatus with good operability, which reduces the burden on the user for registering an address book.

[0024]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an address storage means such as an address book for storing an e-mail address, and an address storage means for receiving e-mail data. Address extraction means for extracting a source e-mail address from the e-mail data;
Address storage control means such as an address registration means for storing the e-mail address in the address storage means when the e-mail address extracted by the address extraction means is not stored in the address storage means. .

According to another aspect of the present invention, in addition to the above-described aspect, the apparatus further comprises a destination address receiving unit such as a panel unit for receiving designation of an e-mail address as a destination of an image. Even when the e-mail address received by the communication destination address receiving means is not stored in the address storage means, the e-mail address is stored in the address storage means.

By taking such means, when e-mail data is received, the e-mail data has the sender's e-mail address indicated in the header, for example, and is extracted. It is memorized. The e-mail address specified as the destination by the destination address receiving means is stored in the address storage means. Therefore, if the e-mail data is transmitted using the e-mail address stored in the address storage means, the user can select the destination e-mail address from the e-mail addresses stored in the address storage means. Just select.

[0027]

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

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a main configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to this embodiment. The same parts as those in FIG. 6 are denoted by the same reference numerals.

As shown in FIG. 1, the facsimile apparatus of the present embodiment includes a CPU 1, a ROM 2, a RAM 3, an external storage unit 4, a format conversion unit 5, a format reverse conversion unit 6, a scanner unit 7, a panel unit 8, a compression / decompression unit. Part 9, LA
N control unit 10, printer unit 11, address book management unit 12
And an address book 13.

The CPU 1 operates based on an operation program stored in the ROM 2, and realizes an operation as a facsimile apparatus by totally controlling each part of the facsimile apparatus.

The ROM 2 stores an operation program for the CPU 1 to control each section, various kinds of preset setting data, and the like.

The RAM 3 temporarily stores various data necessary for the CPU 1 to perform various processes.

The external storage unit 4 uses a hard disk device or the like, and stores image data and electronic mail data.

The format converter 5 converts the binary compressed data obtained by compressing the image data into electronic mail data of a predetermined electronic mail format. This e-mail data is converted into character code data obtained by converting binary compressed data into character code data composed of a combination of 7-bit character codes, and includes a destination e-mail address, a source e-mail address, a data format, a character It is assumed that a header describing a conversion method to a code is added.

The format reverse conversion unit 6 extracts binary compressed data from electronic mail data configured by converting binary compressed data.

The scanner unit 7 reads a facsimile document and generates image data.

The panel unit 8 has, for example, a key switch group, an operation unit for the user to input various instructions to the facsimile apparatus, and a liquid crystal display, for example, and displays various information for the user. And a display unit for performing.

The compression / decompression section 9 compresses the image data to obtain binary compressed data. The compression / decompression unit 9
Reproduces image data by expanding binary compressed data.

The LAN control unit 10 performs transmission / reception processing of e-mail data via a computer network.

The printer section 11 prints an image indicated by the image data.

The address book management unit 12 stores the address book 13
And performs processing for displaying an e-mail address registered in the address book 13 and notifying the CPU 1 of the selected e-mail address as a destination e-mail address. In addition to the well-known processing means, the address extracting means 12
a and address registration means 12b.

Here, when the e-mail data is received, the address extracting means 12a extracts the source e-mail address indicated in the header of the e-mail data. The address registration unit 12b registers the e-mail address extracted by the address extraction unit 12a and the directly input e-mail address in the address book 13 when the e-mail address is not already registered in the address book 13. .

The address book 13 is a RAM or an EEPROM.
The e-mail address registered in the address book is stored.

Next, the operation of the facsimile apparatus configured as described above will be described. The operation of transmitting and receiving an image via a computer network in the facsimile apparatus is the same as that of the conventional one, so that the description is omitted, and the operation relating to the address book registration by the address book management unit 12 will be described here.

The address book management unit 12 directly inputs an e-mail address of a transmission destination when an e-mail is received by the facsimile apparatus and when an e-mail is transmitted (a character string indicating the e-mail address). When an electronic mail address is input to each of the characters forming the character string, the address registration processing is executed.

First, when an e-mail is received,
The address book management unit 12 performs an address registration process as shown in FIG.

In the address registration process at this time, the address book management unit 12 first analyzes the header of the received e-mail data by the address extracting means 12a and extracts the source e-mail address (step ST1).

FIG. 3 shows an example of the header. The character string “aaa@zzzz.co.” Shown after “From:”
"jp" indicates the source e-mail address. The format of the header shown in this figure is defined as a standard for Internet mail. You can extract the e-mail address, and to extract the e-mail address of the sender, you need “From:
Field, only the address book management unit 12
Does not need to parse other fields or email body information. That is, the content does not need to be “Content-type: text / plain” (in the case of an e-mail with a facsimile image attached, it is “Content-type: multipart / mixed”).

Subsequently, the address book management unit 12 compares the e-mail address extracted in step ST1 with all the e-mail addresses stored in the address book 13 by the address registration means 12b, and compares the e-mail address extracted in step ST1. It is checked whether the mail address is registered in the address book 13 (step ST2).

Only when the e-mail address extracted in step ST1 is not registered in the address book 13, the address book management unit 12 stores the e-mail address extracted in step ST1 in the address book by the address registration means 12b. 13 (step ST
3).

In many cases, the name of the sender is described in addition to the electronic mail address of the sender. Therefore, in such a case, the name may be registered together with the e-mail address as shown in FIG. This is convenient because the user can select an e-mail address by referring to the name when specifying the transmission destination.

On the other hand, when direct inputting of an e-mail address of a transmission destination is performed on the panel unit 8 when transmitting an e-mail, the address book management unit 12 executes an address registration process as shown in FIG. I do.

In the address registration process at this time, the address book management section 12 first takes in and stores the e-mail address directly input on the panel section 8 (step S).
T11).

Subsequently, the address book management unit 12 compares the electronic mail address stored in step ST11 with all the electronic mail addresses stored in the address book 13 by the address registering means 12b, and compares the electronic mail address stored in step ST11. It is checked whether the mail address is registered in the address book 13 (step ST12).

Only when the e-mail address stored in step ST11 is not registered in the address book 13, the address book management unit 12 stores the e-mail address extracted in step ST11 in the address book by the address registration means 12b. 13 (step ST
13).

As described above, when the electronic mail address of the transmission source when the electronic mail data is received and the electronic mail address of the transmission destination are directly input, the electronic mail address of the transmission destination when the electronic mail data is transmitted is
It is automatically registered in the address book 13.

When a display instruction of the registration information of the address book 13 is given by a predetermined instruction operation on the panel section 8, the address book management section 12 reads out the e-mail address registered in the address book 13, and reads it. Is generated and displayed on the panel unit 8.

For example, a one-touch key is associated with each of the displayed e-mail addresses, and the e-mail address corresponding to the pressed one-touch key is accepted as the destination e-mail address.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the source e-mail address of the e-mail data received in the past is automatically registered in the address book 13. According to the present embodiment, an e-mail address directly input in the past is automatically registered in the address book 13. Therefore, there is no need to artificially perform such work for registering the other party's e-mail address in the address book, and the burden on the user is reduced. When a facsimile original is to be transmitted to the source of previously received e-mail data or to a person having an e-mail address directly input in the past, the corresponding e-mail address registered in the address book 13 is selected. The destination can be specified with a simple operation of only.

Since no transmission / reception of e-mail data for registration of an e-mail address is performed, no unnecessary communication cost is incurred.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above embodiment, the directly input e-mail address is automatically registered in the address book 13, but this function may be omitted.

In the above-described embodiment, the directly input e-mail address is unconditionally registered in the address book 13, but in this case, if there is an erroneous input, the erroneous electronic mail address is entered. The email address is registered, which is not desirable. Therefore, it is preferable that the e-mail address is registered in the address book 13 only when the transmission is normally performed.

In addition, various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

[0064]

According to the present invention, an address storage means such as an address book for storing an e-mail address, and, when e-mail data is received, a source e-mail address is extracted from the e-mail data Address extracting means, and when the e-mail address extracted by the address extracting means is not stored in the address storage means, an address storage control means for storing the e-mail address in the address storage means. .

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided, in addition to the above-mentioned invention, a destination address receiving means for receiving designation of an e-mail address as a destination of an image, and the address storage control means comprising the communication destination address receiving means. Even if the received e-mail address is not stored in the address storage means, the e-mail address is stored in the address storage means.

Thus, a user-friendly facsimile apparatus in which the burden on the user regarding the address book registration is reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a main configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of an address book management unit in an address registration process when an electronic mail is received.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a header in electronic mail data.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a registration status of an e-mail address and a name in an address book.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of an address book management unit in an address registration process when an e-mail address of a transmission destination is directly input when transmitting an e-mail.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example of a conventional facsimile machine.

FIG. 7 is a view showing an example of a format of electronic mail data for registering an address book in the facsimile apparatus shown in FIG. 6;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... CPU 2 ... ROM 3 ... RAM 4 ... External storage part 5 ... Format conversion part 6 ... Format reverse conversion part 7 ... Scanner part 8 ... Panel part 9 ... Compression / decompression part 10 ... LAN control part 11 ... Printer part 12 ... Address book management unit 12a ... Address extraction means 12b ... Address registration means 13 ... Address book

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus for transmitting and receiving an image via a predetermined computer network in the form of e-mail data in a predetermined e-mail format defined to indicate at least an e-mail address of a transmission source. Address storage means for storing, when receiving e-mail data, address extraction means for extracting a source e-mail address from the e-mail data, and e-mail address extracted by the address extraction means A facsimile apparatus comprising: an address storage control unit that stores the e-mail address in the address storage unit when the E-mail address is not stored in the address storage unit. 2. An apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a destination address receiving means for receiving designation of an e-mail address as a destination of the image, and an address storage control means for storing the e-mail address received by said communication destination address receiving means. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said electronic mail address is stored in said address storage means even when it is not stored in said means.