JPH1117922A - Communication terminal with electronic mail function and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily identify the destination of a received electronic mail by adding to each electronic mail, printing and recording, information on a user's name corresponding to a user ID used for log-in for its reception. SOLUTION: When there is an electronic mail addressed to a user of a user number 'i', a main control part 1 temporarily stores all the electronic mail addressed to that user in a RAM 7 and checks the state of a print flag 71. When the print flag 71 is '1', namely, when print-out of the received electronic mail is instructed, the main control part 1 reads the user name of the user number 'i' out of a user table 70, performs font expansion on the RAM 7 and outputs these data to a recording part 3. Thus the recording part 3 prints 'destination (user name)' at the upper edge of paper. Next, the main control part 1 prints out the text of the electronic mail received in advanced and stored in the RAM 7 through the recording part 3 and prints out one piece of electronic mail.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication terminal device having an electronic mail function, for example, a communication terminal device such as a facsimile device capable of transmitting and receiving electronic mail by connecting to a computer communication network such as the Internet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, computer communication networks such as the Internet have become widespread. The reason is that the computer network is excellent in error correction, and the user bears the communication cost (line usage fee and provider's cost) with the nearest contract provider (connection company to the computer network). It is possible to perform communication not only with Japan but also with computers all over the world.

[0003] Since the conventional facsimile communication procedure is different from that of the computer communication using the computer communication network as described above, it is impossible to directly communicate from the facsimile apparatus to the computer communication network.
However, even if image data is normally transmitted and received in facsimile communication, for example, TIFF (Tagged Image FileFo
If the data is converted into data in a format that can be transmitted and received as an e-mail such as the (rmat) format, the data can be transmitted and received by a facsimile apparatus via a computer communication network.

[0004] Under such circumstances, facsimile messages can be transmitted and received as electronic mail via Internet communication, and communication terminals with an electronic mail function, particularly facsimile apparatuses, used for such purposes have been developed. .

[0005] By the way, when receiving an e-mail, there is a procedure in which a user on the receiving side inputs his / her ID and password to the device, logs in to the network, and receives the e-mail stored in the server computer. is necessary. The e-mail received from the server computer according to such a procedure is, of course, an e-mail addressed to the user, and the header added to the e-mail clearly specifies that the user is the destination.

[0006]

However, as described above, when image data of a document which should be transmitted by facsimile communication is transmitted as an e-mail, the header of the e-mail and the image of the original document are separated. Printout, there is a problem that it is unclear to whom the message is addressed only by the text.

When a so-called broadcast communication in which the same contents are transmitted to a plurality of destinations by facsimile communication is received as an electronic mail, a plurality of destinations are entered in the header of the electronic mail. There was also a problem that it was hard to distinguish.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and when image data that should be transmitted by facsimile communication is transmitted as e-mail, the destination user name, in other words, For example, a communication terminal device with an e-mail function that can easily recognize a destination user by printing out information about a user name corresponding to a user ID used when logging in to a network to receive an e-mail. The purpose is to provide.

[0009]

According to the present invention, there is provided a communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to the present invention. Means for receiving an e-mail, and control means for appending information about the user name corresponding to the user ID used for login to the received e-mail to the recording means for printing and recording the received e-mail. It is characterized by.

In such a communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention, an e-mail is received by sequentially logging in to the network with a plurality of user IDs registered in the storage means. Since information about the user name corresponding to the user ID used for login for reception is added and printed by the recording means, it is possible to easily determine to whom the facsimile has arrived as an e-mail.

Further, the communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to the present invention further comprises a selection means for selecting whether or not to print and record an e-mail by the recording means, and stores a selection state by the selection means. And a storage unit for storing the received e-mail when the selected state storage unit stores that the e-mail is not printed. .

In such a communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention, whether or not to print and record an e-mail by the recording means is selected by the selection means, and the selected state is stored in the selected state storage means. If the selected state storage means stores that the e-mail is not printed, the received e-mail is stored in the e-mail storage means. Becomes possible.

The recording medium according to the present invention includes a step of sequentially logging in to a network with a plurality of user IDs to receive an e-mail, and a step of logging in to the received e-mail for the user ID used to log in. And a step of recording and outputting the information to the recording means by adding information relating to the user name corresponding to the computer program.

In such a recording medium according to the present invention, when a computer program recorded in the recording medium is loaded into a computer system, the user sequentially logs in to the network with a plurality of user IDs and receives an e-mail. Since information about the user name corresponding to the user ID used to log in to receive the e-mail is added to each e-mail and printed by the recording means, it is easy to determine to whom the facsimile arrived as the e-mail. It becomes possible to judge.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings showing the embodiments. However, in the embodiment of the present invention described below, the present invention is applied to a communication terminal device such as a facsimile device configured to transmit image data (image data of a transmission original) to be transmitted by facsimile as e-mail. The invention is applied, and the Internet is used as a computer communication network.

First, the hardware configuration of a communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention (hereinafter referred to as the present device) will be described with reference to FIG. The device of the present invention
In addition to facsimile communication functions such as the G3 system, it has a function that allows Internet communication.

The main control unit 1 is specifically composed of a CPU, is connected to the following hardware units via a bus 13 and controls them, and executes various software functions to be described later. .

The reading section 2 reads an original with a scanner using a CCD or the like, and outputs dot image data converted to binary black and white. The recording unit 3 is a printer device of an electrophotographic system or the like, and prints out image data received from another facsimile device by facsimile communication or image data received by Internet communication as a hard copy and records it.

The display unit 4 includes a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a C
A display device such as an RT display for displaying the operation state of the present invention device, image data of a document to be transmitted,
The received image data is displayed.

The operation section 5 includes character keys, numeric keys (numerical keys), speed dial keys, one-touch dial keys, various function keys, and the like necessary for operating the apparatus of the present invention. In addition, by using the touch panel type as the display unit 4, some or all of the various keys of the operation unit 5 can be substituted.

The ROM 6 stores various software programs necessary for the operation of the apparatus of the present invention in advance. RAM7 is
It is composed of an SRAM or a flash memory or the like, and stores temporary data generated during execution of software and stores received e-mail. In the RAM 7, a user table 70, which will be described later, is set in an appropriate area, and further stores an instruction as to whether or not to print out the received electronic mail stored in the RAM 7 from the recording unit 3. Are assigned to appropriate bits. If a flash memory is used as the RAM 7, the stored contents will not be lost even if the power is cut off due to a power failure, movement of the device, or the like.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the contents of the user table 70. The user table 70 includes, for a plurality of users who use the apparatus of the present invention, user names corresponding to user numbers and user names for logging in to the network.
An ID and a password are registered in advance.

The image memory 8 is composed of a DRAM or the like, and stores image data to be transmitted or received image data.

The modem 10 is an F for normal facsimile communication.
AX modem. The data modem 12 is a data communication modem for performing Internet communication, and is connected to the bus 13 via the external interface 9. NCU (Ne
A twork control unit (11) is hardware for closing and opening the analog line L, and connects the modem 10 or the data modem 12 to the analog line L as necessary.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral FD indicates a flexible disk as a recording medium, and reference numeral 14 indicates a recording medium reading unit. The recording medium reading unit 14 is specifically a flexible disk driver, and when the flexible disk FD is inserted, can read a computer program recorded in the flexible disk FD and store it in the RAM 7.

A DSU (Digital Servicing Unit: Digital Ser
vice unit) to connect to a baseband transmission digital line.

The apparatus of the present invention has the above-mentioned hardware configuration, and has a function of transmitting and receiving image data converted into a TIFF file as e-mail as well as a general facsimile communication function of the G3 system or the like. have. In other words, it is possible to convert image data of a document to be transmitted by facsimile into a TIFF file and transmit / receive it as e-mail via the Internet. However, since the function for that is stored in the ROM 6 as a software program, such a function will be briefly described below.

The document to be transmitted (transmitted document) is read as dot data by the reading unit 2 in units of one sheet, in other words, in units of pages, and codes such as MH, MR, MMR and the like defined in the standard of facsimile communication. The encoded image data is converted into encoded image data by software according to the encoding method, and the encoded image data received from the outside is also decoded into dot data by software and output from the recording unit 3 as a hard copy. The image memory 8 stores the encoded image data as needed, and outputs the stored encoded image data as needed.

The encoded image data is converted by software into a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) format, which is a general image format used by a computer, at the time of transmission, and is converted by software at the time of reception.
Converted from FF format to encoded image data. In addition,
The TIFF specification is published by Adobe Systems, and defines classes corresponding to various types of data, such as not only black and white binary, but also black and white multi-valued and full color. One of them, CLASS F, defines facsimile coded image data in G3 format. Therefore, the G3 format facsimile-coded image data can be converted to the TIFF format by performing relatively easy processing such as adding CLASS F TIFF header information to the head thereof. Hereinafter, the facsimile-coded image data to which the TIFF header information of CLASS F is added is referred to as “TIFF image data”.

Since the TIFF image data thus obtained is binary data, it is necessary to convert it to text data by software at the time of transmission, and vice versa, ie, to convert text data to binary data at the time of reception. . This is because computers that cannot handle binary data e-mails are also connected to the Internet. For this reason, to ensure that e-mails reach the recipient, TIFF
When transmitting binary data such as image data, it is once converted into text data and transmitted. In addition,
Text data handled on the Internet is IETF (Internet
It is specified as a 7-bit code in RFC (Request For Comments) 822 which is a document issued by the Engineering Task Force.

Therefore, as an example, MIME (Multipurpose In
When converting to text data using base64, which is one of the encoding types of Internet Mail Extensions, binary data is converted into 64 types of characters (upper and lower case alphabets, numbers,
By being replaced with one of +, /), it is converted to text data. Note that MIME is described in RFC
For example, besides the above base64, "7bi
Encoding types such as “t”, “8bit”, and “binary” are specified.

MIME to be transmitted obtained as described above
A file of text data with a header (hereinafter referred to as MIME data) is edited by the software in the form of an e-mail with communication management information (e-mail header) added to the main body by the software. , The MIME data and communication management information
(Mail header) and only TIFF image data is extracted from the MIME data.

Such mail editing processing by software is indispensable because it is necessary to add predetermined header information to the Internet e-mail and transmit it together with the text.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a data state when a facsimile message is converted into an electronic mail as described above. As shown in FIG. 3, when a facsimile message is transmitted as an e-mail, first, the original mail header 101 of the e-mail, then the above-mentioned MIME header 102, and then one page worth Followed by the MIME data 103 of the facsimile message. One unit of data including the mail header 101, the MIME header 102, and the MIME data 103 is a unit of a facsimile message.
The pages are communicated via the Internet as e-mail.

Conversely, when an e-mail in the state shown in FIG.
By restoring the contents of the MIME data 103 according to the contents of the ME header 102, the original facsimile message can be obtained. If only the result of restoring the contents of the MIME data 103 is printed out on one sheet of paper P, the original before transmission can be restored.

Next, the operation procedure of the present invention when the present invention apparatus receives an e-mail transmitted from a communication terminal having the same e-mail function as the present invention apparatus having the above-described configuration will be described. This will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The following procedure is a process for receiving an e-mail addressed to all users registered in the user table 70 in advance when a predetermined instruction is given. The user can select whether to print out the received e-mail from the recording unit 3 or leave the received e-mail stored in the RAM 7 without printing (in this case, it is possible to display it on the display unit 4). Instructed by the operation of the operation unit 5, and when the print output is instructed, the print flag 71 is set to "
The print flag 71 is set to "1", and otherwise the print flag 71 is maintained at "0".

First, when this process is started, the main control unit 1 initializes a user number counter "i" to "1" (step S11), and thereafter performs a process for logging in to the network. However, it is assumed that the number of users registered in the user table 70 is “N”.

The main control unit 1 gives a preset telephone number of the provider to the NCU 11 to control it,
Also, by reading the user ID and password with the user number "i" from the user table 70, the modem 10 is connected to the server of the provider via the line L and logs in to the network (step S12).

The above operation makes it possible to receive an e-mail. Therefore, the main control unit 1 first searches for the presence / absence of a received mail addressed to the user whose user number is "i".
(Step S13). That is, the main control unit 1 checks whether or not electronic mail addressed to the user with the user number “i” is stored in the server of the provider. As a result, if there is no e-mail addressed to the user (“NO” in step S14),
The process proceeds to steps S20 and S21 to be described later, the counter “i” of the number of users is incremented by “1”, and the same process as described above is performed for the user of the next user number.

On the other hand, if there is an e-mail addressed to the user whose user number is “i” (“YES” in step S14),
The main control unit 1 receives all e-mails addressed to the user from the server of the provider and temporarily stores them in the RAM 7 (step S15). Thereafter, the main control unit 1 checks the state of the print flag 71 (step S16). If it is "0", there is no need for print output, so the process proceeds to steps S20 and S21 to be described later, and the next user number is output. The same processing as described above is performed for the user.

If the print flag 71 is "1"("YES" in step S16), that is, if the printout of the received e-mail is instructed, the main control unit 1 first sets the user number to "i". The user name of the user "" is read from the user table 70, the font is developed on the RAM 7, and the dot data is output to the recording unit 3. Thereby, the recording unit 3 prints “destination: (user name)” on the upper end of the paper P (step S17).

Next, the main control unit 1 prints out the text of the e-mail previously received and stored in the RAM 7 on the recording unit 3 (step S18). As described above, one e-mail is printed out from the recording unit 3. If a plurality of e-mails have been received for the same user ("YES" in step S19), the process returns to step S17.
All e-mails addressed to the same user are printed out from the recording unit 3 in the same manner as described above.

As described above, when all the e-mails addressed to one user are printed out from the recording unit 3 (step S19)
In step S20, the main controller 1 determines whether or not the user number counter "i" has reached the number of users N registered in the user table 70, in other words, if the counter "i" is registered in the user table 70. It is checked whether the reception of the e-mail has been completed for all the users who are present (step S20).
If the user number counter “i” has not reached the user number N, that is, if the reception of e-mail has not been completed for all users yet (“NO” in step S20),
The main control unit 1 increments the counter "i" of the number of users by "1" and performs a reception process for the user of the next user number.

When the above process is repeated until the number of users counter "i" reaches the number of users N registered in the user table 70, the main control unit 1 controls the NCU 11 to change the line. Disconnect and log out of the network. Thus, the processing of the flowchart shown in FIG. 4 ends.

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a document to be transmitted by facsimile communication to the apparatus of the present invention.

In the transmission original shown in FIG.
"From" indicating the transmission source, "Time" indicating the transmission time,
A header composed of items such as "Date" indicating the transmission date and "P" indicating the page number is added, and the text of the transmission original exists below the header. When this is transmitted as an e-mail, it is converted into the MIME data 103 shown in FIG.
The header 102 is added as a header 102, and a mail header 101 is further added when the mail is transmitted as an e-mail.

On the other hand, when such an electronic mail is received by the apparatus of the present invention, first, the mail header 101 is separated, and furthermore,
The MIME data 103 is restored according to the contents of the MIME header 102, and finally, the body of the e-mail as shown in the schematic diagram of FIG. 6 is printed and recorded. In the body of this e-mail, the name of the destination (user name) is first printed and recorded by the apparatus of the present invention on the receiving side at the upper end of the paper P, and the figure attached to the transmitted original by the transmitting side apparatus is shown below. The header as shown in FIG. 5 is printed and recorded, and further below the header, the original content of the transmission original is printed and recorded.

When the received e-mail is not printed and recorded by the recording section 3, the contents of the e-mail are stored in the RAM 7 and can be displayed on the display section 4 for viewing. When displaying the contents of the e-mail on the display unit 4 for this purpose, it is not necessary to display the user name because the user of the destination should see the content by himself.

In the above embodiment, the ROM 6
The main control unit 1 controls each step of the flowchart shown in FIG. 4 according to a software program recorded in advance in the recording medium shown in FIG. Even if the data is recorded on the flexible disk FD as described above and read from the recording medium reading unit 14 as needed, and temporarily stored in the RAM 7, the device of the present invention can perform the same operation as described above. Such a method of reading a software program recorded on the flexible disk FD into the RAM 7 and using the software program for control by the main control unit 1 is effective when the apparatus of the present invention is a personal computer capable of facsimile communication.

Furthermore, the recording medium is not limited to the flexible disk FD, but may be a CD-ROM, an IC card, or the like. If the software program can be read by the corresponding recording medium reading unit 14 and stored in the RAM 7, Good.

[0052]

As described above in detail, according to the communication terminal device with the electronic mail function of the present invention, the electronic mail is sequentially logged in to the network with a plurality of user IDs registered in the storage means. Since the information about the user name corresponding to the user ID used to log in to receive the e-mail is added to each e-mail and printed out by the recording means, who the facsimile arrived as e-mail Can be easily determined.

Further, according to the communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention, whether or not to print and record an e-mail by the recording means is selected by the selection means, and the selected state is stored in the selected state storage means. If the selected state storage means stores that the e-mail is not printed, the received e-mail is stored in the e-mail storage means. Becomes possible.

Further, according to the recording medium of the present invention, when the computer program recorded on the recording medium is loaded into the computer system, the user sequentially logs in to the network with a plurality of user IDs and receives an e-mail, Since information about the user name corresponding to the user ID used to log in to receive the e-mail is added to each e-mail and printed by the recording means, it is easy to determine to whom the facsimile arrived as the e-mail. It becomes possible to judge.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the contents of a user table of the communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a state of data when a facsimile message is converted into an electronic mail in the communication terminal device with an electronic mail function of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the communication terminal device with an electronic mail function of the present invention when receiving an electronic mail.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a transmission original that is normally transmitted by facsimile communication to the apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing a state in which the text of an e-mail received by the device of the present invention is printed and recorded.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Main control unit 3 Recording unit 5 Operation unit 6 ROM 7 RAM 10 Modem 11 NCU 12 Data modem 70 User table 71 Print flag

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Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A storage unit in which information on a plurality of user IDs and user names is registered, a unit for sequentially logging in to a network with each user ID and receiving an e-mail,
Communication with an e-mail function, characterized by comprising: control means for adding information relating to a user name corresponding to the user ID used to log in to the received e-mail to receive the e-mail, and causing the recording means to print and record the information. Terminal device. 2. A selection means for selecting whether or not to print and record an e-mail by the recording means, a selection state storage means for storing a selection state by the selection means, and the selection state storage means comprising: 2. The communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to claim 1, further comprising: an e-mail storage unit that stores an e-mail received when the fact that print recording is not performed is stored. 3. A step of sequentially logging in to a network with a plurality of user IDs to receive an e-mail, and information on a user name corresponding to the user ID used to log in the received e-mail for receiving the e-mail. Recording a computer program including the steps of: