KR100460467B1 - A method of producing a fax image in a UMS system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for producing a fax image in a unified messaging system (UMS), the method comprising: receiving data necessary for a fax transmission including data on a template of a fax image from a client computer, and based on the data on the template. Creating a FXML program including a plurality of variables, substituting each of the plurality of variables of the program with a corresponding value of data required for the fax transmission, and syntactic syntax for the substituted program. Performing a check, and if there is nothing wrong with the grammar check, performing a structure analysis on the substituted program, preparing a fax image based on the substituted program, and Transmitting the produced fax image to a fax machine. According to this, the facsimile image which makes data representation easy, the data itself is readable, data expression grammar can be confirmed, the data can be represented structurally, system is stable, and is compatible with international standard data format. Production programs can be provided.

Description

A method of producing a fax image in a UMS system

The present invention relates to a method for converting a compound document of text and image into a fax image in a unified messaging system (UMS). More specifically, the present invention provides a method for producing a fax image using an international standard data representation method called extensible markup language (XML). How to create a fax image by defining new XML tags (newly defined XML, hereinafter referred to as FAX (fax extensible markup language)), and analyzing these tags and utilizing user input data to suit their role. It is about.

UMS (Unified Messaging System) is a system that integrates and manages various types of messages such as e-mail, voice, and fax in one mailbox. It checks voice messages or fax documents on a PC or sends e-mails by phone. This system can be checked. Because UMS can manage various types of messages in an integrated manner, more efficient message management is possible, and the same message can be viewed through various media such as e-mail, telephone, and fax, thereby overcoming time and space constraints.

In the case of manufacturing a fax image in such a UMS system, conventionally, as shown in FIG. As a result, there were the following problems.

First, since the conventional methods list the necessary items and values in order without consistency and grammatical rules, it is inconvenient to change the fax image conversion program when the standard, format, or desired image of the fax image is changed.

Second, the conventional fax data representation method is composed of only data items and values, and thus lacks readability of the data itself.

Third, the absence of a data representation grammar makes it impossible to determine by itself whether the data representation is the correct way. That is, as shown in Figure 1, the "sender" of the second and third lines are repeated twice, but grammatically unknown whether the meaning is correct or incorrect, it is difficult to find the error of the coordinate value of the seventh line, It is difficult to find an error about the concatenated sentence of line 9.

Fourth, a system failure may occur during the conversion of the fax image.

Fifth, when adding or changing data types, confusion about the format of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, Korean characters, and digits occurs.

Sixth, since the structural representation of the data is impossible, the hierarchical structure, association, and connectivity of the data cannot be expressed.

Seventh, there is a lack of compatibility with other data formats, so conversion to other document formats is not considered.

The present invention is to solve the above problems, the readability of the data itself is high, the data expression grammar can be confirmed, the structural representation of the data is possible, if the fax image format is changed, no program change is necessary, It is an aim to provide a fax image making program that is compatible with international standard data formats.

1 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional fax image production program.

2 is a block diagram of a system to which the present invention is applied.

3 is a diagram illustrating data exchanged between components of a system according to the present invention;

4 is an exemplary diagram of a screen interface in which a user is required to enter data values required for fax transmission.

5 is a flowchart showing a method for producing a fax image according to the present invention.

6 is an exemplary view of a template program created in accordance with the method according to the present invention.

7 is a diagram showing examples of tags that can be used in a program written in FXML and a description thereof;

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a program in which variables are replaced with data values in the program shown in FIG. 6; FIG.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the results of analyzing the FXML structure of the program shown in FIG. 8; FIG.

Fig. 10 is a diagram showing a fax image production process.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

100: client computer 200: external email server

310: web application server 320: fax conversion server

330: telephone application server 400: fax machine

In order to achieve the above object, the method for producing a fax image according to the present invention comprises the steps of receiving from the client computer the data necessary for fax transmission including the data on the template of the fax image, and based on the data on the template, Writing an FXML program comprising a variable of the; and substituting each of the plurality of variables of the program with a corresponding value of data required for the fax transmission; and checking a syntax for the substituted program. And if there is nothing wrong with the grammar test result, for the substituted program

Performing structure analysis, preparing a fax image based on the substituted program, and transmitting the produced fax image to a fax machine. The data necessary for the fax transmission includes the information of the recipient, the information of the reference person, the information of the sender, the title, and the contents. Contains data about

The structural analysis also includes physical structural analysis and logical structural analysis.

Grammar checks include XML grammar checks and FXML grammar checks. XML grammar checks include entity grammar checks, attribute character checks, and content grammar checks. FXML grammar checks include tag grammar checks. , Entity hierarchy checks, attribute configuration checks, and so on.

In the prior art, the data representation is not universal and has a closed structure. Therefore, in order to convert to another document form, a process of converting the data representation into a new data representation method is required. Data is represented using its own mark up language, so it can be easily converted to the HTML format used by the web or the WML format used by the wireless application protocol (WAP). You can also convert to format.

In addition, since the fax data representation method of the present invention displays the data value together with the tag corresponding to the item, the readability of the data itself is good, and since the data value is duplicated or incorrectly displayed, the grammar check on the item can be used to display the data. There is an effect that can prevent the system failure due to the error of expression method in advance.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

2 is a block diagram of a system to which the present invention is applied.

As shown in FIG. 2, in the system to which the present invention is applied, the client computer 100, the e-mail server 200, and the UMS system 300 are connected to the Internet, and the UMS system 300 is PSTN (Public Switched). And a fax machine 400 via a telephone network. The UMS system 300 may include a web application server 310 that allows a user to access UMS service through a client computer 100, a fax conversion server 320 for producing a fax image, and a PSTN for the generated fax image. It includes a telephone application server 330 to transmit to the fax machine 400 through.

The web application server 310, the fax conversion server 320, and the telephone application server 330 are logical divisions according to functions in charge, and may be implemented as each independent server or as one server.

3 illustrates data exchanged between components of the system shown in FIG.

First, the user accesses the web application server 320 through the client computer 100 and inputs various data necessary for fax transmission (S301).

An example of such a screen interface is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 4, the screen interface through which the user can input data necessary for fax transmission is in the form of an HTML document and includes, for example, a form field that can be input by the user. As shown in Fig. 4, the user can enter the recipient's fax number and name, a referrer, the sender's name and contact information, a subject, content, and the like in this form field. In addition, the user can specify a template of the fax document by determining a background screen for the design of the fax document, determining the type and size of the font, and selecting a date, page number insertion, and the like.

When the client computer 100 requests a fax transmission while transmitting various data necessary for producing a fax image to the web application server 310 (S302), the web application server 310 transmits this request to the fax conversion server (S303). ).

The fax conversion server 320 generates a fax image based on the received data and transmits the fax image to the telephone application server 330 (S304). The telephone application server 330 sends a fax to the fax machine 400 through the PSTN (S305). A detailed method of producing a fax image in the fax conversion server 320 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 5 below.

5 is a flute chart showing how a fax image is produced in the fax conversion server 320.

When the fax conversion server 320 receives a request for fax transmission while receiving data input by the user, such as a template, from the web application server 310 through the client computer 100 (S501), a FXML program is created based on the determined template. (S502).

An example of such a program is shown in FIG. The FXML program of FIG. 6 converts an HTML document including data such as the screen interface of FIG. 4 and the user-selected wallpaper, font, date, page number, and the like into an XML document of a form suitable for the present invention. It can be implemented through. As will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup for decorating a document or displaying a structure by inserting various commands called tags in plain text. For example, an HTML document described as "<b> patent </ b>" as a language displays the plain text 'patent' in bold, surrounded by a &quot; b " tag. In an HTML document, a tag is a singular entity that opens or closes an element and is part of an element, but not the element itself. The HTML language is described in the HTML Reference Manual, published by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) on January 2, 1996. XML, on the other hand, is an official language adopted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which conforms to the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) specification and uses HTML tags to represent the contents of a page or file. Has something in common. However, while HTML only describes how the content of a web page is displayed and interacts with it, XML differs in that it describes content around the data being represented. In short, XML is a meta-descriptive language (a language that can describe language definitions), so you define your own tags so that, for example, the <phone number> tag allows the computer to recognize that the data in this tag is a phone number. In addition, XML can check the document structure by DTD (Document Type Definition). In the present invention, an XML (FXML) program suitable for representing a fax document can be created as shown in FIG. 6, for example, the following tag can be used. Element Explanation img Elements for putting wallpapers item Elements for putting sentences, dates, pages, text, etc. font Elements for setting fonts point Elements for setting coordinates line Elements for drawing lines rect Elements for drawing boxes Therefore, in the example shown in FIG. 6, the "<img>" tag is a tag representing a background screen, the "<item>" tag is a tag for inputting a sentence, date, page number, text, and the like, and the "<font>" tag. Is a tag for setting the font type and size, and it is easy to understand that the "<point>" tag is a tag for setting coordinates. Also, variables starting with $ will be replaced with data entered by the user later.

In addition to the tags shown in FIG. 6, examples of tags that can be used in a program written in FXML and a description thereof are shown in FIG. 7. Referring to the foregoing description and the tag of FIG. 7, in the FXML program illustrated in FIG. 6, the tag included in one document enclosed by the "<document>" tag may be described as follows. ordered from the bottom of the <document>"tag) division tag Explanation img Cover background file $ BACKGROUND Sender title $ FROM_STR Sender Information $ FROM The font name $ FROM_FONT Font size $ FROM_X X coordinate position $ FROM_Y Y coordinate position item $ DATE-STR Date title $ DATE_FONT The font name $ DATE_SIZE Font size $ DATE_X X coordinate position $ DATE_Y Y coordinate position item $ PAGE_STR Page Title $ PAGE_FONT The font name $ PAGE_SIZE Font size $ PAGE_X X coordinate position $ PAGE_Y Y coordinate position item $ SUBJECT_STR Title title $ SUBJECT Title information $ SUBJECT_FONT The font name $ SUBJECT_SIZE Font size $ SUBJECT_X X coordinate position $ SUBJECT_Y Y coordinate position

After the fax conversion server 320 creates the FXML program based on the template, the variable starting with $ in the program is replaced with data values input by the user (S503). The result of substituting variables starting with $ in FIG. 6 with data values is shown in FIG. 8. As shown in Fig. 8, the fax data representation method of the present invention displays data values together with tags corresponding to the items, so that the data itself is readable. In addition, in the conventional method, the data type (numeric type, character type) and the expression method (capital / lower case, Korean, number of digits) for each data value are fixedly used. Therefore, the service should be stopped when changing the data type. Although the service program had to be modified, the present invention has the advantage that it can be applied only by changing the data type for the data value in the middle of the service.

Next, the fax conversion server 320 undergoes a process of checking whether there is no grammatical error in the program completed in step S503 (S504). The inspection consists of two stages: XML grammar checking and FXML grammar checking. The XML grammar checking includes entity grammar composition checking, attribute character checking, content grammar checking, and FXML grammar checking. Check grammar, entity hierarchy, and attribute configuration. The XML basic grammar check checks whether an XML document contains elements with a hierarchy that is appropriate for it. XML elements are typically expressed as follows: "<name attr1 =" value1 "attr2 =" value2 " > "content" </ name> "The element grammar check checks for errors that are not of this type. Examples of errors include the following: "<item type =" string "> </ other>" or "<item type =" string ">" "<item type =" body "... </ body>" Properties Grammar checking refers to checking whether there are undefined attribute values or when there are no attribute values that must be present. For example, the following expression can be considered an error in an attribute grammar check. "<Item type = 'string > </ item> "or" <item> </ item> "Entity grammar checking is the process of verifying that entities are correctly represented. In XML, you can use entity referecne to express specific values within the content. For example, characters such as & (amp), <(lt),> (gt), '(apos), and "(quot) must be characters. The content grammar check includes checking the entity grammar for any non-expressible data, including handling Unicode characters represented as numeric entities in the form of &#nnn; The FXML extended grammar check is a process to check whether the expression grammar of the FXML method conforms to the XML basic grammar check and can be judged as an error if:-the component is not defined in FXML-the configuration When the element representation does not fit the FXML representation-The attribute is not defined in FXML-The attribute value is a value that cannot be converted to a fax image

If a grammar error occurs due to a grammar check, an error message is sent to the web application server 310, and the client computer 100 requests new data.

In the prior art, as described above, it is impossible to determine whether the data representation is the correct way due to the absence of the data representation grammar. However, in the present invention, since there is a tag value corresponding to the item, the data value is duplicated or incorrectly displayed. Can be found by grammar checking on entries. Accordingly, in the present invention, it is possible to prevent the system failure caused by the error of the data representation method in advance.

If there is no abnormality in the grammar by the grammar check, the fax conversion server 320 then analyzes the FXML structure of the program completed in step S503 (S505). FXML structure analysis consists of physical structure analysis according to the tag organization method and logical structure analysis different according to tag placement and order. In the case of logical structural analysis, the relationship between each entity and tag is determined, and the conversion process is changed accordingly. For example, if there is a page number related entity for displaying the total number of pages, after generating the fax image, the total number of pages is counted and then displayed on the front cover.

The result of analyzing the FXML structure of the program shown in FIG. 8 is shown in FIG.

In the related art, structural representation of data has not been possible, but as shown in FIG. 9, the tag for the data item has a hierarchical structure. That is, the <font> tag and the <point> tag are included under the <item> tag so that each <font> and <point> have meaning only for the corresponding <item>. This hierarchical structure ensures the relevance and connectivity of the data and enables the data to be represented more structurally.

After completing step S504 and step S505, the fax conversion server 320 generates a fax image (S506). As shown in Figs. 10 (1) to 10 (3), the facsimile image generation is sequentially performed. First, a background image is produced, and then a facsimile body except for the total number of pages is produced, and finally, the entire image is generated. The number of pages is written.

Thus, the process of producing a fax image according to the present invention is terminated, but in addition to the data input by the user, the header / footer may be input for each page or the page number may be displayed in the service dimension (S507).

When the fax image production is completed through the process of steps S502 to S507, the fax conversion server 320 transmits the fax image to the telephone application server 330, and the telephone application server 330 transmits the fax machine through the PSTN. Fax 400).

Although the present invention has been described above using examples, the scope of the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments, and should be interpreted by the appended claims.

According to the present invention, the readability of the data itself is high, the data expression grammar can be confirmed, the data can be represented structurally, and if the format of the fax image is changed, no program change is required, and it is compatible with international standard data formats. Provides fax image production programs available. In addition, when a new expression format is added to the compound document data, it is easy to develop because only a new FXML tag needs to be extended and implemented.

Claims (8)

In the method for producing a fax image in a UMS system, Receiving, from the client computer, data necessary for fax transmission including data relating to a template of a fax image; Creating an FXML program comprising a plurality of variables and tags based on the data relating to the template; Substituting each of the plurality of variables of the program with a corresponding value of data required for the fax transmission; Means for checking whether an element that matches the hierarchy of a document is included, means for checking for errors in a property, means for checking for correct representation of an entity, means for checking for unrepresentable data, and Means to determine if the tag is undefined or does not fit into the FXML representation, means to check the hierarchy of an entity, whether the attribute is not defined in FXML, or if the attribute value cannot be converted to a fax image. By means of checking if it's a value Performing a syntax check on the substituted program; If there is no abnormality as a result of the grammar check, performing a structure analysis on the substituted program by sequentially reading a data file of the substituted FXML program and forming a hierarchical structure for data items; Producing a fax image based on a tag of the substituted program, attributes of the tag, and data values substituted for the plurality of variables; Fax image production method comprising the step of transmitting the produced fax image to a fax machine. The data of claim 1, wherein the data necessary for the transmission of the fax includes information of a recipient, information of a reference person, information of a sender, a title, content, and the data about the template includes a background screen, a type and size of a font, A method of making a fax image that includes data about inserting dates and page numbers. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting an error message to the client computer when there is an error as a result of the grammar check. In claim 1, The structural analysis includes a physical structure analysis comprising a physical structure analysis according to a tag configuration method and a logical structure analysis according to tag arrangement and order. delete delete delete Receiving, from the client computer, data necessary for fax transmission including data relating to a template of a fax image; Creating an FXML program comprising a plurality of variables and tags based on the data relating to the template; Substituting each of the plurality of variables of the program with a corresponding value of data required for the fax transmission; Means for checking whether an element that matches the hierarchy of a document is included, means for checking for errors in a property, means for checking for correct representation of an entity, means for checking for unrepresentable data, and Means to determine if the tag is undefined or does not fit into the FXML representation, means to check the hierarchy of an entity, whether the attribute is not defined in FXML, or if the attribute value cannot be converted to a fax image. By means of checking if it's a value Performing a syntax check on the substituted program; If there is no abnormality as a result of the grammar check, performing a structure analysis on the substituted program by sequentially reading a data file of the substituted FXML program and forming a hierarchical structure for data items; And a program executing a step of producing a fax image based on a tag of the substituted program, attributes of the tag, and data values substituted for the plurality of variables.