KR20070042684A - Generation method of pdf document by editing and merging documents from mutiple application - Google Patents

Abstract

A document input step of reading original document data of an application program from a file system of said storage means or communication means and loading it into a memory; An information extraction step of extracting print information from the document and adding and storing an image; A target document adding step of storing the extracted document information and the image as one of candidate documents for PDF generation, and storing the extracted document information and image together with common information necessary for PDF generation; A preview display step of dividing the contents of the added document by document and by page, and displaying the contents of the added document on the monitor of the input / output means as a preview screen; An editing step of applying a change to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means and storing in the temporary storage means; A PDF conversion step of reading the edited result content and converting the result into a PDF file in a page order; wherein the document input step, information extraction step, target document addition step, preview display step, and editing step are made of PDF. Prior to performing the conversion, a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various applications, which is configured to be repeatedly executed repeatedly, is provided.

Multiple, Heterogeneous, PDF, Merge, Edit, Create, Attribute

Description

Generation method of PDF document by editing and merging documents from mutiple application

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating examples of document merging by a conventional method, classified into three representative types.

2 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a problem in the insertion of the conventional art.

3 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example of deleting a page according to the prior art.

4 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a problem when the page order is changed.

Fig. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of representative editing that is possible from this when the preview function is given by the method of the present invention.

6 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a hardware environment in which the method of the present invention is executed.

7 shows an overall flowchart in which the method of the present invention is implemented.

8 is a detailed flowchart of the information extraction step.

9 is a flowchart showing a specific example of the printing information extraction step for a document whose format is not known.

Fig. 10 is a flowchart showing the process of the print information extracting step for the format recognition document whose format is known.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a process of displaying each document as a separate document for each sheet when there are a plurality of division units in the document.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing a process of causing sheets to be continuously displayed as one document when there are a large number of division units in the document.

13 is a flowchart for performing the preview display step.

14 is a flowchart for executing an editing step.

15 is a flowchart for executing a PDF conversion step.

Fig. 16 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the structure of originals, metafiles, and individual document structures of documents 1 and 2;

17 shows an example of the structure of the integrated document structure and the preview screen.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the operation of the screen and the change of the integrated document structure in the case where the document 2 is inserted into the document 1. FIG.

FIG. 19 is an example of another editing, which illustrates the operation of the screen and the change of the integrated document structure when the size of h1, which is the first page of document 1, is 1/2, and the position is moved to the bottom right. It is also.

Fig. 20 shows, as another editing example, the third page of document 1, in which the contents of each document of documents 1 and 2 are 1/4 in size, and they are the same size in the form of tiles. This is an explanatory diagram illustrating the manipulation of the screen and the change of the integrated document structure in the case of arrangement.

Fig. 21 is an illustration of a flowchart for processing PDF conversion when the size is reduced to 1/2 and moved to the lower right end.

Fig. 22 is an example of a flowchart for processing conversion when another rectangular object is added using an editing tool in the editing step and the attribute is specified as another conversion example.

Fig. 23 is an example of another flowchart for converting processing in the case where editing is carried out in which four pages are reduced to 1/4 and tiled in the editing step.

FIG. 24 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a screen implementing a function of selecting division units to be converted into PDF in a document having a plurality of division units.

25 is a diagram illustrating an example of a preview window.

Fig. 26 is a diagram showing only the document tabs extracted separately.

Fig. 27 is a diagram illustrating an edit tool window extracted separately.

28 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen at the time of setting multiple views of a preview window.

Fig. 29 is an illustration of inserting pages, i.e., inserting pages of heterogeneous documents into another document.

30 is a diagram illustrating an example of page order change (movement).

Fig. 31 shows the case of deleting a page after selecting it.

32 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen when editing is completed through the editing process of FIGS. 28 to 31.

FIG. 33 is a screen example of the case where the generated PDF document is opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader after PDF conversion is performed from the edited screen of FIG. 32.

The present invention relates to a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various applications, and more specifically, various application programs such as a word processor, a CAD, a spreadsheet, a presentation, etc., which are operated by a computer. Extracting information from a dedicated document file of a document, and mixing and editing pages, changing page order, changing page properties, etc., and then creating a PDF document from the edited and merged results. It is about.

In general, PDF refers to a document in a format created using Acrobat, Acrobat capture, or equivalent software developed by Adobe systems in the United States. Documents in this format are designed to be compatible with any type of computer system environment, including Macintosh, Windows, Unix, and OS / 2.

The reader of this document is the free Acrobat reader distributed by Adobe, which is downloaded and installed for free, and is representative of the fact that more than 700 million copies are downloaded and used worldwide. It is used almost like a standard worldwide.

This format includes vector-based layouts, styles, and fonts in the document so that the graphic quality does not change when zooming in or out, resulting in the same high quality output in any environment. Therefore, it is not only suitable for digital publishing such as e-book and CD publishing, but also allows the document to be kept secret by encrypting the document. It is much better than the format.

PDF documents have been developed to address document compatibility issues that arise between the various platforms. PDF is a file format that is independent of other devices because it allows users to open documents created by various applications regardless of platform or application, and includes font and image information used in the document. It is

As its name implies, PDF is portable. It has excellent compression, reducing file size from 10x to 100x, while maintaining the layout, style, and font of the original document, and creating PDFs from any computer, regardless of the application that created the document. The advantage is that it is easy to open.

In general, opening a document in a program other than the application that created it is not easy. However, PDF overcomes the incompatibility due to the inherent format of these documents. In recent years, as the Internet has established itself as an information transmission and expression medium, PDF documents having excellent compression ratio have come to settle as the standard of electronic documents.

Because PDF documents have a small file size, you do not have to worry about the time it takes to download from a website. These advantages act as decisive factors sufficient to use PDF documents as a standard for electronic documents.

By the way, conventionally, one original file is converted into one PDF file by a PDF conversion program. That is, for example, when a file (extension * .doc) created by a word program of Microsoft (hereinafter referred to as MS) is read by a PDF conversion program and converted, this becomes one PDF file.

If information in one application program (e.g., MS Word) is converted to one PDF file, there may be a case where a problem does not occur. However, for example, a text portion describing an outline, a spreadsheet portion that calculates and predicts future profits and a graphic portion that represents the appearance of the product, such as a business plan, are each in PDF format. In order to produce it, it is impossible or impossible to use conventional methods.

In particular, in the case of merging heterogeneous documents created by a plurality of application programs, according to the conventional method, after converting each of them into a PDF document, a method of merging the resulting PDF documents should be taken. However, even in this case, it is impossible to rearrange the page order of the result of the merging or to delete unnecessary pages. In addition, the information of each PDF document is retained in the merged PDF document. In this case, if there is a lot of common information, the file size cannot be optimized. This is because the same content is stored repeatedly. In addition, since the conversion process must be performed at least three times, the conversion efficiency is inferior and causes inconvenience to the user.

On the other hand, even if the document is not a document of a plurality of application programs, but a document of one application program, it is also impossible to select a required page from one original file and to collect only a part of the PDF. Therefore, if the original document exists, for example, from 1 page to 100 pages, the converted PDF document also exists from 1 page to 100 pages. Of course, if you make a separate copy of the original that you need, such as only 23 and 45 pages, and then convert it to PDF, the resulting document will have only 23 and 45 pages you need. However, this may cause damage to the original document, and in some cases, may cause a problem that the original contention is disputed. Hereinafter, with reference to the drawings will be described in more detail.

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating examples of document merging by a conventional method, classified into three representative types. Here, the document 1 and the document 2 may be documents of different kinds of application programs such as MS Words, or documents of heterogeneous applications such as MS Word and Hancom's Hangul.

FIG. 1A schematically illustrates a process of merging the documents 1 and 2 respectively into PDF, and then merging the resulting PDF 1 and PDF 2 again. Here, when document 1 consists of 2 pages and document 2 consists of 1 page, the conversion result also consists of 2 pages and 1 page, respectively, and when these are merged, the final result PDF 3 is Two pages and one page of PDF 2 are three pages combined sequentially.

Note that here,

(1) According to the order of merging, the arrangement of pages in the result is uniform. In other words, no freedom of placement of the person making the conversion is allowed. Therefore, it is impossible to insert pages or change the order of pages at all.

(2) In PDF 1 and PDF 2, common resources, i.e. images, fonts, and the like may be common, and even in this case, they maintain their information separately. Therefore, even if they become PDF 3 by merging, they are kept separately and occupy separate storage capacities.

(3) Of course, converting twice and then merging once are cumbersome and complicated. For example, considering the case of 100 original documents, 100 conversions should be performed and merging should be performed once for 100 documents.

On the other hand, Fig. 1B shows a case of the same kind of document, that is, a case where a PDF file is created by merging documents of MS words, for example. This method is not possible in the case of merging disparate documents.

In this case, a third document, document 3, is generated by importing two documents to be merged in the corresponding application program. At this time, two pages of the document 2 and one page of the document 2 are combined, so that the document 3 becomes a three page document. This conversion produces the final output, PDF 1, which is a 3-page document. This method is recommended by Adobe, which developed the PDF.

Note that here,

(1) The first stage of merging is possible only if the common application exists. Therefore, if the platforms are different or applications are not installed, such merging itself is not possible.

(2) In Document 1 and Document 2, if the parameters to be applied at the time of printing differ from each other, for example, if the printing direction is Document 1 in Portrait and Portrait 2 in Landscape, , Merging is not possible.

(3) When Document 1 and Document 2 are original, a third original is created, which is generated by editing. In other words, it may be determined that the original is not. As the original is damaged or a new file extracted from the original is created, it is not only complicated but also may be regarded as a legal defect in some cases.

In addition, FIG. 1C is a method particularly considering a spreadsheet program such as Excel. In general, a spreadsheet program has tabs in which several sheets are assigned, and each tab is set in a printable state. Therefore, it is necessary to first select which tab sheet contents are converted to PDF. Or perhaps you want to convert the contents of all tabs to PDF.

In a conventional method, it is set to plug-in in Excel etc. and may be provided with the command button for PDF conversion. Fig. 1C shows such a case.

In this case, when the PDF conversion button is pressed, a screen for selecting a sheet is displayed. At this time, if the first and second sheets are selected, each sheet is converted to generate PDF 1 and PDF 2. If PDF 1 has 2 pages and PDF 2 has 1 page, the final PDF created by merging them will be 3 pages.

Note that here,

(1) Also, the application program, for example, Excel program is required.

(2) Then, as in the method of FIG. 1 (a), the transformation must be performed twice, after which the merging must be performed once,

(3) It is inconvenient in that editing such as inserting, deleting and changing page order is not possible.

Hereinafter, the insertability of the page will be described in more detail.

2 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a problem in the insertion of the conventional art.

In general, when merging two documents, the method of FIG. 1 (a) may be used. However, as shown in the result of FIG. 2 (a), the order of the pages is different from that of the original document. After the PDF conversion has been performed for the respective pages, the order must be changed and merged again. That is, in the case where the document 1 is the original composed of two pages and the document 2 is one page, PDF conversion is performed on each of them to generate PDFs 1, 2, and 3. After that, the order of PDF 3 and PDF 2 is changed, and when PDF 1, 3, and 2 are merged while paying attention to the order, PDF 4 is generated. The order of pages in PDF 4 is the order in which pages in document 2 are inserted between pages in document 1.

Even in this case,

(1) The conversion should be performed three times, the alignment adjustment should be performed once, and then the merging should be performed once. Therefore, it is very troublesome and there is a high possibility of mistakes.

(2) In PDFs 1 and 2 converted from document 1, common resource information such as images and fonts often overlaps. In this case, even in the resulting PDF 4, these remain as duplicates, resulting in a waste of storage capacity.

FIG. 2B shows a method that is possible only with the same document. This is a method of editing the application in advance, creating a third document, Document 3, inserting a page, and converting it to PDF.

Here too,

(1) the corresponding application must be installed,

(2) Difficulty in merging even if there is an application program if the print parameters, that is, attributes such as portrait and landscape are different.

(3) The original document may be damaged or a new document different from the original may need to be created, which in some cases may cause legal complications.

FIG.2 (c) is an example in which multiple sheets consist of tabs like a spreadsheet such as Excel. This is not possible with all conventional PDF conversion programs, but only with expensive products such as Acrobat.

If the general document and Excel are described as an example, and the general document consists of two pages, and Excel consists of two pages of sheet 1 and one page of sheet 2, the documents are converted to PDF for each page to be inserted. That is, if you want to insert the contents of sheets 1 and 2 of Excel between two pages of a general document, convert the general document into PDF 1 and 2 separately, and convert the Excel into PDF 3 and 4 for each sheet. Then, place each PDF in the desired order. Then, this placed state can be merged into the final PDF, PDF 5.

Here too,

(1) In the case of Excel requires an application,

(2) it is necessary to perform conversion four times, batch one time, and merge one time.

(3) The capacity is increased due to overlapping common resources.

3 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example of deleting a page according to the prior art.

3A illustrates a case where the second page of the document 1 is deleted when the document 1 has three pages. The first and third pages, which are the remaining ones, are converted to PDF and merged.

here,

(1) you need to perform two conversions and one merge,

(2) The problem of capacity increase due to redundant resources remains the same.

3B is an example of the case where the solution is solved using an application program. In the case where document 1 has three pages, the corresponding application is started, the second page to be deleted is deleted, document 2 is created, and PDF conversion is performed.

Here too,

(1) that the corresponding application is required,

(2) The difficulty is that the original document needs to be damaged or a separate document extracted from the original document needs to be created.

4 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a problem when the page order is changed.

FIG. 4A illustrates an example of changing the order of document 1 when the document 1 has three pages. First, PDF conversion of each page, changing the order as desired, and then merging them into the final PDF. Take it.

Here too,

(1) 3 conversions, 1 array, 1 merge,

(2) There is a problem of capacity increase due to redundant resources.

In FIG. 4B, when an application program is used, a document 2, which is a second document whose page order is changed, is newly generated in an application program that can retrieve the document 1, and converted into a PDF.

Here too,

(1) the need for an application,

(2) There is a problem in that the original document needs to be damaged or a new document extracted from it needs to be created.

All the prior art methods have a fundamental limitation in that PDF conversion for a single document is performed in a batch manner. In other words, after being generated as a PDF document, merging is possible, but the merging causes a problem of capacity increase due to individual storage of common resources. In addition, PDF conversion itself can sometimes be difficult without an application installed. And because of the complexity of transforming, arranging, and merging iterations, there is a great deal of concern about making unwanted mistakes in the resulting PDF output.

On the other hand, in principle, the result of the PDF is generated as it is. In practice, however, it is sometimes desirable to add a variety of underlines, boxes, and other text to a PDF without damaging the original.

However, in the conventional method, it is impossible to add such editing elements that are not in the original document.

In addition, there are cases in which the contents of the original need to be hidden, but in the conventional method, it is impossible to select and hide the necessary part during PDF conversion unless the part is covered in the original.

In addition, the prior art emphasizes that the original content is converted into a PDF as it is, so that various edits of the original, such as rotating, zooming in or out, or distributing one side of the original to multiple pages in the PDF In other words, it is not possible to perform editing actions such as collecting multiple pages of the original in one PDF.

The present invention has been devised to solve the problems of the prior art, and is not write-protected or encrypted as a variety of application programs (PDF document, MS Office document, Hangul, Hunminjeongeum, image document, CAD document, and other electronic documents). The original document, i.e., homogeneous or heterogeneous, regardless of the type of document, and without compromising the original, merging and editing the contents, and converting only the desired page from the changed contents by a single conversion process. We want to provide a way to generate PDF documents.

In addition, if the contents of the plurality of original documents, the corresponding application of the original document or a dedicated viewer is provided only on the server, the client is to provide a method of generating a PDF document having a viewer function that can be previewed without them. .

In addition, the preview function is to provide a PDF document generation method that can increase the degree of freedom of preview by switching between the one-page view, multiple page view function.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a PDF document generating method that provides an editing function for inserting, deleting, reordering, copying, moving, and pasting a page of a generated PDF using a metafile.

In addition, by providing the editing function through the GUI, it is to provide a PDF document generation method that is easy to recognize the progress process according to the PDF document generation.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a PDF document generation method that provides an editing function for changing the position, size, rotation, and the like of a generated PDF page.

In addition, for each page of the generated PDF, objects such as text, shapes, and images that were not present in the original document can be added, and these added objects can be selected, rotated, and deleted, and sent to the front as their attributes, and sent to the back. It is an object of the present invention to provide a PDF document generation method including an editing tool that performs functions such as sending, grouping, ungrouping, color specification, and transparency specification.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a PDF document generating method having a function of designating a watermark, a stamp, a password, a creator information, a document barcode, and the like as common information of a generated PDF.

In addition, a server provides a process of extracting parameters related to editing from an original document and storing them in a structure having a predetermined structure, and a plurality of clients connected to the server receive the structure from the server, and edit and It is an object of the present invention to provide a PDF document generating method implemented in a client / server system having a structure for performing conversion.

In order to achieve the above technical problem, the present invention,

A computer having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; In a PDF document generating method using a program for controlling a storage means, a communication means, and an input / output means, a document input for reading original document data of an application program from a file system of the storage means or communication means and loading it into a memory. Steps; An information extraction step of extracting print information from the document, adding an image, and storing it together with the image data; A document adding step of storing the extracted document information and the image as one of candidate documents for PDF generation, and also storing common information necessary for PDF generation; A preview display step of dividing the contents of the added document by document and by page, and displaying the contents of the added document on the monitor of the input / output means as a preview screen; An editing step of applying a change to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means and storing in the temporary storage means; A PDF conversion step of reading the edited result content and converting the result into a PDF file in a page order; wherein the document input step, information extraction step, document addition step, preview display step, and editing step are performed on the PDF file. Prior to executing the conversion step, a method of generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, which is configured to be repeatedly executed repeatedly, is provided.

The information extracting step may include a print information extracting step of extracting print information from the original document data; An individual document structure format having a predetermined structure is prepared, and common information and page information of the entire document are divided among the print information of the document extracted in the printing information extraction step, and the image data is included in the individual document structure format. Generating a separate document structure; wherein the printing information extraction step comprises: a printer driver driving step of driving a printer driver through an application program for a document that cannot recognize a format of the document; A spool file generation step of generating the spool file by processing the original document data with the printer driver; A metafile generation step of generating a metafile by extracting print information including common information and page-by-page information of the entire document from the spool file; merging and editing documents from various application programs, and a PDF document Provides a way to create a.

In addition, the information extraction step may include a print information extraction step of extracting print information from the original document data; An individual document structure format having a predetermined structure is prepared, and common information and page information of the entire document are divided among the print information of the document extracted in the printing information extraction step, and the image data is included in the individual document structure format. Generating a separate document structure; wherein the printing information extraction step includes parsing the original document data directly on a document that can recognize the format of the document, and then common information and pages of the entire document. A method of generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, characterized in that the parsing step of directly extracting print information including information is performed.

Here, in the case where the document input in the document input step is a document in which a plurality of division units exist in the document and a plurality of pages are generated for each division unit, the document input step includes: A division unit selection step of selecting division units to be converted into PDF; And a display unit selection step of selecting whether the selected division units are to be displayed as a single document or to be displayed as a separate document for each division unit. According to the type of display unit, the information extraction step and the document addition step is configured to be repeatedly executed as necessary, it provides a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs.

In addition, the document adding step may include providing an integrated document structure format having a predetermined structure for merging and editing documents, common information about a generated PDF document, information on each individual document structure, and the like. And merging and editing documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document by separating edit information to be performed later, and performing an additional step to the integrated document structure which is stored in the integrated document structure format. Provide a way to.

In addition, the preview display step may include a window preparation step of providing a preview window constituting at least a part of the monitor screen, and providing at least a thumbnail window and an edit window constituting a part of the preview window; An integrated document structure analysis step of analyzing a structure of the integrated document structure; A thumbnail display step of displaying all document names of the integrated document structure in the thumbnail window and displaying thumbnail images of the currently active document; And an edit window display step of displaying an activated page of the currently activated document as a full image or displaying a plurality of pages of the currently activated document as a thumbnail image. And an editing tool display step of adding an external object to the image displayed on the display and displaying an editing tool for editing the same, wherein the external object comprises at least one of text, a figure, and an image. It provides a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various applications, characterized in that configured.

In addition, the editing step may include: a common information editing step of changing at least common information of the entire PDF document to be generated; A document editing step of changing page attributes for one document; A change storage step of storing the parameter changed by each editing step at a corresponding position of the integrated document structure, wherein the common information to be edited in the common information editing step includes at least the entire PDF document to be generated. Provided is a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, characterized in that at least one of a password, a stamp, a forced watermark, a storage path, and user information.

Here, in the document editing step, at least page order change, page copy, page move, page pasting, dividing the specified one page into several pages, collecting the specified pages into one page, and a ratio of 1 / n times the entire document. To reduce the size of each page, to increase the size of the page at a rate of n times for the entire document or to one side, or to rotate at an angle of n degrees to the whole document or to one side. Characterized in that, there is provided a method of merging and editing documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document.

Also, the PDF conversion step may include: a reference document indexing step of recognizing and indexing a reference document which is a target of PDF conversion, among at least each document in the integrated document structure; A common information extraction step of extracting and grasping common information of the reference document; A page-specific information extraction step of extracting and grasping information of each page of the reference document; For each page, if a metafile is generated, parsing the corresponding metafile and extracting original objects of the original document; An edit contents reflection step of adding the object added in the editing step or changing the attributes of the original objects with reference to the edited common information, document information, or page information; A PDF file generation step of generating a PDF file and returning it to a file system of a storage device based on the added and changed contents; wherein the object extraction step and the reflection of the edited content are repeated for all pages of the reference document. A method of generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, characterized by being configured to be performed.

Also, the PDF conversion step may include: a reference document indexing step of recognizing and indexing a reference document which is a target of PDF conversion, among at least each document in the integrated document structure; A common information extraction step of extracting and grasping common information of the reference document; A page-specific information extraction step of extracting and grasping information of each page of the reference document; For each page, in the case of a document that can recognize a format, an object extraction step of parsing the document directly and extracting original objects of the original document; An edit contents reflection step of adding the object added in the editing step or changing the attributes of the original objects with reference to the edited common information, document information, or page information; A PDF file generation step of generating a PDF file and returning it to a file system of a storage device based on the added and changed contents; wherein the object extraction step and the reflection of the edited content are repeated for all pages of the reference document. A method of generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, characterized by being configured to be performed.

In addition, the computer and the program may include a client system having at least temporary and permanent storage means of data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; A client program installed in the client system for controlling the storage means, the communication means, the input / output means through the CPU, at least temporary and permanent storage means of data, communication means with other computers, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; And a server program installed in the server system and divided into a server program controlling the storage means and the communication means via the CPU, wherein the information extraction step is executed by the server system and the server program, The remaining steps are both the client system and the client program And to merge and edit documents from various application programs, thereby generating a PDF document.

Further, here, in the transmission and reception of data between the client system and the client program and the server system and the server program, at least the data is encrypted at the transmitting side and decrypted at the receiving side; Compressing the data at the sending side and thawing at the receiving side; providing a method of merging and editing documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document.

Here, when the target document is a document which cannot recognize the format of the document, the server system is characterized in that the application program capable of opening the document is pre-installed. Provides a way to create PDF documents by merging and editing documents from an application.

The server program may be configured to set at least one of a password, a stamp, a forced watermark, a storage path, and user information of at least the entire PDF document to be generated as a default value. Provides a method of merging and editing documents from a program to create a PDF document.

Here, the server system is a web server system connected to the Internet network or a wide area server system connected to an external network, the client system is a client system connected thereto, and the server program and the client program are mutually a web protocol or a wide area protocol. It provides a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various application programs, characterized in that the data transmission and reception using.

On the other hand, a computer having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; In a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a method for generating a PDF document, which uses a program for controlling the storage means, the communication means, the input / output means, the original document data of the application program is stored. A document input step of reading from a file system of a communication means and loading it into a memory; An information extraction step of extracting print information from the document, adding an image, and storing it together with the image data; A document adding step of storing the extracted document information and the image as one of candidate documents for PDF generation, and storing the extracted document information and image together with common information necessary for PDF generation; A preview display step of dividing the contents of the added document by document and by page, and displaying the contents of the added document as a preview screen on the monitor of the input / output means; An editing step of applying a change to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means and storing in the temporary storage means; A PDF conversion step of reading the edited result content and converting the result into a PDF file in a page order; wherein the document input step, information extraction step, document addition step, preview display step, and editing step are performed on the PDF file. Provides a computer-readable recording medium that records how to create a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various applications, wherein the document is configured to be executed repeatedly as many times before executing the conversion step. do.

In addition, the computer and the program may include a client system having at least temporary and permanent storage means of data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; A client program installed in the client system for controlling the storage means, the communication means, the input / output means through the CPU, at least temporary and permanent storage means of data, communication means with other computers, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; And a server program installed in the server system and divided into a server program controlling the storage means and the communication means via the CPU, wherein the information extraction step is executed by the server system and the server program, The remaining steps are both the client system and the client program As arranged to be executed by features, merge and edit documents from wide application, which is a way to create a PDF document record provides a computer readable recording medium.

<Example>

EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION Hereinafter, the detailed structure of this invention is demonstrated, referring an accompanying drawing. Here, the detailed description may be omitted by attaching the same reference numerals to the parts of the same configuration and the same function.

Fig. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of representative editing that is possible from this when the preview function is given by the method of the present invention. (A) shows merging and editing of documents, (b) inserts pages from another document, (c) deletes pages, and (d) changes the order of pages. ) Shows an example in which a plurality of division units, such as an Excel document, are processed when a sheet exists in the case of Excel.

5 is a process of opening and reading the original documents 1 and 2, respectively. In this case, it is assumed that the document 1 is composed of two pages and the document 2 is composed of one page. According to the method according to the invention, they are read and displayed in the preview window of the monitor. Of course, internally, there will be some sort of processing until they are displayed on the screen, which will be described later.

The documents displayed in the preview window on the screen are divided by documents, and each document is divided by pages. In other words, it has a hierarchical structure. Therefore, these documents are intended to be systematically accessible. The form displayed on the screen is preferably an interface based on a GUI. In addition, the activation of each of these documents and the activation of each page are preferably performed by a mouse click in accordance with the general practice of the GUI (Graphic User Interface).

Each page displayed in the preview window can be changed in various ways by editing the document. Here is a representative example.

As shown in Fig. 5A, the document can be edited and the document 2 can be pasted to the end of the document 1. That is, since the GUI is adopted, the document 2 can be dragged with the mouse and dropped at the end of the document 1. In this case, since the page is moved, the page of the document 2 disappears, but if copying and pasting, the page of the document 2 remains intact. In this state, if Document 1 is the reference document, that is, the document is activated and converted to PDF, the information on the first and second pages of Document 1 is read, the information on the first page of Document 2 is read, It converts and produces PDF 1 as a result. Therefore, common information can be kept to the minimum necessary.

FIG. 5B illustrates a case where another document is inserted. The difference from the example of (a) is that the document 2 is inserted between the two pages of the document 1. Also in this case, according to the method of the present invention, the document 2 may be dragged with a mouse and dropped between the first and second pages of the document 1. Then, in this state, if Document 1 is used as a reference document, that is, activated and converted to PDF, information on the first page of Document 1, information on the first page of Document 2, and information on the second page of Document 1 are obtained. It reads them in order, converts them together, and generates a document called PDF 1 as a result. Therefore, common information can be kept to the minimum necessary.

FIG. 5C illustrates the case where the second page of document 1 is deleted. In this case, according to the general GUI practice, when the mouse is operated on the second side of the document 1 and a delete command is issued (for example, the right mouse button is pressed and the delete menu is selected from the pop-up menu), the target image is deleted. do. Then, in this state, when Document 1 is used as a reference document, that is, activated and converted to PDF, only the information on the first page of Document 1 is read, converted, and a document called PDF 1 is generated as a result. Therefore, it is easy to delete any page inside the document.

FIG. 5D shows an example of changing the order of the document 1 page. Originally, the first page and the second page were in order. However, when the second page is dragged and dropped in front of the first page in the preview window, the order is changed to the second and first page. Then, in this state, if Document 1 is used as the reference document, that is, activated, and converted to PDF, information is read in the order of the second page and the first page of Document 1, and the document is converted to PDF 1 document. To produce as a result. Therefore, movement of any side in the document becomes easy.

(E) of FIG. 5 is a case where the document which has the division unit which consists of two sheets of sheet 1 and one sheet of sheet 2 is shown. The division unit refers to a structure in which the internal structure of a document is composed of several division units, that is, sheets, such as Excel sheets, and each sheet can be output to multiple pages during printing. Since it is different from the structure of a general word program or presentation, it is explained separately.

Sheets 1 and 2, when displayed in the preview window by the method according to the present invention, may be displayed and handled as separate documents, or may be displayed and handled as an integrated document. It is also possible to collectively set all sheets in the document to be displayed and treated as one document. In addition, a sheet may be specified as a document substructure so that the document name and the sheet name are combined and treated as one document name.

If only sheet 1 was selected and treated as a document, it would have pages 1 and 2, as in the top example.

If you select Sheet 1 and Sheet 2 individually, or both, or select an entire Excel document, and set them to be displayed as one document in the preview window, after reading them, the document is the top two. As in the first example, you will have pages 1 to 3.

If you select Sheet 1 and Sheet 2 individually, or both, or select the entire Excel document, and set these pages to display as separate documents by merging the document name and the sheet name in the preview window, The document will have two pages of document name sheet 1 and one page of document name sheet 2, as in the example of the bottom two lines.

As described above, the sheet of the Excel document to be read is the object to be edited such as merging a document or a page, inserting a page of another document, deleting a page, changing a page order, etc. as in the case of the general document. Becomes

6 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a hardware environment in which the method of the present invention is executed. FIG. 6A illustrates hardware of a standalone type, and FIG. 6B illustrates hardware of a server / client system.

The standalone type of hardware has a general storage means, that is, a permanent storage means such as a hard disk, and a temporary storage means such as a memory, and also has a communication means for communicating with other computer systems, and also an input means such as a keyboard and a mouse. And output means such as a monitor. These storage means, communication means and input / output means are all operated systematically under the control of a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as a CPU). The CPU is controlled by the program.

On the other hand, the hardware of the server / client system is no different from the standalone type hardware. However, in the case of a server, once setting is completed, general input / output means may be unnecessary. Therefore, it may be possible to omit it. Many client systems are connected to server systems via communication means. Naturally, these client systems and server systems each have a program for their own functions.

7 shows an overall flowchart in which the method of the present invention is implemented.

According to the present invention, the document input step 100, the information extraction step 200, the document addition step 300, the preview display step 400, the editing step 500, and the PDF conversion step ( 700). The document input step 100, the information extraction step 200, the document addition step 300, the preview display step 400, and the editing step 500 are several times before the PDF conversion is started. Whether or not it is possible to repeat (600).

The document input step 100 is a step of reading the original document data of the application program. To this end, the file system of the storage means or communication means is used. The read data is loaded into memory.

The information extraction step 200 is a step of extracting print information from the read document data and adding and storing an image. The print information herein refers to information such as line type and thickness, page layout, used image, font, color, and the like. The added image refers to an image to be used later in the preview window, and preferably has a full image and a thumbnail image.

The document adding step 300 stores the document information and the image extracted in the information extraction step 200. The purpose of this storage is to serve as one of the candidate documents to be generated in the PDF. In addition, it stores and stores common information necessary for PDF generation. The common information refers to information that should be used as the entire document when generating a PDF such as a watermark, user information, and a storage path.

The preview display step 400 is a step of displaying the content of the added document by dividing the content by document and each page as a preview screen on the monitor of the input / output means. Although the preview is a characteristic part of the present invention, it can be implemented in various forms. For example, a thumbnail may be displayed on the left side, an edit window may be displayed on the center and the right side, and a document tab and an editing tool window may be displayed on the bottom thereof. . This will be described later.

The editing step 500 is a characteristic part of the present invention, in which a change is made to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means. The result is then stored in temporary storage. The kind of said editing is also mentioned later. The temporary storage means means a predetermined storage space in the structure having a predetermined structure as described below.

The PDF conversion step 700 reads the edited result content and converts the result into a PDF file in order. In general, the PDF conversion technique is a known technique. However, it is a characteristic part of the present invention to convert data from the temporary storage means on the memory into PDF from this. This will be described later in detail.

Meanwhile, the document input step 100, the information extraction step 200, the document addition step 300, the preview display step 400, and the editing step 500 are repeated any number of times before performing the PDF conversion. 600 is feasible. This means that it is possible to read one document, mark it in the preview, edit it, then read another document and continue reading. That is, after reading so many documents and many kinds of heterogeneous documents, all of them are viewed in the preview window, whereby the editing of page insertion and the like can be performed with high freedom. Therefore, it is possible to enjoy a degree of editing freedom unimaginable in the conventional PDF conversion program.

8 is a detailed flowchart of the information extraction step 200.

The information extraction step 200 of FIG. 7 may be roughly divided into a print information extraction step 210 and an individual document structure generation step 220 as shown in FIG. 8. Therefore, the information extraction step 200 may be referred to as a step for generating an individual document structure.

The print information extraction step 210 is a step of extracting print information from the original document data. A specific method of extracting print information will be described later.

In the individual document structure generation step 220, among the information of the document extracted in the print information extraction step 210, the common information and the page information of the entire document are divided and stored together with the image data in the individual document structure format. Step. The individual document structure format has a predetermined structure, and the transfer of the generation step needs to be provided in advance.

Hereinafter, specific examples of the print information extraction step 210 will be introduced.

9 is a flowchart showing a specific example of the print information extraction step 210 for a document whose format is not known.

Some documents have a known format (i.e., they are publicly available), so that elements constituting the format can be read and recognized, and sometimes they are not. Of course, there will be more cases of documents in unrecognized formats, which are called general documents. In the case of general documents, finding information related to printing is complicated, while in the case of documents whose format is known and recognizable, the process is simpler and faster.

First, for a document that cannot recognize the format of the document, as shown in FIG. 9, the print information extracting step 210 includes a printer driver driving step 212, a spool file generating step 214, and the like. The metafile generation step 216 is performed.

In the printer driver driving step 212, calling an editor or viewer for each document by the print service host, and driving each printer driver embedded in the print service host through the called editor or viewer. to be. This printer driver may be an emulation driver for a virtual printer. In other words, it can be implemented as a program that collects the print information in the form of a temporary file without transmitting the print information to the actual printer.

Here, driving the printer driver means opening the document data by an application program capable of opening the document data as a target, and giving a print command to drive the printer driver. That is, in order to drive the printer driver, an application program capable of printing the document to be targeted is required, which means that the corresponding program is executed in a computer system in which a program module for performing the printer driver driving step 212 is executed in advance. This means that the application must be installed. Therefore, as will be described later, when the present invention is executed by the stand-alone system, the corresponding application program must be installed in the computer system, and when the present invention is executed by the client / server system, the server system. The application must be installed on the client and does not need to be installed on the client system. Of course, as will be described later, when the format of the target document is known (i.e., publicly disclosed) and the elements constituting the format can be read and recognized, the printer driver driving step 212 is not necessary, and accordingly The application does not need to be installed either.

The spool file generating step 214 is a step of generating the spool file by processing the original document data with the printer driver. The spool file defines the control elements necessary for printing, i.e., line thickness, color, image information, etc., by using the spool function which controls the printing rule when several documents are waiting in the original printer. Speak the file you set.

The metafile generation step 216 is a step of extracting print information from the spool file to generate a meta file. In other words, the spool file itself contains a lot of unnecessary information, and because it is difficult to handle itself, the main print parameters are extracted and formed into a metafile.

There may be various kinds of the metafile. Commonly used ones include WMF (Windows Metafile), EMF (Extended Metafile), and CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile). In the case of PDF conversion, GNU, popularly known as PostScript or Linux developed by Adobe, is generally used. I am using a PPD file created by GoScript developed by. For various reasons, it is preferable to use EMF as the format of the intermediate document, but other formats may be used.

Through these processes, print information can be obtained, from which an image of printing can be obtained.

On the other hand, for a document whose format is disclosed and the format of the document can be easily recognized, there is no need to go through the above complicated process. Therefore, it is preferable to simply process.

Fig. 10 is a flowchart showing the process of the print information extraction step 210 for a format recognition document whose format is known.

That is, in this case, the print information extracting step 210 may be performed by directly parsing the original document data and performing the parsing step 218 of directly extracting a parameter corresponding to the print information. The print information is a concept that includes at least common information to be applied to the entire document and page information applied to each page individually. Here, the technique of parsing is based on a well-known technique.

On the other hand, when reading a document, many sheets exist in the inside of a document like Excel, and each sheet may form many pages. In this way, another structure in the document is called a 'division unit'. In this case, unlike the general document, the division unit should be considered and read.

Hereinafter, a document in which a plurality of division units exist in the document and a plurality of pages are generated for each division unit will be described.

In this case, two ways of handling can be considered. In other words, the problem of selecting a division unit of whether to select only a selected number of division units of a document or all the division units of the entire document at once, and when a plurality of division units are selected, The problem of selecting a display unit is whether to display them as one document or as separate documents (multiple documents).

For example, by applying them to the information extraction step 200 and the document adding step 300 sequentially for a plurality of selected division units to be displayed as a plurality of documents for each division unit, and the information extraction step sequentially ( After applying and accumulating 200), it is applied to the document adding step 300 at once, such that it is displayed as one document. It describes in order below.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a process of displaying each document as a separate document for each sheet when there are a plurality of division units in the document.

In order to be displayed as a plurality of documents for each division unit, before the start of the information extraction step 200, a division unit selection step 211 for first selecting division units to be converted into PDF from the plurality of division units is further performed. It should be equipped.

FIG. 24 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a screen implementing a function of selecting division units to be converted into PDF in a document having a plurality of division units.

The document type is an Excel document, the division unit is a sheet, and a target is selected by checking a desired sheet. Thereafter, the information extraction step 200 and the document addition step 300 are repeated 213 as many times as the number of the selected division units. This results in registration as one document for the first division unit, registration as another document for the second division unit, and so on.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing a process of causing sheets to be continuously displayed as one document when there are a large number of division units in the document.

That is, in order to be displayed as one document as a whole without dividing by division units, first, the information extraction step 200 is repeated by the number of division units while loading each division unit of the selected 211 in order (213). To execute. The repeated extraction information is accumulated, but not yet registered. Thereafter, the document adding step 300 is executed on the accumulated information. Then, the first division unit is located at the front, the second division unit is a trick that is located thereafter, all the division units are listed in sequence with a serial number, the inside of them are also listed in a continuous serial number. This results in registration as a document.

Hereinafter, the document adding step 300 will be described. This step is to create the integrated document structure.

For the document adding step 300, it is necessary to provide an integrated document structure format having a predetermined structure. The integrated document structure refers to a structure including a structure for merging and editing these documents by integrating information extracted from a plurality of various application programs in a common format, and a structure for unifying management of these documents. Then, the common information on the generated PDF document, the information of each individual document structure, and the editing information to be performed later are separated. Thereafter, when the adding step to the integrated document structure stored in the integrated document structure format is performed, the document adding step 300 is performed. The document adding step 300 is a step of creating an integrated document structure, which is a structure for previewing and editing. The information in this integrated document structure is modified, changed and stored by the next editing step 500, and then used in the subsequent PDF conversion step 700.

More specifically, the information of the individual document structure obtained in the information extraction step 200 is converted into data in the form of the TNC Document structure in the conversion process of the TNC_FileSystem and managed. This TNC Document structure contains page-specific independent information. Naturally, this structure may be created or implemented in various forms. This TNC Document structure corresponds to the integrated document structure. It provides two types of editing screen interfaces to be edited by merging and inserting using information of each independent page. This editing screen interface is implemented as a GUI, and divided into thumbnail windows and editing windows.

The document input step 100, the information extraction step 200, the document addition step 300 is repeated several times (600), so that various forms (MS Office documents, Hangul, Hunminjeongeum, image documents, CAD documents, other formats Documents such as electronic documents, etc. can be imported into one editing screen, and these called documents have information in the form of each document and each page information by TNC_FileSystem, and can be freely merged into page units or document units through this. Done. Merging at this time may be of different sizes or printing directions (landscape / portrait), and insertion between pages of different documents is also free. Here, the editing by insertion can be edited so that an image or text can be inserted in the page unit or the whole page according to an option. Such merging and editing will be described later.

Hereinafter, the preview step will be described.

13 is a flowchart for performing the preview display step 400.

25 is a diagram illustrating an example of a preview window.

The preview display step 400 includes at least a window preparation step 410, an integrated document structure analysis step 420, a thumbnail display step 430, and an edit window display step 440.

For the window preparation step 410, a preview window constituting at least a part of the monitor screen should be provided. In addition, it is preferable to provide at least a thumbnail window and an editing window which constitute a part of the preview window.

The integrated document structure analysis step 420 is a step of analyzing the structure of the integrated document structure. This analysis is a process of confirming the full image and the thumbnail image for display of the monitor, and confirming the total number of documents and the number of pages.

For the thumbnail display step 430, all document names of the integrated document structure must be displayed in the thumbnail window. Of course, if there is a lack of space, it can be omitted using appropriate prior art techniques. It also displays a thumbnail image of the currently active document. Even in this case, it is sufficient to display a part of the front and rear part with the focus on the currently active side.

The edit window display step 440 is a step of displaying an activated page of the currently activated document as an image on the edit window. Here, it is desirable to be able to select the one-page view or the multiple-view view. Selecting 1 Page View displays the full image of the currently active page in the edit window. Selecting 1 Page View displays a thumbnail image of multiple pages around the active page of the currently active document. It is. 28 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen at the time of setting multiple views of a preview window.

Here, a tab representative of each document may be provided for smooth movement between documents. An embodiment is shown in FIG. FIG. 26 is a diagram showing only the document tabs extracted separately.

By the way, it is preferable to display the window which collected the editing tools used for editing. In other words, in order to hide a certain part of the document, for example, a rectangle may be added in black to generate a PDF. To this end, it is preferable to further include an editing tool display step 450 of adding an external object to the image displayed in the editing window and displaying an editing tool for editing the image.

25 shows an example in which the editing tool window is displayed. FIG. 27 is a diagram illustrating an edit tool window extracted separately.

Here, the external object may be at least one of text, a figure, and an image, and the editing of the external object may be at least one of selecting, rotating, deleting, and specifying an attribute of the object. You can also add other objects used in common graphics programs.

In addition, the property of the external object, at least one of the forward, backward, grouping, ungrouping, color designation, the transparency designation of the object is preferably at least one, and further by adding other object properties used in a general graphics program Also good.

As described above, each document and each page displayed in the preview window are subject to editing. The editing step 500 will be described below.

14 is a flowchart for executing the editing step 500.

The editing step 500 comprises at least a common information editing step 500, a document editing step 520, a page editing step 530, and a change storage step 560.

The common information editing step 500 is a step of changing common information of the entire PDF document to be generated. The common information to be edited in the common information editing step 500 is preferably at least one of a password, a stamp, a forced water mark, a storage path, and user information of a PDF document to be generated.

The document editing step 520 is to change page attributes for one document. The document editing step 520 includes at least page reordering, page copying, page shifting, page pasting, dividing a specified page into multiple pages, grouping specified pages into one page, and at a rate of 1 / n times the entire document. Reducing the size of each page, gathering, dividing the size of each page by n times the ratio of the whole document or one side, or rotating at an angle of n degrees with respect to the whole document or one side. desirable.

Fig. 29 is an illustration of inserting pages, i.e., inserting pages of heterogeneous documents into another document. In other words, open the document consisting of portraits in the thumbnail window, and drag the second page with the mouse to the currently active reference document consisting of the landscape, the desired position, that is, the fourth and fifth pages of the reference document in the editing window. If you drop between, it will be inserted in place. In other words, it may be a heterogeneous document, or a printing direction of the document may be different. The content of these edits is recorded in the corresponding part of the workbook structure.

30 is a diagram illustrating an example of page order change (movement). In other words, you can implement page movement within the same document. In the state of FIG. 29, when the sixth side in the edit window is dragged with a mouse and dropped in front of the second side, the state of FIG. 29 is obtained. In this way, the page order can be easily changed using the GUI. The changes are also stored in the corresponding location in the workbook structure.

Fig. 31 shows the case of deleting a page after selecting it. At this time, if you select the desired page with the mouse and give a delete command, you can delete the page, and the back pages move forward sequentially to fill the empty space. Of course, it is preferable to display the confirmation message box as illustrated in consideration of the prudent deletion.

The page editing step 530 is for changing a print parameter for one page. In the page editing step 530, at least one of a page position change, a page size change, and a page rotation direction change is preferably performed.

The change storage step 560 is a step of storing the parameter changed by each of the editing steps 500 at a corresponding position of the integrated document structure. This stored information is used in a subsequent PDF conversion step 700.

On the other hand, it is preferable to further include an editing step 540 by an editing tool to add an external object to the image displayed in the edit window, and to edit it. This is the same as described in the preview display step 400.

Of course, the external object at this time is composed of at least one of text, a figure, an image, and the editing of the external object is preferably at least one of selection, rotation, deletion, and designation of the object. In addition, it is preferable that the attribute of the external object is at least one of forwarding, forwarding, grouping, ungrouping, color specification, and transparency specification of the object.

The common information editing step 510, the document editing step 520, the page editing step 530, and the editing step 540 by the editing tool may be performed in any order, and they are repeated 550 and processed. The changes are then saved to the workbook structure.

32 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen when editing is completed through the editing process of FIGS. 28 to 31. All edited results as shown in this screen are recorded in the integrated document structure.

On the other hand, when PDF conversion is performed on the integrated document structure previewed and edited in this manner, a PDF document is generated by only one PDF conversion. Therefore, the PDF is generated so that the common information of the document and the information on the common resource do not overlap, and the capacity can be reduced. It will be described in detail below.

15 is a flowchart for executing the PDF conversion step 700.

The PDF conversion step 700 includes: a reference document indexing step 710; Common information extraction step 720; Page-specific information extraction step 730; Object extraction step 740; Reflecting the edited content (750); PDF file generation step 770;

The reference document indexing step 710 is a step of recognizing and indexing a reference document, which is a target of PDF conversion, among the documents in the integrated document structure. The reference document is a document to be converted at the time of PDF conversion. This is a question of which document is generated based on a document among a plurality of documents existing in the integrated document structure. Once a reference document is established, its contents are indexed, and the number of pages is determined.

The common information extraction step 720 is a step of extracting and grasping common information of the reference document. Thus, common watermarks, document folders, generation options, and the like are identified.

The page information extraction step 730 is a step of extracting and grasping the information of each page of the reference document. From this, the conversion-related information underlying each page is grasped.

The object extraction step 740 is a step of extracting original objects of the original document by parsing a corresponding metafile when a metafile is generated for each page. The metafile itself contains a lot of information, and it can grasp shapes such as lines, circles, and rectangles, as well as images, text, and fonts.

In the editing contents reflecting step 750, an object added in the editing step 500 is added, or the attributes of the original objects are changed by referring to the edited common information, document information, or page information. In the editing step 500, since a figure, an image, text, and the like can be added using an editing tool, this is reflected, and when the layout of pages, documents, etc. is changed, the parameters of these original objects are changed.

The PDF file generation step 770 is a step of generating a PDF file based on the added and changed contents and returning the generated PDF file to the file system of the storage device. The general method for generating PDFs is based on conventional techniques. The information to be generated is in a temporarily stored state in the memory of the computer, and based on this, a PDF document is generated by a conventional technique.

Meanwhile, the object extraction step 740 and the edit content reflection step 750 should be repeated 760 for all sides of the reference document. According to this, the process of extracting the object and reflecting it as the edited contents is repeated for all sides (760). As a result, the target information of the state temporarily stored in the memory is stored.

In the case of a format-recognizable document, the object extraction step 740 may be performed by directly parsing the document. This method is simpler.

FIG. 33 is a screen example of the case where the generated PDF document is opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader after PDF conversion is performed from the edited screen of FIG. 32.

By the way, the description so far relates to the method of the present invention implemented as a standalone system. However, the method of the present invention can also be implemented in a server / client system. In particular, the information extraction step 200 is a very important step, it is preferable to provide a service for this in the server, and to perform other steps in the client system. Therefore, such a configuration will be described.

The computer and program for the server / client system are roughly divided into resources on the server side and resources on the client side. Resources include both hardware and software resources.

The client-side resource includes at least a temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; And a client program installed to control the storage means, the communication means, and the input / output means through the CPU.

The server-side resource includes a server system having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means for communicating with other computers, and a CPU for controlling them integrally, and the storage means installed in the server system through the CPU. It consists of a server program that controls the communication means.

When configured with such resources, the information extraction step 200 is preferably executed by the server system and the server program, the remaining steps are preferably configured to be executed by the client system and the client program. This is because the information extraction step 200 is the most important step, so it is necessary to perform control, and the remaining steps are preferably left to be sufficient to satisfy the degree of freedom of the client user.

In this case, the document file read in the document input step 100 executed in the client is preferably encrypted and compressed, and then transmitted to the server based on a preset protocol, and the server decrypts and transmits the transmitted file. It is preferable to decompress (thaw) and restore the original document. As a result, information loss due to hacking can be prevented and the network can be optimized.

The server system may be a web server system connected to an internet network or a wide area server system connected to an external network, and the client system may be configured as a client system connected thereto. That is, the server may be not only an internal server in a local area network (LAN) but also an external wide area server in a wide area network (WAN). Therefore, not only when local clients of a certain region are accessible, but also local clients of various regions may be connected through various networks and provided with a single wide area server.

In this case, the server program and the client program may be configured to transmit and receive data using a web protocol or a wide area protocol. And, the configuration for the specific protocol can be easily implemented by the prior art.

The server system and the program which received the document data file from the client system and the program go through several steps from this, and finally create a separate document structure and serve to deliver it back to the client system and the program.

In this case, when the target document is a document which cannot recognize the format of the document, an application program capable of opening the document must be installed in advance in the server system. In other words, through this application program, the printer driver is started, the spool file is generated, the meta file is generated, and the individual document structure is generated from this. Of course, in the case of a document capable of recognizing the format of the document, the document data can be parsed directly from the server program to generate an individual document structure, as in the standalone system.

The metafile generated in the information extraction step 200 executed in the server may include information including option information when generating a PDF managed by an administrator, that is, common information, for example, a password for the entire PDF document to be generated, One or more of a stamp, a forced water mark, a barcode, a storage path, and user information is converted into a data structure including contents for setting a default value. Of course, the conversion can be performed without setting such common information, and even if such a setting is made, the setting can be changed or cannot be changed in the editing step of the client program. have. In other words, when a server program is provided by an ASP for an unspecified number of users, it may be advantageous not to set such common information. On the contrary, when a server program is provided by a server inside an organization, It may be advantageous to set such common information, and some common information such as passwords, storage paths, user information, etc. may be edited in the client program in order to increase application power depending on departments or in various other cases. You can make it possible and make the rest noneditable.

It is the individual document structure that is created through this process. The individual document structure is transmitted to the client through an encryption and compression process, and the client may receive the decrypted and decompressed data to obtain the individual document structure.

In addition, the method of the present invention may be stored and distributed on a computer-readable recording medium. In this case, it is, of course, possible to distribute the recording medium both in the standalone mode and in the case of the server / client.

Hereinafter, the operation example of this invention is demonstrated using a simple example.

Fig. 16 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the structure of originals, metafiles, and individual document structures of documents 1 and 2;

As shown in Fig. 16 (a), it is assumed that the original document is Document 1, which is the lower Hangul of Hancom, and Document 2 of the MS Word. Of course, it can be applied to three or more documents, but for the sake of simplicity, two documents will be described. At this time, the document includes headers containing common information such as the number of pages, the offset of each page, and the information of each page. If they are spooled by the printer driver and a metafile is generated, it is as shown in Fig. 16 (b).

Here, if necessary information is extracted and an image is added to generate an individual document structure, it is as shown in Fig. 16 (c).

17 shows an example of the structure of the integrated document structure and the preview screen.

When each of them is added to the integrated document structure, as shown in FIG. 17 (a), it should be noted that a storage space for common information of the integrated document structure itself is provided.

When this is displayed in preview, it is as shown in Fig. 17B, and since it is before editing, the contents based on page 1 of document 1 are displayed in the thumbnail window and the editing window. The reference document becomes document 1. In addition, the size, orientation (portrait, landscape), and the like of each document are stored for each page, and can be displayed on the screen as it is.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the operation of the screen and the change of the integrated document structure in the case where the document 2 is inserted into the document 1. FIG.

On the other hand, if the editing step 500 is inserted, inserting d1, which is the first page of the document 2, between the two sides of the document 1, as shown in FIG. In the document structure, the contents of the editing are stored as shown in FIG.

FIG. 19 is an example of another editing, which illustrates the operation of the screen and the change of the integrated document structure when the size of h1, which is the first page of document 1, is 1/2, and the position is moved to the bottom right. It is also.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 19 (a), graphic processing is simply performed on the page 1 of document 1 by dragging and dropping the upper left corner by mouse operation, and the contents of the editing are transferred to the integrated document structure as shown in FIG. 19 (b). To save again.

Fig. 20 shows, as another editing example, the third page of document 1, in which the contents of each document of documents 1 and 2 are 1/4 in size, and they are the same size in the form of tiles. It is explanatory drawing which illustrated operation of the screen and change of the integrated document structure at the time of arrange | positioning.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 20 (a), the corresponding page may be reduced in size and then moved or copied to the third page of Document 1 by drag and drop. The content is recorded in the corresponding position of the integrated document structure as shown in Fig. 20B.

In this way, all editing operations are processed graphically through the GUI, and the processed contents are described in the relevant matters of the integrated document structure.

An example of converting the edited content to PDF will be described.

Fig. 21 is an illustration of a flowchart for processing PDF conversion when the size is reduced to 1/2 and moved to the lower right end.

This edit is already recorded in the workbook structure. Therefore, when the PDF conversion command is issued, it first finds the corresponding metafile and parses it. Existing objects can be extracted from this parsed result. Then, the size of each object is adjusted to the size of 1/2. After that, adjust the parameter that specifies the page position, and change it to fit the bottom right of the page. All of these changes are stored in the temporary storage means. Based on the contents in this temporary storage means, it can be converted into PDF using a conventional simple batch method.

22 is an example of another conversion, for example, a flowchart for processing conversion in the case where a rectangular object is added using an editing tool in the editing step 500 and the attribute is specified.

Again, the edited information is recorded in the integrated document structure. Therefore, when the PDF conversion command is issued, it first finds and parses the corresponding metafile and extracts existing objects from it. Then add the added square object. This ensures that both existing and added objects are subject to conversion. Then, change the properties of the added rectangular object, such as the fill color. All of this changed information is stored in temporary storage, which can be converted to PDF.

FIG. 23 is an example of another flowchart for converting processing in the case where editing is performed in which the four pages are reduced to 1/4 and tiled in the editing step 500.

This editing information is also stored in the workbook structure. When the PDF conversion command is issued, the existing object is extracted by first parsing metafiles corresponding to four pages, ie, h1, h2, d1, and d2. After the size of each object is 1/4, the positional parameters of each side are changed to upper left, lower left, upper right and lower right. This changed information is stored in the temporary storage means, which can be converted to PDF.

In the above, it has been described by the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to this, it is recognized that various modifications are possible without departing from the gist of the present invention, of course, they belong to the scope of the present invention.

As described above, according to the present invention, original documents from a variety of application programs (PDF documents, MS Office documents, Hangul, Hunminjeongeum, image documents, CAD documents, other electronic documents that are not write protected or encrypted), In other words, it is possible to generate a PDF document by only one conversion process from the changed contents by merging and editing the contents, regardless of the type of the document, the same type or different types, and without damaging the original.

In addition, if a corresponding application of a plurality of original documents or a dedicated viewer of the original document is prepared only on the server, the client system may provide a method of generating a PDF document having a viewer function for previewing them. have.

In addition, the preview function can switch between the one-page view and the multiple-page view function, thereby increasing the degree of freedom of preview.

In addition, it provides an editing function to insert, delete, reorder, copy, move, paste, etc. pages of a generated PDF using metafiles.

In addition, by providing the editing function through the GUI, it is easy to recognize the progress process according to the PDF document generation.

It also provides an editing function to change the position, size and rotation of the generated PDF page.

In addition, for each page of the generated PDF, objects such as text, shapes, and images that were not present in the original document can be added, and these added objects can be selected, rotated, and deleted, and sent to the front as their attributes, and sent to the back. It is equipped with editing tools to perform functions such as sending, grouping, ungrouping, color designation, and transparency designation.

It also has a function of designating watermarks, stamps, passwords, author information, document barcodes, and the like as common information of the generated PDF.

In addition, a server provides a process of extracting parameters related to editing from an original document and storing them in a structure having a predetermined structure, and a plurality of clients connected to the server receive the structure from the server, and edit and Provided is a method for generating a PDF document implemented in a client / server system that allows conversion.

Claims (16)

A computer having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; In the PDF document generating method, which uses a program for controlling a storage means, a communication means, an input / output means, A document input step of reading original document data of an application program from a file system of said storage means or communication means and loading it into a memory; An information extraction step of extracting print information from the document, adding an image, and storing it together with the image data; A document adding step of storing the extracted document information and the image as one of candidate documents for PDF generation, and also storing common information necessary for PDF generation; A preview display step of dividing the contents of the added document by document and by page, and displaying the contents of the added document on the monitor of the input / output means as a preview screen; An editing step of applying a change to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means and storing in the temporary storage means; A PDF conversion step of reading the edited result contents and converting them into PDF files in order; Made up of The document input step, the information extraction step, the document addition step, the preview display step, and the editing step may be executed repeatedly any number of times before executing the PDF conversion step. How to merge and edit a PDF document. The method according to claim 1, The information extraction step, A print information extraction step of extracting print information from the original document data; An individual document structure format having a predetermined structure is prepared, and common information and page information of the entire document are divided among the print information of the document extracted in the printing information extraction step, and the image data is included in the individual document structure format. Generating an individual document structure to store; Made up of In the printing information extraction step, for a document that cannot recognize the format of the document, A printer driver driving step of driving a printer driver through an application program; A spool file generation step of generating the spool file by processing the original document data with the printer driver; A metafile generation step of generating a metafile by extracting print information including common information and page information of the entire document from the spool file; A method for creating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from multiple applications. The method according to claim 1, The information extraction step, A print information extraction step of extracting print information from the original document data; An individual document structure format having a predetermined structure is prepared, and common information and page information of the entire document are divided among the print information of the document extracted in the printing information extraction step, and the image data is included in the individual document structure format. Generating an individual document structure to store; Made up of The printing information extraction step, for a document that can recognize the format of the document, By directly parsing the original document data, and performing a parsing step of directly extracting print information including common information and page-by-page information of the entire document, merging and editing documents from various application programs. How to generate a PDF document. The method according to claim 2 or 3, When the document input in the document input step is a document in which a plurality of division units exist in the document and a plurality of pages are generated for each division unit, The document input step, A division unit selection step of selecting division units to be converted into PDF; And a display unit selection step of selecting whether the selected division units are to be displayed as one document or to be displayed as a separate document for each division unit. Further, according to the number of the selected division unit and the type of display unit, the information extraction step and the document addition step are configured to be repeatedly executed as necessary, merging and editing documents from various application programs to create a PDF document. How to produce. The method according to claim 1, The document adding step, The integrated document structure format having a predetermined structure for merging and editing documents is prepared, and common information on the generated PDF document, information on each individual document structure, and further editing information to be performed And merging and editing documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document, wherein the step of adding to the integrated document structure is stored in the integrated document structure format. The method according to claim 1, The preview display step, at least A window preparation step of providing a preview window constituting at least a part of the monitor screen, and providing at least a thumbnail window and an edit window constituting a part of the preview window; An integrated document structure analysis step of analyzing a structure of the integrated document structure; A thumbnail display step of displaying all document names of the integrated document structure in the thumbnail window and displaying thumbnail images of the currently active document; An edit window display step of displaying an activated page of a currently activated document as a full image or displaying a plurality of pages of a currently activated document as a thumbnail image; It is configured to include, The method may further include an editing tool display step of adding an external object to the image displayed in the editing window and displaying an editing tool for editing the same. The method may further include merging and editing documents from various applications, wherein the external object is configured to include at least one of text, graphics, and images. The method according to claim 1, The editing step, at least A common information editing step of changing common information of the entire PDF document to be generated; A document editing step of changing page attributes for one document; A change storage step of storing the parameter changed by each editing step in a corresponding position of a workbook structure; Made up of The common information to be edited in the common information editing step is at least one of a password, a stamp, a forced watermark, a storage path, and user information for the entire PDF document to be generated. How to merge and edit a PDF document. The method according to claim 7, The document editing step, at least Reorder pages, Copy pages, Move pages, Paste pages, Divide one specified page into multiple pages, Gather multiple specified pages into one page, Reduce each page size by 1 / n times the total size of the document, Document Documents from various applications, characterized in that one or more of the size of the page is enlarged and divided at the rate of n times with respect to the whole or one, or rotated at an angle of n degrees with respect to the whole or one of the documents. How to merge and edit a PDF document. The method according to claim 1, The PDF conversion step, at least A reference document indexing step of recognizing and indexing a reference document to be converted into a PDF among respective documents in the integrated document structure; A common information extraction step of extracting and grasping common information of the reference document; A page-specific information extraction step of extracting and grasping information of each page of the reference document; For each page of the reference document, the reference document, (1) In the case of a document in which a metafile is generated, by parsing the corresponding metafile, or (2) In the case of a document that can recognize a format, by parsing the document directly, An object extraction step of extracting original objects of the original document; An edit contents reflection step of adding the object added in the editing step or changing the attributes of the original objects with reference to the edited common information, document information, or page information; Generating a PDF file based on the added and changed contents and returning the generated PDF file to a file system of a storage device; Made up of The object extraction step and the edit content reflecting step is configured to be performed repeatedly for all the pages of the reference document, a method for generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from multiple applications. The method according to claim 1, The computer and program, A client system having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; A client program for controlling the storage means, the communication means, the input / output means; A server system having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means for communicating with other computers, a CPU for controlling them integrally, and a server installed in the server system to control the storage means and communication means through the CPU; Divided into programs, The information extraction step is executed by the server system and the server program, The remaining steps are all configured to be executed by the client system and a client program, wherein the merging and editing the documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document. The method according to claim 10, In the transmission and reception of data between the client system and the client program and the server system and the server program, at least Encrypting the data at the transmitting side and decrypting at the receiving side; Compressing the data at the transmitting side and thawing at the receiving side; And merge and edit documents from multiple applications to create a PDF document. The method according to claim 10, If the target document is a document in which the format of the document cannot be recognized, the server system is provided with an application program capable of opening the document in advance. How to merge and edit documents to create a PDF document. The method according to claim 10, The server program may be configured to set at least one of a password, a stamp, a forced watermark, a barcode, a storage path, and user information of at least the entire PDF document to be generated as a default value. In addition, a method of generating a PDF document by merging and editing documents from various applications, characterized in that configured to enable or disable editing in the editing step of the client program for any one or more of the set items. . The method according to claim 10, The server system is a web server system connected to the Internet network or a wide area server system connected to an external network, and the client system is a client system connected thereto. And the server program and the client program transmit and receive data to each other using a web protocol or a wide-area protocol. A computer having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a method for generating a PDF document, using a program for controlling storage means, communication means, input / output means, A document input step of reading original document data of an application program from a file system of said storage means or communication means and loading it into a memory; An information extraction step of extracting print information from the document, adding an image, and storing it together with the image data; A document adding step of storing the extracted document information and the image as one of candidate documents for PDF generation, and storing the extracted document information and image together with common information necessary for PDF generation; A preview display step of dividing the contents of the added document by document and by page, and displaying the contents of the added document on the monitor of the input / output means as a preview screen; An editing step of applying a change to each document displayed on the preview screen and each page of the document in accordance with a command from the input / output means and storing in the temporary storage means; A PDF conversion step of reading the edited result contents and converting them into PDF files in order; Made up of The document input step, the information extraction step, the document addition step, the preview display step, and the editing step may be executed repeatedly any number of times before executing the PDF conversion step. A computer-readable recording medium that records how to merge and edit a PDF document. The method according to claim 15, The computer and program, A client system having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means with other computers, input / output means such as a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and a CPU for controlling them integrally; A client program for controlling the storage means, the communication means, the input / output means; A server system having at least temporary and permanent storage means for data, communication means for communicating with other computers, and a CPU for controlling the integrated control; and a server installed in the server system to control the storage means and communication means through the CPU. Divided into programs, The information extraction step is executed by the server system and the server program, The remaining steps are all readable by the computer system, characterized in that configured to be executed by the client system and the client program, a method of merging and editing documents from various application programs to generate a PDF document. .

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