JPH04194920A - Copy machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve operability, visibility, and original setting performance and to make a copying machine easier to be used by arranging plural light emitting bodies(LED) along two adjacent sides around a contact glass and performing display by lighting the light emitting body in a range showing the size of a paper in a paper feeding cassette which is selected at present among them. CONSTITUTION:Plural LEDs(light emitting bodies) 3 are arranged along two adjacent sides around the contact glass 2, and a paper feeding cassette detection part 8 detects paper feeding cassettes 5-7 housed in a copying machine main body, and the information is transmitted to a microcomputer(CPU) 9. A CPU 9 judges the size of a paper in the cassettes 5-7 selected at present based on the detection information from the detection part 8 and gives an instruction to an LED lighting control part 4 so that the LED in the range showing the size, out of the respective LEDs 3, is lighted so as to perform the display. Thus, the operability, the visibility and the original setting performance are improved and the copying machine becomes easier to be used.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a copying machine such as a digital copying machine, and particularly relates to a technique for making a copying machine easier to use.

[Conventional technology]

Current copying machines incorporate a number of technologies designed to improve ease of use, and these are listed below.

(2) In order to make it easier for the operator to set the original on the contact glass of the document table when copying, a mark indicating the original size is provided around the contact glass.

■ Prescan (only scans the original image)
Automatic paper selection function that detects the area where documents are placed and selects the paper cassette containing the paper that fits the maximum area.

■ Standard size scaling specification, scaling ratio specification when the original image is set to 100%, and direct specification of the copy size relative to the original size (for example, original ○○mm → copy △△mm, or original B5 → Copy A 4.) 3-way zoom specification function.

■ Trimming, which involves extracting a part of the document and copying it,
A function that performs image data processing on a specified range.

■ As shown in FIG. 16, the contact glass 41 of the document table 40 is horizontally long with respect to the operator, and a hinge 42 is attached to the back side (opposite the operator's position) of the contact glass 41, and a document holding plate 43 (automatic In a copying machine equipped with a document feeder, the automatic document feeder (which also serves as a document presser) is opened from the front.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, they had the following problems.

The document size display mark around the contact glass shown in (2) differs depending on the model, so it is difficult for general users to understand.

Furthermore, conventional document size display marks have a weak impression and have poor visibility to users.

■The automatic paper selection function certifies the paper size based on the farthest point where the document is placed from the reference position, so even if it is a small postcard document, it may be B4 paper or A3 paper depending on the position where the document is placed. It may be mistakenly determined to be paper.

■Three ways of specifying magnification function also make it possible for humans to think
This is the inconvenience of having to quantify the ambiguity of "about this size" and having to repeat trials until the magnification is set to just the right size.

■ There are methods such as trimming to specify a range on the manuscript, such as enclosing it with a marker pen or using an input board (editor) for editing. There are inconveniences such as the size of the original being restricted by the size of the input board.

In the opening/closing structure of the document holding plate (or automatic document feeder) in (2), the spread size is A3 size as shown in FIG. When you try to copy a book manuscript 44 that is longer than its width (one page is A4 or larger), the rear hinge 42 gets in the way and the book manuscript 44 is copied page by page.
As shown in Figure 7 (B), copies must be made while being rotated 180 degrees, which not only makes it difficult to work, but also causes the copied images to be flipped vertically, making it difficult to organize them later. Put it away.

This invention has been made in view of the above points, and solves the above problems and improves operability and visibility.

The purpose is to make the copying machine easier to use by improving the ease of setting originals.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the object stated in item 1, the present invention arranges a plurality of light emitters along two adjacent sides around the contact glass of the document table, To provide a copying machine provided with a means for lighting and displaying a light emitting body in a range indicating the size of paper in a paper feed cassette.

In addition, a means for detecting the position and size of a document placed arbitrarily on the document table is provided, and paper of the same size as the size of the document detected by the means or paper of a size including the size of the document is fed. The present invention also provides a copying machine that feeds paper from a cassette and makes copies.

Furthermore, a transparent touch sensor is arranged over the contact glass of the document table, and by touching the contact glass, it is possible to specify the size of the image when changing the magnification, or to specify the range for cropping etc. We also provide copying machines with this.

Furthermore, a copying machine in which the hinge of the document holding plate is provided on the side of the document table opposite to the document reference line, and a storage means for accumulating image data read from the document; There is also provided a copying machine provided with means for rotating and transmitting the electrostatic latent image to the electrostatic latent image forming section.

[For production]

In the copying machine according to the invention of claim 1, among the plurality of light emitters arranged along two adjacent sides around the contact glass, one of the plurality of light emitters in the range indicating the size of paper in the currently selected paper feed cassette is used. Since the light emitting body is lit to display the image, even an inexperienced operator can place the document in the correct position without getting confused, thereby reducing copy errors.

In the copying machine according to the invention of claim 2, a sheet of paper of the same size as the size of a document arbitrarily placed on the document table or a sheet of a size including the size of the document is automatically selected and stored. Since the paper is fed from the paper cassette and copied, the operator can easily make copies without having to be aware of the reference position when placing the original on the document table (without having to worry about where on the document table to place the document). .

In the copying machine according to the invention of claim 3, the size of the image when changing the magnification can be specified by touching the contact glass, so that the operator can change the magnification at any desired magnification without being aware of the percentage display or actual size display of the magnification. You can easily set the magnification.

In the copying machine according to the invention of claim 4, since it is possible to specify a range such as trimming by touching the contact I/glass, the input method for the range specification function, which is an additional function of the copying machine, is easy and the operation is easy. can be simplified.

In the copying machine according to the invention of claim 5, since the hinge of the document holding plate is provided on the side of the document table opposite to the document reference line, the large document can be freely moved back and forth, and accordingly Since the copied images are no longer flipped vertically alternately, it takes less time to organize them later.

In the copying machine according to the invention as claimed in claim 6, since the read image data of the original is rotated and transmitted to the electrostatic latent image forming section, even if a large spread original is rotated on the original table, each copy image is can all be aligned in the same direction.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be specifically described based on the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the main parts of a copying machine showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, l is a document table, and a plurality of LEDs (light emitters) 3 are arranged along two adjacent sides around a contact glass 2 installed there.

Reference numeral 4 denotes an LED lighting control section, which controls lighting of each LED 3.

Reference numerals 5 to 7 indicate paper feed cassettes each containing sheets of different sizes.

Reference numeral 8 denotes a paper cassette detection unit, which detects which paper cassette containing paper of which size is set in the main body of the copying machine, and sends this information to a microcomputer (referred to as rc).
(abbreviated as PU, 1)).

The CPU 9 determines the size of the paper in the currently selected paper cassette from the detection information from the paper cassette detection section 8, gives an instruction a- to the LED lighting control section 4, and selects the size of the paper from each LED 3. L of the range showing the
Turn on and display ED.

By the way, the reference mark ]O that indicates the reference position when setting an original on the contact glass of a copying machine is shown in Figure 2 (
b) The one in the lower right as shown in (b), the one in the center right as shown in (c), or the one in the center right as shown in (c), or although not shown,
In each case, the LED in the area where the original is placed, that is, the range indicating the paper size stored in the currently selected paper feed cassette, is lit (indicated by diagonal lines). Specify the area where the manuscript should be placed.

For example, when a paper feed cassette containing A4 size paper is selected, even if the reference positions are different as shown in Figure 2 (A), (B), and (C), the L E D indicated by diagonal lines, respectively. By lighting up, the document setting range can be accurately displayed.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the main parts of a copying machine showing a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the contact glass thereof. Parts corresponding to those in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals. Their explanation will be omitted.

A document P of A4 size is placed at an arbitrary position away from a reference mark 10 on a contact glass 2'', and an image of the document is input as image data to a data processing unit 11 by pre-scanning.

That is, the light source 12 irradiates the image surface of the document P with light, and the light reflected according to the image is received by the light receiving section 14 made of a CCD sensor or the like via the mirror 13, and is processed as image data by the data processing section] Send to 1.

The data processing unit 11 determines the position and size of the document from the image data obtained by pre-scanning, and learns that the size of the document P is A4 (vertical).

Paper feed cassettes 15 and 16 are loaded with A4 portrait and landscape paper, but they are pre-scanned.''1
From the information in
6 is automatically selected.

Thereafter, unnecessary data other than the document P is read out from the image data obtained by the main scan, and the image data is processed (cut out) into A4 size image data.

At this time, since the document size and the paper feed cassette size (housed paper size) match, the image data from the data processing section 11 is directly sent to the writing system, and the normal copying process continues thereafter.

On the other hand, if A4 length paper is not stored in the paper feed cassette 6, the paper feed cassette 15 that stores A4 landscape (A4R) size paper is used.

At this time, the image data obtained in the main scan is temporarily stored in the memory (RAM) 17, rotated by 90 degrees by the image data rotation unit 18, and the rotated image data is sent to the writing system. You can copy an image from an A4 portrait document onto A4 landscape paper.

The above processing in this embodiment is shown in flowchart 1 in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of main parts of a copying machine showing a third embodiment of the present invention, and parts corresponding to those in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals.

In this copying machine, a transparent touch sensor 21 (such as one that can determine the coordinates of a matrix of electrodes by energizing the crossed portions of the electrodes) is placed over the contact glass 2. An electric signal output by touching 2 is sent to the coordinate determining section 22.

The coordinate determination section 22 determines the touched coordinates on the contact glass 2 from the electrical signal, and inputs the information to the magnification ratio calculation section 23 .

As will be described in detail later, the magnification ratio calculation unit 23 determines the size of the original image specified by the operator and the size of the image after scaling from the coordinates, calculates the magnification ratio based on this, and calculates the magnification ratio. The value is set in the variable magnification setting section 24, and a reduction/enlargement copy processing section (not shown) performs reduction or enlargement copying.

Here, coordinate designation on the contact glass 2 by the operator will be explained with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8.

First, the reduction/enlargement key 25 is pressed so that the input via the touch sensor (touch key) 21 becomes valid, and thereby the size of the original image can be specified.

Next, for example, as shown in FIG. 8(a), a desired position (coordinates) on the contact glass 2 is touched, thereby inputting data indicating the size of the original image.

Here, when specifying the coordinates by the touch sensor 21, when the contact glass 2"2 is touched once, the magnification ratio calculation unit 23 regards the coordinate point as a diagonal point from the reference point indicated by the reference mark 10, and When the screen is touched twice, a rectangle with diagonal corners of each coordinate point is used as a calculation reference.

After specifying the size of the original image, press the reduce/enlarge key 25 again to complete specifying the size of the original image and specify the size of the image after scaling. do it like this.

Then, for example, as shown in FIG. 8(b), a desired position on the contact glass 2 is touched, thereby inputting data indicating the size of the image after scaling.

When this is completed, the user presses the reduction/enlargement key 25 again to complete the designation of the size of the image after scaling. As a result, the input by the touch sensor 21 is also invalidated, after which the magnification ratio is calculated and the reduced or enlarged copy is executed.

Note that the magnification ratio in the magnification ratio calculation section 23 can be easily determined by the following equation.

Horizontal magnification ratio” (X, /X,) X 1. OO[
%] Horizontal magnification ratio = (y, /y,) x 1o O
[%] Here, Xl is the horizontal size of the original image as shown in Figure 8, X2 is the horizontal size of the image after scaling, Yl is the vertical size of the original image, and Y2 is the horizontal size of the image after scaling. It represents the vertical size.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of the main parts of a copying machine showing a fourth embodiment of the present invention, and parts corresponding to those in FIG. 6 are given the same reference numerals.

Although the area determination unit 31 will be described in detail later, the coordinate determination unit 2
The area specified by the operator is determined from the coordinates (touched portion) of the contact glass 2'' determined in step 2, and the specified area range is further corrected based on the size of the document.

Then, the area specification range setting unit 33 sets the data of the area specification range, and sends it to an area processing unit (not shown) to perform inversion, trimming, etc. inside or outside the area.

Here, the region designation on the contact glass 2 by the operator and the processing by the region determination section 31 will be explained with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11.

First, select the document P for which you want to specify the area as shown in Figure 10 (a).
Hold the contact glass 2 with the image side facing upward as shown in
Set it in the upper reference position.

Next, the user presses the area designation key 32 shown in FIG. 9 to enable input by the touch sensor 21, and then lightly presses a desired area on the document Pi.

At this time, if you press once and touch only one point),
It is assumed that a rectangular area having the reference mark 10 as a diagonal, for example, the rectangular area indicated by diagonal lines in FIG. 10(b), has been specified.

In the case of two presses, a rectangular area with the two points as diagonals, for example, the rectangular area indicated by diagonal lines in FIG.

Furthermore, if the button is pressed three or more times, it is assumed that a polygonal area created by sequentially connecting the pressed points, for example, an area with three points as diagonals as shown by diagonal lines in Figure (D), has been specified. .

Note that a rectangular area with the last two points as diagonals may be used, but since we want to obtain an arbitrary shape, we use a polygon as the specified area here.

After lightly pressing the desired range of the document Pi, the area designation key 32 is pressed again to complete the area designation.

Next, as shown in FIG. 10 (E), the original P is set in the reference position of the contact glass 2'' with the image surface facing downward.

After that, an area processing unit (not shown) performs processing as shown in FIG.
Area processing is started on the image surface of the document P shown in , for example, by specifying area deletion (trimming).
size).

Since the area determination unit 31 can determine the size of the document by inputting the detection information, the area determination section 31 corrects the previously specified area range in the horizontal direction of the document P.

-16= For example, as shown by the diagonal lines in FIG. 11 (b), the area designation range shown by the diagonal lines in FIG. 10 (b) is recalculated so that it is on the left side of the flipped document P.

This region designation range can be easily determined using the following equation.

X=X, -X, Y=Y, -Y.

Here, xl is the horizontal size of the area specification range before correction, as shown in FIG. 12, and X2 is the horizontal size of the original.

Yl represents the vertical size of the area specification range before correction, and Y2 represents the vertical size of the document.

FIG. 13 is an external perspective view of a copying machine showing a fifth embodiment of the present invention, and parts corresponding to those in FIG. 16 are given the same reference numerals.

In this copying machine, as shown in FIG. 13, the hinge 42 of the document holding plate 43 is provided on the side (left side in this example) of the document table 40 opposite to the document reference line formed by the document reference mark 1o.

Therefore, as shown in FIGS. 14(a) and 14(b), the book original 44 can be freely moved back and forth, and accordingly, the copy images are no longer alternately reversed.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram showing a main part of a sixth embodiment of the present invention, and parts corresponding to those in FIG. 3 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and their explanation will be omitted.

In this embodiment, not only is the image data corresponding to the image of the document P read by the scanning operation directly passed to the writing system, but also when the image data rotation key 35 is pressed, the image data is stored in the memory 17 for a time. is stored and converted to 180 by the image data rotation unit 18.
The copy image is prevented from being reversed by rotating the image data by rotating the image data and sending the rotated image data to a writing system serving as an electrostatic latent image forming section.

Note that the image data rotation key 35 rotates 1 when pressed.
It is easier to use if you can select whether it is valid once, continuously, or alternately.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, operability, visibility, original setting properties, etc. are greatly improved, and the copying machine becomes easier to use.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a main part configuration diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
Figure 3 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the operation of this embodiment, Figure 3 is a configuration diagram of main parts showing a second embodiment of the invention, Figure 4 is a perspective view of the contact glass, and Figure 5 is an embodiment of this embodiment. FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the processing related to this invention according to an example; FIG. 6 is a main part configuration diagram showing a third embodiment of this invention; FIG.
The figure is an explanatory diagram showing the flow of specifying coordinates on the contact glass by the operator in this embodiment, Figure 8 is an explanatory diagram to explain the operation of this embodiment, and Figure 9 is a diagram showing the fourth embodiment of the invention. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the area designation on the contact glass by the operator in this embodiment, and FIGS. 11 and 12 are explanatory diagrams for explaining the operation of this embodiment. , FIG. 13 is a perspective view of a copying machine showing a fifth embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the operation of this embodiment, and FIG.
Fig. 5 is a configuration diagram of main parts showing a sixth embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 16 is a perspective view showing a conventional copying machine, and Fig. 17 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the problems of the copying machine. . 1.40... Original table 2,41... Contact glass 3... LED 4... LED lighting control section 5
~7,15.16...Paper cassette 8...Paper cassette detection section 9...Microcomputer (CPU) 10...Document reference mark 11...Data processing section 12...Light source 13 ...Mirror 14...Light receiving unit 17...Memory 18...Image data rotation unit 21...Touch sensor 22...Coordinate determination unit 23...Magnification ratio calculation unit 24...Magnification ratio setting unit 25...Reduction/enlargement key 31...Area determination unit 32...Area specification key 33...Area specification range setting unit 35...Image data rotation key 42...Hinge 43
... Pressing plate 44 ... Book manuscript applicant Ricoh Co., Ltd. - Qari, /X /11 Hetsutsu A-

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A plurality of light emitters are arranged along two adjacent sides around the contact glass of the document table, and among them, light is emitted in a range that indicates the size of the paper in the currently selected paper feed cassette. A copying machine characterized by being provided with a means for displaying an image by lighting up the body. 2. A means is provided to detect the position and size of a document placed arbitrarily on the document table, and paper of the same size as the size of the document detected by the means or a sheet of a size that includes the size of the document is fed. A copying machine characterized by feeding paper from a paper cassette and making copies. 3. A copying machine characterized in that a transparent touch sensor is disposed overlappingly on a contact glass of a document table, and the size of an image when changing magnification can be specified by touching the contact glass. 4. A copying machine characterized in that a transparent touch sensor is disposed overlappingly on a contact glass of a document table, and a range for trimming or the like can be specified by touching the contact glass. 5. A copying machine characterized in that the hinge of the document holding plate is provided on the side of the document table opposite to the document reference line. 6. A copying machine comprising a storage means for storing image data read from a document, and a means for rotating the image data stored by the means and transmitting the image data to an electrostatic latent image forming section.