JPH057742B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a document editing device that can create text character strings and graphic data on the same page.

[Conventional technology]

As a background to the present invention, document creation and editing devices (word processors) are becoming popular. However, many of them can only handle text. Of course, it has word processing functions such as indentation, tabs, and margins, but these do not exceed the scope of character string processing. On the other hand, documents (reports) created in the office field consist of text strings and charts and tables laid out at appropriate locations on the page to create a single format.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

From this point of view, current word processors only create the text part of the document in the example above; data such as figures, etc., are created on another occasion, and then physically printed on the paper created with the word processor. It can be said that it is forced to use a method of pasting them together.

The present invention enables character data and graphic data to be handled uniformly on a word processor,
The purpose is to streamline the aforementioned business overhead by creating a mixture of text and graphics on one page at the same time.

Another object of the present invention is to facilitate the editing of drawing figures to be synthesized with text data, especially in a relatively inexpensive document editing device in which line spacing and in-line character spacing on a text editing screen are fixed. It's about doing.

[Means to solve the problem]

In a word processor, even if the print format specification is changed, the line spacing and in-line character spacing on the text editing screen remain unchanged, and the displayed text string and the text actually printed out are The line spacing and in-line character spacing are completely different from text strings.Furthermore, even if a rectangular area is opened within the text to place a figure, for example, this frame itself is not visible to the user on the display screen. We are focusing on the fact that the vertical and horizontal ratios of the printed version and the printed version are different.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an input means for inputting data and commands for editing and formatting a document, a display means having a display screen for displaying document data, and a display means for displaying document data. an output means for printing according to a format having user-specified line spacing and inline character spacing;
A document editing device comprising a data processing means that performs a control operation in response to data input or command input from the input means, wherein the data processing means converts at least a part of the text character string input from the input means into A first means for displaying on the display screen with predetermined line spacing and in-line character spacing different from the user-specified format; and a first means for setting a frame on the document being edited from the input means and drawing a figure within the frame. When an input operation for drawing is performed, a figure display frame with a shape similar to the frame area on the printout is displayed on the display screen, and the printout is displayed within the figure display frame according to the input figure data. a second means for displaying a figure drawn in a shape similar to the figure; and when an output command is input from the input means, a text character string opened in a frame and the above-mentioned display located within the frame. The present invention is characterized by comprising a third means for outputting an edited document consisting of a figure and a similar figure to the output means in accordance with the specified format.

[Effect]

The present invention provides a document editing device in which line spacing and in-line character spacing on a text editing screen do not change even if the print format specification is changed. The user can You can input data while monitoring the print image on the editing screen.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, details of the present invention will be explained based on Examples.

The present device shown in FIG. 1 has a configuration with a microcomputer at its core, and includes a control section 10 in which a program is placed, and a key input control section 20 that reads keys input from a keyboard 21.
, a memory unit 30 that stores text data, graphic data, frame area definition data, and print style parameters; an external memory 41 that stores these data; and an external memory control unit 40 that controls the external memory. , a screen display control unit 50 for displaying on a CRT display 51, a refresh memory 52, and a CRT.
A character pattern memory 53, a print control unit 60 for printing a mixture of text and graphic data on a printer 61, a dot data buffer 62 for storing one line of character patterns for printing, and a printer character pattern memory 63. configured. The CRT character pattern memory 53 and the printer character pattern memory 63 include a plurality of first areas storing each of a plurality of predetermined character patterns, and a control unit 1 as described later.
0, and a plurality of second areas each storing a part of the graphic pattern created in
The area stores display or print patterns of the same size. Each area is accessed by a character code.

control section 10, memory section 30, refresh memory 52, CRT character pattern memory 53,
The dot data buffer 62, printer character pattern memory 63, key input control section 20, and external memory control section 40 are connected to a common bus 70 and exchange data via this bus 70.

The external memory 41, the external memory control unit 40, or the program that performs storage processing in the external memory 41 is mainly used to save data that is temporarily no longer needed for efficient use of the memory unit 30. In the following explanation, external memory 4
The operations related to 1 will be omitted unless particularly necessary. In this text, operations related to accessing the memory unit 30 include accessing the external memory 41 as necessary.

Text data input from the keyboard 21 is stored in a text data area in the memory 30 via the program of the control section 10, and is edited into a format to be displayed on the screen by the screen editing processing program on the control section 10. A pattern code is written into the refresh memory 52 (details will be described later). At the same time as writing, the screen display control unit 50 uses the character code in the refresh memory 52 to write data to the CRT character pattern memory 53.
are read out and sequentially displayed on the CRT display 51. In this way, the text appears on the CRT display 5.
1 (Fig. 3, 70).

Generally, when looking at the character strings that make up one page of a document, the number of lines and the number of characters per line are:
It is larger than the number of lines that can be displayed on one CRT screen and the number of characters in one line. In other words, only a portion of one page of the document being created is visible on the screen. Also,
Regarding position specification, line position on one page of document,
In-line character position and value, line position on CRT screen,
There is a discrepancy between the value and the inline character position.

In order to fill in these gaps, the screen editing processing program has the following functions.

(1) The line position and in-line character position of the cursor on the screen obtained when reading the cursor position from the refresh memory 52, the line position on the document page,
A function to convert the position of a character in a line, or vice versa, a function to convert position coordinates on a document page to position coordinates on the screen, and set a cursor at that position in the refresh memory 52.

(2) A function that converts a character string display request for a line position or inline character position on a document page into a line position or inline character position on the screen, and displays the string at that position on the screen.

(3) A vertical scrolling function and a horizontal scrolling function to make any part of the character string visible on the screen within one page of a document.

All of these functions can be configured by preparing a table in the screen editing processing program that maps the character strings displayed on the screen to the character string positions on the document page. be.

As a result of the above, the screen can be viewed as a window that displays a section of a document page, and all positional information such as a cursor can be handled in terms of document pages.

Next, if you see a screen like this,
A cursor (not shown) on the keyboard 21 is moved using a known method and stopped at the upper left corner of the area where the graphic data is to be placed. After this, keyboard 2
1. Press the dedicated function key (not shown) prepared above that indicates "Empty frame." This input key is transmitted to the control section 10 via the key input control section 20, and a program module for emptying the frame prepared in the control section 10 is executed. By this execution, the above-mentioned cursor position is first read out from the refresh memory 52 and sent to the control section 10. Control section 10
At the same time as importing this data, it displays a message on the CRT screen saying, ``Specify the lower right corner of the area where you want to place the graphic data,'' and instructs the user to move the cursor to the specified location.
At this point, the previous program waits for the next key input. When the dedicated function key indicating "Empty Frame" is pressed after the cursor has been moved to the lower right corner of the frame area, the cursor position at that point is read from the refresh memory 52, and the control unit 10
sent to. These man-machine interactions determine the line positions and in-line character position coordinates within the screen of the upper left corner and lower right corner of the frame area. Based on the information on which area of each document page the current display screen is located in, the frame emptying program is executed to determine the line position and character position within the line of the frame on the print page. Convert to position and character position. These values are stored as frame area definition data in the memory 30 as data regarding the frame area at the position.

The frame area definition data is stored in the memory section 30 in the format shown in FIG. 2a for each frame.

That is, the field 302a contains the graphic data to be printed within this frame that has already been stored in the memory unit 3.
A flag is stored that identifies whether the data is stored in the graphic data area 0 or whether there is no data and only the frame area is empty.

Also, the line and in-line character position in the top left corner and bottom right corner calculated earlier are field 3.
02b to 302e. field 3
When the graphic data to be applied within this frame is already stored in the graphic data area in the memory section 30, the storage address is stored in 02f. If there is no data yet, the value is invalid.

When setting multiple frames on one display screen,
The above operations are repeated.

In the manner described above, the cursor is used to instruct the user to empty the frame (FIG. 3, 72).

After that, the control is transferred to the screen display editing processing program in the control unit 10, and the control unit 10 determines the display address of the text data sequentially read from the memory 30 based on the frame area definition data. Edit the text data so that all strings are arranged outside the frame area.
Such automatic layout of text outside the designated frame area is known, for example, from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 43633/1983. The character code of the text data after the frame is blanked is sent to the refresh memory 52 in order to be displayed on the screen, and via the screen display control unit 50,
The text after the frame is blanked is displayed on the screen of the CRT display 51 (FIG. 3, 74). Through the processes described above, a document with a frame has been created on the screen, and management data regarding the frame along with text data has been generated in the memory. At this point, the device waits for the next key input.

Next, the printing format parameters (FIG. 2b), which is another premise of the present invention, will be explained.

In order to make text data easier to read when printed, an appropriate one is selected from among several types of line spacing and in-line character spacing, and the text data is printed according to that format. As shown in FIG. 4, the line spacing Y and the character spacing Field 304a in the format parameter area,
b. Note that the size of the frame you set earlier will change during printing depending on how you choose line spacing and character spacing. Note that other printing format parameters, such as left hand margin, etc., are not directly related to the content of the present invention, so it will only be stated that they are stored in the "other parameters" area 304c in FIG. 2b.

Next, a control method for embedding graphic data on a document, which is the subject of the present invention, will be described.

As a result of the processing described above, the device is waiting for a key input. Here, any key related to document editing can be accepted.

Switching to graphic processing is realized by the following method.

Move the cursor and place it within the frame obtained by the above processing (anywhere within the frame is fine), then press the dedicated function key (not shown) that means "shape processing". ) (Figure 31, 76). This input key is transmitted to the control section 10 via the key input control section 20, and a graphic processing program prepared in the control section 10 is started. This program checks the position of the cursor at the time the function key is pressed, and determines whether the cursor is within a frame on the page or not. As mentioned above, positional information regarding the frame area is already stored and managed as frame area definition data in the memory 30 for each frame, and the above-mentioned determination is based on this information and the obtained cursor position. This is done by comparing with As a result, when it is found that the cursor position is within a certain frame, the program further calculates what size that frame will be when printed as follows.

First, the number of lines of the frame and the number of characters in the line are determined from the upper left corner, lower right corner lines, and character position information of the frame in the frame area definition data in the memory unit 30. The physical length in the vertical and horizontal directions of the frame when printed is determined by the product of the number of lines and characters and the line spacing 304a and in-line character spacing 304b of the printing format parameters.

As a result, the physical length (number of dots) in the vertical and horizontal directions of the frame area is determined, and this value is retained as part of the frame vector data (i.e., figure data) of the frame. is used to generate line segment data (consisting of the starting point and ending point of the line segment) for displaying the frame area, and this data is stored in an appropriate work area of the memory unit 30 and used as the range of the graphic drawing area. . Although details will be described later, each data as a figure, such as vector data and character string data within a figure, will be developed into dot data within the physical length of this frame area.

Next, a method of inputting graphic data will be explained.

At this point, the text data with a blank frame is still displayed on the screen, but the frame in the text is not used when drawing graphics because it has a different size and aspect ratio than the frame when printing. Therefore, in order to display the graphics of the print image, the old text screen is deleted so that the CRT screen is used exclusively for graphics (blank codes are written in the refresh memory 52).An example of how to input graphics data Let's take graph data input as an example. For graph data, pressing the function key displays a graph menu on the CRT screen and allows the user to select the type of graph. Based on the user's selection, control part 1
A program for inputting predetermined graph data prepared on the computer is started, and the operation of the program allows input operations (keyboard 21 and
Man-machine interaction between CRT displays 51 is supported. The resulting graph data is expanded into a sequence of vector data (data consisting of a pair of starting and ending points of a line segment that approximates a curve, straight line, etc.) that fits within the size of the frame area set earlier. , is stored in the graphic data (FIG. 2 c field 303c). Once the vector data has been stored, a program is started that converts the vector data into dot data and displays it on the CRT screen. This program performs the following functions.

(1) Each vector data is scaled to an appropriate magnification so that the size of the frame area given by the dot length during printing falls within the display area of the CRT display screen (the same magnification is used both vertically and horizontally). ).

(2) Furthermore, the dot pitch of a CRT screen is larger in the vertical direction than in the horizontal direction (for example, 1.3 times).
On the other hand, since the dot pitch of a printer is the same in the horizontal and vertical directions, there is a difference in the horizontal and vertical ratios of the dot pitch displayed between CRTs and printers.For example, the frame area that becomes a square when printing is also , oblate. Therefore, to correct this flattening, either scale the vertical coordinate values of each vector data by a certain flattening factor (1/1.3 in the current example), or
Alternatively, expand the horizontal coordinate value by the opposite value of this flatness magnification (1.3 times in the current example). These scaling operations are performed using the line data representing the frame area and the field 303c (second
Dot expansion processing is performed on the vector data in Figure c). Dot development is performed by generating a dot pattern for the line segment of the figure located in each character display area of the CRT, and the developed dot data is stored in the first area of character storage on the CRT character pattern memory 53. A corresponding code is generated and written to the corresponding location in the refresh memory 52.

After this, character string data is input into the figure (currently only line elements are displayed). The character string data is input from the keyboard 21 using a program for creating character strings that is normally provided in a word processor. The input character string is distinguished from text data and is stored in the figure data area (FIG. 2 c field 3) as character data within the figure.
03c). Further, as described above, the character string is displayed using the CRT character pattern memory 53, and its position information is managed by the CRT display position (line position, in-line character position). At the time of printing, this value is calculated backward from the value based on the reduction magnification and flatness magnification mentioned earlier and is converted to the dot position at the start of printing. The refresh memory 52 has a so-called single-layer structure, and only one code and one pattern correspond to a certain position on the screen. Therefore, the line segment pattern and the character pattern are not superimposed on the display section (cell) on the screen. Here, due to the function of the program, when a line segment and a character conflict on the same display section, the character is displayed with priority (the character code is written in the refresh memory 52). Therefore, the control section 10 first writes the line segment pattern code into the refresh memory 52, and then writes a new character code into the refresh memory 52 if necessary. Convert the vector data mentioned above to dot data and display it on a CRT.
The program displayed on the screen is realized by this configuration, and the displayed item has the same vertical-to-width ratio of the frame area as when printing (see Fig. 3, 7).
8).

Through the above process up to graphic creation, graphic data (FIG. 2c) is completed.

The details of the graphic data (Fig. 2c) are as follows.

(1) Data identification (303a) Identifies whether the content of data (303c) is one of the following.

(a) Common information for graphic data Physical length of the frame in the vertical and horizontal directions, reduction ratio,
Oblate magnification, etc. (b) Vector data string Consists of a starting point and an ending point. Each coordinate value is a dot length conversion of the frame area at the time of printing.

(c) Character data string in figure Consists of position coordinates and character code string.

(2) Pointer (303b) In order to connect multiple pieces of graphic data,
If data continues after that, its memory address is retained. If there is no subsequent data, data indicating the end has been written.

(3) Data (303c) As mentioned in (a) above.

The start address of these data is the frame data storage destination address (302
f). Up until now, we have been talking about the method that assumes that graphic data is created within a frame, but in a similar way, when a frame is found, if graphic data is already stored for that frame, then It is also possible to have a configuration in which the information is immediately displayed on the screen.

With this method, three types of data, text, frame, and graphic data, can be managed in a unified manner on the memory 30. Then press the figure end key (3rd
80), the original text screen with a blank frame is displayed (FIG. 3 82). When printing, when a key indicating the start of printing is pressed (Fig. 3, 8)
4) Start the printing program on the control unit 10, and use this function to print text, frames,
Since the graphics are referred to at the same time and the text is given as code data, the corresponding character pattern is taken out from the printer character pattern memory 62 based on it and stored at a predetermined position in the dot data buffer 63 for one line. Furthermore, it is determined whether the output line crosses the frame area based on the frame area definition data, and if it is a frame and data inside the frame exists, that data (figure vector) is expanded into dot data. However, by similarly storing them in the dot data buffer 62, a mixture of these is created at once. Note that, unlike the development of the dot pattern during printing, operations such as reduction and flattening are not performed, unlike when displaying. After that, the print control section 60
The printer 61 is made to print via the
6). The above example assumes that the printer 61 is of a type that scans like a wire dot printer.

Thereafter, the printer changes the line by one character height (in FIG. 4, the height of letters A and B) and prints a figure that is continuous with the previously displayed figure. Thereafter, a line break is made by the difference between the line spacing Y (FIG. 4) and the height of one character described above, and printing of characters and graphic patterns is repeated for the next character line.

Of course, in a line that has only a character pattern without a mixture of character patterns and graphic patterns, the line spacing Y
Just do a line break for each. Furthermore, for lines containing a mixture of graphic patterns and character patterns, it is also effective to first print only the character pattern, and then print the graphic pattern within the same line without line breaks.

In the above embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3 78,
When displaying a graphic drawing area, the text screen with a blank frame was stopped and only the frame for the graphic drawing area was displayed. However, in some cases,
A figure drawing area frame having a size proportional to the figure printing area frame may be displayed within the frame shown in 4, and a figure may be drawn within the subsequent frame.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, a method for managing graphic data as vector data has been described;
According to this method, instead of vectors, for example, FAX
Even image data input from other sources can be easily handled.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the description of the embodiments above, according to the present invention, a frame for creating a figure that is the same as the actual output shape of the output device is displayed on the display screen.
The user can obtain a document with the same graphic as the graphic monitored within this frame, and the document creation operation is significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the document editing device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure stored in the memory 30, and FIG. 3 explains the process of document editing. FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the character pitch and line pitch of text.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A document editing device comprising an input device, a display device, and a data processing device that performs control operations in response to data input or command input from the input device, wherein the input device is configured to input a print format. a means for specifying a frame area to be set in the text, a means for inputting text data and graphic data, a means for specifying a frame blank area to be set in the text, and switching between a text data input mode and a graphic data input mode. and a means for commanding output to a printing device, and the display device displays text data input from the data input device at predetermined line spacing and in-line character spacing on a screen. The data processing device has a text data display mode in which the data is displayed on the display screen, and a graphic display mode in which a drawing corresponding to the graphic data inputted from the data input means is displayed on the display screen. means for storing printing format data including line spacing and in-line character spacing specified during printing; and operating the display device in a text data display mode to store at least text data input from the data input means. means for outputting a part of the data to the display device; means for storing frame blank data specified by the frame blank area specifying means on the text data display screen; and means for storing frame blank data specified by the frame blank area specifying means on the text data display screen; When switching to the graphic data input mode is commanded, the display device is switched to the graphic display mode, a graphic display frame similar to the frame area on the printout is displayed on the display screen, and the data input from the data input means is means for displaying a figure similar to a figure on the printed output in the figure display frame according to the figure data set in the print output; To cause the printing device to output an edited document consisting of a text string that is spaced out and has print line spacing and in-line character spacing according to the print format data, and a figure similar to the display figure positioned within the frame. A document editing device comprising: means for editing a document. 2. When the frame data is input from the frame emptying command means, the data processing device changes the arrangement of the text string in the edited document so that the text string is not included in the area designated for frame emptying, means for displaying and outputting a text string with a blank space on the display screen, and a frame for inputting the graphic data after erasing the text display screen when a switching command to a graphic data input mode is given; 2. The document editing device according to claim 1, further comprising means for outputting the area to the display screen.