JPH08314909A - Document processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To dynamically construct an editing part module processing the respective document elements of a composite document in an internal storage means and to realize a flexible correspondence to the reduction of the burden on the internal storage means, the simplification of processing modules and the change of the type of the document element. CONSTITUTION: In the document processor generating the composite document by synthesizing document data of the document elements and outputting them, the plural processing modules 7 corresponding to the document elements are stored in the external storage device 1, and the processing modules are read into the internal storage means from an external storage means 1 by a module loader 16 so as to construct the editing part module 13 corresponding to the types of the respective document elements. Thus, it is not necessary to previously construct the multiple editing modules into the internal storage means in accordance with the respective document elements of the composite document.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document processing apparatus for synthesizing a plurality of document elements to create a compound document, and more particularly to dynamically setting an editing means for editing a document element as needed. A document processing device capable of performing

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-63242 discloses a compound document in which a plurality of document elements composed of electronic data are combined.
A document processing device disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 124224 is known. This document processing device uses text, graphs, tables,
This is to create a compound document composed of various types of document data such as figures. By defining rectangular areas of document elements composed of the same kind of document data, and arranging these rectangular areas in one virtual plane I am creating a compound document consisting of the following document elements. In addition to the document data (actual data) of each rectangular area, a header unit including coordinates of the rectangular area on the virtual plane, an address storing the document data of the rectangular area, and a pointer to the next rectangular area is stored in the storage device. It is stored so that the document data can be handled in units of rectangular areas.

Further, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-310176, there is also known a document processing apparatus for pasting a sticky note (document element) on a document. This document processing device pastes a sticky note made of image data onto a document made up of image data, and sticks the sticky note out of the document. In addition, a plurality of documents to which the sticky notes are attached are bundled and displayed on the screen, and the protruding portions of the sticky notes attached to the lower document are also displayed.

A technique for structuring the constituent parts (document elements) of a document (ODA: Office Document Architecture)
Regarding the above, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-297178 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
It is also disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. -240866, and the document formats are unified and the editing process is speeded up.

[0005]

With the diversification of information media in recent years, the usage forms of electronic compound documents handled by document processing devices are diversifying, and it is as if paper documents are pasted together. As described above, it is required to create an electronic compound document and to handle the created compound document electronically like a paper medium document. For example, when attempting to realize not only a form in which a plurality of paper documents are pasted together to create one compound document but also a form in which a document element such as a sticky note or a bookmark is attached to a document in a paper medium with an electronic document In order to create a compound document, it is necessary to combine the already created electronic document elements with other electronic document elements at any time, just as if the paper document was pasted.

Here, in a document processing apparatus using a computer, electronic document element data is created by various application programs according to the type of the document element. For example, if the document element type is simple text, it is created by a simple text creation application program corresponding to it, and if the document element type is an image figure, it is created by an image processing application program corresponding to it. Created.

Therefore, when a plurality of document elements having different types are combined and a composite document is displayed and output by another document processing apparatus, the other document processing apparatus also corresponds to the type of each document element. If the application program is not provided, there is a problem that display output cannot be performed. The same applies when the document element in the compound document is edited by another document processing device.
There is a problem that the editing process cannot be performed unless an application program corresponding to the type of document element to be edited is provided.

[0008] With respect to such a situation, the above-mentioned prior art has not proposed any solution, and some measure for enhancing the usability of the compound document has been desired. It should be noted that the problem as described above can be solved by equipping the document processing apparatus with a vast amount of document processing application programs in advance corresponding to all types of document elements. Not only becomes very difficult to develop, but also an enormous internal storage means is required to store the document processing application program and execute the document processing, which causes a problem that the apparatus cost increases.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional circumstances, and a document processing application program is modularized corresponding to a document element, and this processing module is held in internal storage means as necessary, whereby ,
An object of the present invention is to provide a document processing device that facilitates the development of a document processing application program and prevents an increase in device cost, and that realizes processes such as editing of document elements without any trouble.

Further, the present invention realizes a dynamic process of holding a processing module in an internal storage means as needed,
Furthermore, it is another object of the present invention to provide a document processing device to which a processing module to be held in the internal storage means can be added if necessary. It is another object of the present invention to provide a document processing site capable of performing output processing such as displaying or printing a compound document regardless of the presence or absence of editing means including a processing module.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, the document processing apparatus according to claim 1 is a document processing apparatus for creating a compound document by synthesizing and outputting document data of document elements, The external storage means stores a plurality of processing modules corresponding to the document element, the loader that reads the processing module corresponding to the document element to be processed from the external storage means to the internal storage means, and the processing module read into the internal storage means. And an editing unit configured to process the corresponding document element data.

The document processing apparatus according to a second aspect is the document processing apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein the data of the document element includes processing module information corresponding to the document element, The loader specifies the corresponding processing module based on the processing module information. The document processing apparatus according to claim 3 is the document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data of the document element includes type information of the document element, and the type and processing of the document element. A correspondence table in which modules are associated with each other is further provided, and the loader identifies the corresponding processing module by referring to the correspondence table with the type information of the document element.

A document processing apparatus according to a fourth aspect is the document processing apparatus according to any one of the first to third aspects, wherein the external storage means is writable and an additional processing module is added at any time. Is possible. The document processing apparatus according to claim 5 is the document processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the data of the document element is data edited by a corresponding editing unit. In addition, it is characterized in that it includes display data that can be output regardless of the existence of the editing means.

[0014]

According to the document processing apparatus of the first aspect, the application programs corresponding to the document elements are respectively stored as the processing modules in the external storage means, and when the document processing such as editing is performed on the compound document, it is necessary. Then, the loader reads the processing module into the internal storage means. As a result, the processing module and CP held in the internal storage means
Editing means is composed of hardware resources such as U,
Based on the user's instruction input and the like, the editing means adds an editing process to the corresponding document element in the compound document.

According to the document processing apparatus of claim 2,
Based on the processing module information included in the document element data to be processed, the loader determines the processing module to be loaded into the internal storage means and configures the editing means as necessary. Further, according to the document processing apparatus of claim 3, the loader refers to the correspondence table based on the type information of the document element included in the document element data to be processed, whereby the processing to be read into the internal storage means. Specify the module and configure the editing means.

According to the document processing apparatus of claim 4,
When the document elements are diversified and the types thereof are increased, the corresponding application program is additionally stored in the external storage means as a processing module. Then, similar to the above, by reading the processing module to which the loader is added into the internal storage means, the editing means corresponding to the new type of document element is configured. Further, according to the document processing apparatus of claim 5, the document element combined in the compound document can be output such as displayed or printed based on the display data in the format independent of the application program. Can be output to other document processing devices without any trouble.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS As shown in FIG. 1, a document processing apparatus according to this embodiment includes an external storage device 1 including an external memory such as a hard disk device and an optical disk device, and a compound document editing section for performing various document processes related to compound documents. 2, a display unit 3 for performing processing for outputting a compound document, a display device 4 for actually displaying and outputting the compound document by displaying on the screen or printing on a paper medium, and various requests from the user are input. An input unit 5 for doing so and a window management unit 6 for managing a window used for creating a compound document are provided.

In the external storage device 1, a plurality of document creation application programs 7 for creating the document elements of the compound document are modularized and stored together with the data 9 relating to the compound document. Each of these document creation applications 7 is a module corresponding to the type of document element (object), and creates data of the corresponding document element. As will be described in detail later, the compound document data 9 includes an actual data frame for each document element and a relational data frame. The actual data frame includes document data of the document element and the like. The data frame contains data that defines the relationship between the document elements in the compound document. The correspondence table 1 is stored in the storage device 1.
0 is also stored, and the correspondence table 10 stores the correspondence relationship between each module of the document creation application 7 and the document element type in advance.

The compound document editing unit 2 includes an actual data creating unit 11 for creating actual data of each document element, a relational data creating unit 12 for creating relational data between document elements, and a document such as a configuration change for a compound document. An editing unit 13 that performs processing using related data, a data processing unit 14 that inputs and outputs data to and from the external storage device 1, the display unit 3, and the input unit 5.
The module management unit 15 is provided for reading necessary modules 7 into the internal storage means based on the correspondence relationship stored in the correspondence table 10. Further, the display unit 3 performs a display process of superposing actual data of a plurality of document elements in the document creation area based on the relational data, and the display device 4 displays the compound document using the window assigned by the window management unit 6. Output.

As shown in FIG. 2, the editing unit 13 has a plurality of editing units corresponding to the types of document elements (objects), and each editing unit 13 has an internal storage means such as a RAM or the like. It is composed of an application module 7 corresponding to hardware such as a CPU. Also,
The module management unit 15 has a module loader 16, and if necessary for editing processing of document elements,
The corresponding application module 7 read from the external storage device 1 by the module loader 16 is loaded into the editing unit 1
3 is stored in the internal storage means. That is, by storing the application module 7 in the internal storage means, the editing unit 13 corresponding to each type of document element is configured.

Further, the data processing unit 14 and the data loader 17
This data loader 17 has an external storage device 1
The composite document data 9 is read out from and stored in the data memory 18 which is an internal storage means. In addition, a control unit 19 that integrally controls the editing unit 13, the module loader 16, and the data loader 17 is provided. Under the control of the control unit 19, data about the document element to be processed is stored in the data memory. 18 and the application module 7 is read into the internal storage means forming the editing unit to configure the necessary object type editing unit 13. It should be noted that the control unit 19 is additionally provided with a selected frame memory 20, and information about the document element in which the actual data frame or the related data frame is read into the data memory 18 is stored in the selected frame memory 20.

In this embodiment, the compound document 2 as shown in FIG.
1 is created and further processed such as editing. In this compound document 21, document elements A, B, C, D and E are superimposed and combined. The document element A is a text document created by a text creating application that constitutes a word processor, and is a document element of type “MP” that is the source of a compound document, that is, a so-called parent document. The document elements B, C, and D are so-called child documents that are superimposed on the document element A, the document element B is a graph document created by an application that creates a chart, and the document elements C and D are graphics. It is a graphic document created by a creation application. Also, the document element E is a so-called grandchild document that is superimposed on the document element B, and is a text document created by a text creating application. These document elements B, C, D, and E are document elements whose types are "image", "sticky note", "recognition mark", and "overwrite", respectively.

As shown in FIG. 4, the actual data of each document element A to E is created as an actual data frame,
The relationship data between the document element A and the document elements B to D and between the document element B and the document element E are created as a relationship data frame. The actual data frame has a data string that contains the actual data and a retained data string that contains a pointer to the related data frame. The data string includes the creation environment such as the creator of the document element and the creation date and time, the display data obtained by converting the document data of the document element into a format that does not depend on the creation application, the application data that is the document data from the creation application, the document element Type information, etc. are included. Further, the held data sequence can include a plurality of pointers, and are associated with the relational data frames of other document elements that are superimposed via the respective pointers.

The display data is obtained by converting the document data into display data in a uniform format such as PostScript language (PostScript: registered trademark) using the print function of the creation application. It is possible to display and print the display data without using it. In this embodiment, the display data is bitmap data, and the output of the document element can be realized but the editing of the document element cannot be realized. On the other hand, the application data is document data that depends on the creating application, and by starting the creating application, editing of the document element can be realized using the application data.

The relational data frame also has a data string containing substantial data and a retained data string containing pointers to document elements. The data string includes the pasting position of the document element, the pasting size, the pasting role of what the document element has in the compound document, the overlapping order when the document elements are superposed, and the like. Further, the held data string includes a single pointer, and is associated with the actual data frame of the corresponding document element via this pointer.

FIG. 5 shows the structure of the compound document 21 of this embodiment and the relationship between the actual data frame and the relational data frame. Conceptually, the document elements A to E are respectively formed on the virtual document creation area 22, and the document elements A to E are formed by overlapping these document creation areas 22.
A composite document 21 is created by superimposing the above. The actual data frame 23 of the parent document element A is the child document element B
To D actual data frames 24 to 26 are associated with each other via relational data frames 27 to 29, and the actual data frame 30 of the document element E superimposed on the document element B is a document via the relational data frame 31. It is associated with the actual data frame 24 of element B.

The actual data frame and the relational data frame are associated with each other by a pointer, and the pointer is traced from a certain actual data frame to access another actual data frame which is superposed via the relational data frame. can do. The actual data frame and the relational data frame that are associated with each other constitute the compound document data 9 as a whole, and each of the actual data frame and the relational data frame is an independent data unit that is associated with the pointer and is the external storage device 1. And is readable by the internal storage means for each data unit.

As shown in FIG. 6, in the actual data frames 23 to 26 and 30 of the document elements A to E, the creation environment,
Information about the type of each document element is included together with display data and application data. That is, the actual data frame 23 includes the type “MP” indicating the parent document element, and the actual data frame 2
Similarly, the document element types “image”, “sticky note”, “recognition mark”, and “overwrite” for 4, 25, 26, and 30 respectively.
It is included. Also, the relational data frame 2 between the actual data frame 23 and the actual data frames 24 to 26
7 to 29, and the relational data frame 31 between the actual data frame 24 and the actual data frame 30 includes a pasting position, a pasting size, an overlapping order, a pasting role, and the like.

That is, in the relational data frame 27, the document element B is pasted on the document element A in the second overlapping order, and the pasting position of the document element B is prohibited, and the document element B is combined. It includes data indicating that the text of the document 21 is formed. Also, the relational data frame 28
The document element C is pasted on the document element A in the overlapping order, and the document element C includes data indicating that the comment of the compound document 21 is made. Further, in the relational data frame 29, the document element D is pasted on the document element A in the overlapping order of 0, and it is prohibited to change the content of the document element D later. It contains data indicating that it forms 21 texts. Further, the document element E is pasted on the document element B in the relational data frame 31 in the overlapping order of 0, the moving of the pasting position of the document element E is prohibited, and the document element E is combined. It includes data indicating that the text of the document 21 is formed.

The text in the above-mentioned pasting role is an essential document element of the structure which constitutes the text of the compound document 21.
This means that the document element is always displayed in the compound document 21. Further, the comment is not an essential document element in the compound document 21 itself, such as a sticky note attached to the compound document, but the compound document 2 is instructed by the user or the like.
1 means that the document element is selectively displayed.

Next, the process of creating the compound document data 9 by the document processing apparatus having the above-mentioned configuration will be described by taking the document element A and the document element D as an example. In this case, application data of the document elements A and D has already been created by the application module 7 corresponding to the document elements A and D, and these application data are stored in the external storage device 1. Suppose First, the actual data creation unit 11 reads the application data of the document element A, activates the application module 7 that created the document element A, and creates the display data from the application data by using the printing function of the application module 7. . Then, the actual data creation unit 11 prepares an actual data frame,
The application data and the display data are added to the actual data frame together with the creation environment and the document element type “MP”, and the actual data frame 23 of the document element A is created.

Similarly, for the document element D, the actual data creating unit 11 creates the display data of the document element D, and creates the application data and the display data of the document element D in the creation environment and the document element type "approval". And the like are added to the prepared actual data frame to create the actual data frame 26 of the document element D. Then, the relational data creation unit 12 prepares a relational data frame, and adds a superimposition relation (pasting position, pasting size, pasting role, etc.) based on a user instruction from the input unit to this relational data frame.
Further, the editing unit 2 connects this relational data frame to the actual data frames 23 and 26 with a pointer, and the document element A
A relational data frame 29 between the document element D and the document element D is created. As a result, the document element D is superimposed and combined on the document element A as a document having a position and size defined by the relational data frame 29 and forming a text whose content is prohibited to be changed.

Next, the process of displaying and outputting the composite document 21 by the document processing apparatus having the above-mentioned configuration will be described with reference to FIG. First, when a display instruction is input from the input device 5, the data processing unit 14 reads the compound document data 9 from the external storage device 1 and stores it in the internal storage means, and transfers it to the display unit 3. The display unit 3 extracts the actual data frame 23 in the lowest layer in the related system of the data frame from the compound document data 9, extracts the display data from the actual data frame 23, and cooperates with the window management unit 6. The document element A is displayed on the display device 4 (step S1).

Next, the display unit 3 sets a variable K representing the number of relational data frames to an initial value "1" (step S
2) The pointer is traced from the actual data frame 23 and the number of relational data frames included in the received compound document data 9 is compared with the variable K (step S3). As a result, if the variable K exceeds the number of received related data frames, the processing ends because there is no data frame to be processed, while if the variable K is less than or equal to the number of related data frames, the display is Part 3 extracts the relation information from the Kth relation data frame (step S
4) It is determined whether or not the role of being a comment is described in this related information, and whether or not there is a designation from the input unit 5 that the comment document is not displayed (step S5).

As a result, if there is a comment role or there is a designation of non-display, the variable K is incremented by 1 and the processes from step S3 onward are repeated (step S6) while the comment role is lost. If there is no designation of non-display, the display unit 3 creates an area for displaying the document element in the document creation area 22 based on the relationship information, such as the position, size, and transparent state of drawing (step S7). Next, the display unit 3 traces the pointer from the relational data frame to extract the corresponding actual data frame (step S8), extracts the display data from this actual data frame, and causes the display device 4 to display the document element (step S9). .

That is, by the above processing, the document element A is first displayed, and subsequently, the document elements B to E are sequentially displayed based on the respective relation information. Then, in this display, when the role as a comment is described in the relational data frame, it is determined whether or not the corresponding document element is displayed according to the user instruction from the input unit 5.

Next, an editing process for changing the content of each document element in the document processing apparatus having the above-mentioned configuration will be described with reference to FIG. First, when a document element is designated and an instruction to change the content is input from the input device 5, the control unit 19 selects whether the data of the designated document element is already stored in the data memory 18. The frame memory 20 is checked to make a determination (step S10). As a result, when the frame data of the designated document element is not stored in the data memory 18, the control unit 19 causes the data loader 17 to operate.
Request to obtain the actual frame data of the document element.
As a result, the data loader 17 searches the compound document data 9 stored in the external storage device 1, reads the actual data frame of the designated document element, and reads the data memory 1
8 (step S11).

Next, the control unit 19 acquires the actual data frame of the designated document element from the data memory 18 (step S12), and acquires the document element type information contained in this actual data frame (step S13). . Then, the control unit 19 judges whether or not the object type editing unit 13 corresponding to the document element type information exists (step S14), and if not, the control unit 19 sets the document element type information. To the module loader 16 to request the construction of the corresponding editing unit 13. This allows the module loader 16 to use the type information of the document element.
Refers to the correspondence table 10 (step S15), identifies the application module 7 corresponding to the type, reads it from the external storage device 1, and stores it in the internal storage means (step S16). As a result, the editing unit module 13 including the application module is built in the document processing apparatus.

Then, the control unit 19 passes the actual data frame of the designated document element to the corresponding editing unit module 13, and the editing unit module 13 executes the editing process of the document element (step S17). In this editing process, the corresponding editing unit module 13 extracts the application data from the actual data frame, and performs a changing process such as rewriting based on a user input from the input device 5 with respect to this application data. Then, when the application data is changed, the editing module 13 creates display data from the application data by using the print function of the document creation application, and updates the actual data frame with the application data and the display data. That is, the contents of the document elements A, B, C, and E can be arbitrarily changed by the above processing.

Next, the control unit 19 judges whether the editing processing has been completed for all the document elements designated by the user (step S18), and if there is an unprocessed document element, the type of the document element is determined. Corresponding editing module 1
The above process is repeated to activate No. 3. As described above, even if the editing module 13 is not built in the internal storage means in advance, it is built by the application module 7 read from the external storage device 1 as necessary, so that the internal storage means is limited. Document processing that effectively uses the area is performed. In addition, a new application module 7 may be stored in the external storage means 1 as necessary.
Can be additionally stored, and by making such addition, the editing unit module 13 can be constructed corresponding to various types of document elements.

In the above-described embodiment, the control unit 19 controls the presence / absence of the corresponding editing unit module 13 and the construction request of the editing unit module 13 in a centralized manner. To the editorial department 13,
After that, each editing unit module 13 interacts with each other to perform the editing process in one of the modules, and when there is no corresponding editing module, the editing unit 13 concerned
May request the module loader 16 to read the corresponding application module 7.

Further, in the above embodiment, it is judged whether or not the corresponding editing unit module 13 exists based on the document element type information. However, as shown in FIG. 9, it is used to create the document element in the actual data frame. The application name that has been included is included, and when the document element is edited, it is determined from the application name whether the corresponding editing module 13 exists, and the process of reading the corresponding application module 7 from the external storage device 1 is performed. It may be performed. The correspondence table 10 can be omitted by including the application name information in the actual data frame.

In the above embodiment, the external storage device 1 is used.
Although the actual data frame is read in batch into the internal storage means from the above, the display data and the application data portion may be read as separate units, and display processing and editing processing may be performed. In addition, although the display data is included in the actual data frame of each document element, the display data of all the document elements in the compound document are combined and included in the actual data frame of the parent document element. You may leave it.

Further, in the above embodiment, since the display data is included in the actual data frame, output processing such as display is possible even if the corresponding application module does not exist. It is also possible to omit the display data and to output the application data of each document element by the corresponding individual application module. Further, in the above embodiment, the compound document data to be processed is read into the data memory in document element units, but the document data of the entire compound document may be read in a batch. Therefore, the selected frame memory 20 can be omitted.

[0045]

As described above in detail, since the document processing application program is modularized corresponding to the document element and the processing module is held in the internal storage means as necessary, each document processing application The application program can be simplified to facilitate the development. Further, since processing modules are built in the internal storage means as needed, it is not necessary to build a huge number of processing modules in the internal storage means in advance, and document processing such as editing a compound document is limited in size. This can be done by effectively utilizing the internal storage means of.

Further, since an application module can be added to the external memory means, document processing can be realized even for a new type of document element, and the flexibility of the document processing apparatus is improved. . In addition, since the composite document data includes display data in a uniform format, even if the document processing apparatus does not have an application program corresponding to the type of each document element, display of Output can be performed and usability is improved in distribution of compound documents.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a document processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a main part centering on a module management unit of the document processing apparatus according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the structure of a compound document.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration example of an actual data frame and a relational data frame.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing the relationship between document elements and data frames.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual diagram showing a structure of a compound document in a data frame.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a display output process of a compound document.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart related to a document element content change process.

FIG. 9 is a conceptual diagram showing another configuration example of an actual data frame and a relational data frame.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... External storage device, 2 ... Composite document editing unit, 7
... Document creation processing application module (processing module), 10 ... Correspondence table, 13 ...
Editing unit (editing unit for object type), 16 ... Module loader,

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A document processing apparatus for creating a compound document by synthesizing and outputting document data of a document element, and an external storage means storing a plurality of processing modules corresponding to the document element, and a document element to be processed. A loader for reading a processing module corresponding to the above from the external storage means to the internal storage means, and an editing means configured by the processing module read in the internal storage means and processing the corresponding document element data. Document processing device. 2. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data of the document element includes processing module information corresponding to the document element, and the loader corresponds to the processing module information according to the processing module information. A document processing device characterized by specifying a. 3. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data of the document element includes type information of the document element, and a correspondence table in which the type of the document element and a processing module are associated with each other. The document processing apparatus, further comprising: a loader that identifies a corresponding processing module by referring to a correspondence table with document element type information. 4. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the external storage unit is writable and a processing module can be added at any time. apparatus. 5. The document processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the data of the document element, together with the data to be edited by a corresponding editing unit, indicates whether or not the editing unit exists. A document processing apparatus including display data that can be output regardless of the processing.