JPH038057A - Document converting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently enable classification and re-edition for the unit of a page even when document data are classified and re-edited by another document preparing device by converting the enumerated document data to a common document form in a state that page information are added. CONSTITUTION:When an electronic document A requiring transfer is sent, in a document converting device 20, this document is temporarily stored in an enumerated document element buffer 21 and enumerated document elements are converted to the common document form by a document element converting device 23. Then, page information processing is started through a page number obtaining device 22 and a page information adding device 25. Page number information PM and PN are obtained and outputted to a common form document buffer 24 together with paging information PC. The page information to be outputted from the page information adding device 25 and the document element, which is outputted from the document element converting device 23 and converted to the common document form, are integrated in the buffer 24 in a state that prescribed correlation is kept.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] This invention converts an electronic document created and edited electronically by a document creation device such as a workstation into a document format common to other devices. The present invention relates to a document conversion device.

[Prior Art] Word processors, workstations, and the like are well-known document creation devices that use computers as media.
Among these, the above-mentioned workstations, which are positioned as terminals for distributed processing systems centered on host computers, have advanced document creation capabilities and document processing functions, and are extremely capable of creating and editing electronic documents. It is known as a document creation device that can be implemented with high efficiency.

It is also well known that there is a usage format in which electronic documents created and edited through such workstations are sent to a host computer on a network or other workstations and used as a shared resource.

Incidentally, when using the electronic document created and edited above as a shared resource, the sending workstation and the receiving workstation (or host computer)
If the document formats as electronic documents are exactly the same, it is possible to normally exchange documents by simply adding a communication means between them, but the document formats handled between them are If they are different, either convert them into each other's document format through the document conversion processing function of each workstation, or define a common document format between them, and use the conversion function for this defined common document format. must be present on each other's workstations. Recently, the latter type of usage has mainly been adopted, in the form of ``defining a common document format.''

By the way, "defining a common document format" in this way means that the generality of the created and edited electronic documents as a shared resource will be significantly increased.

Therefore, in order to further expand its usage, electronic documents created and edited on workstations with excellent document creation capabilities, as described above, are sent to other document creation devices. Attempts are also being made to process this document data. FIG. 4 shows the concept of such a document exchange system.

As shown in FIG. 4, in this document exchange system, document elements (each one page) are created and edited by a document creation device (workstation) 1 and listed as desired to be transferred to another document creation device. The electronic document A consisting of an element consisting of one page's worth of document data is imported into the document conversion device 2, and is converted into the "common document format" defined above.
is converted to

As is well known, converting into a defined "common document format" means converting documents (character data, graphic data, Even if the encoding format (data format) for representation (table data, etc.) is different, the electronic document can be reproduced in the same way on each of these devices, and its respective document elements and This involves recoding various accompanying information. Therefore, by defining such code information in advance and making a new agreement for reproducing electronic documents based on the defined code information for each of the above-mentioned devices, these different first The same electronic document can also be exchanged and utilized as a shared resource between the second device and the second device.

The document conversion device 2 is a device that realizes document conversion in this manner, that is, encoding of document elements and various accompanying information, and is an electronic document converted into a "common document format", that is, a common format document B. is transferred to the other document creation device mentioned above, where it is reproduced as the electronic document A and subjected to various desired document processing such as new editing.

Note that in such a document exchange system, the device to which the common format document B is transferred does not necessarily have to be another document creation device equipped with document processing functions such as editing. That is, the common format document B may be transferred to an appropriate document storage device.

Incidentally, in this case, all the document creation devices placed on the same network, including the document creation device 1 that is the transfer source, can arbitrarily retrieve this stored common format document B and edit it. It becomes possible to perform desired document processing.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above, according to the document exchange system described above, an electronic document created and edited by a document creation device such as a workstation with excellent document creation ability can be used by other document creation devices. Although these devices will now be freely exchanged and used as shared resources, conventional document conversion devices do not add page numbers to each of the document elements listed above to be transferred. Since there was no concept of distinguishing between these formats by However, there were some inconveniences when using the device, such as the high cost.

This invention has been made in view of these circumstances, and provides a method for converting each of the document elements listed above into a "common document format" in a form that can make subsequent use of document creation devices easier and more efficient. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a document conversion device capable of converting ``.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In the present invention, in addition to the above-mentioned means for converting into the "common document format", the document conversion device converts the information written in each document element from the listed document elements. page number acquisition means for acquiring one or both of a first page number that is a page number that is listed, and a second page number that is a relative page number between the same listed document elements; The page break is recognized for each document element listed, and for each document element converted into a "common document format", information indicating the page break and the page number obtained by the page number obtaining means are provided. The configuration further includes page information adding means for adding together information indicating .

[Operation] Document data formed in this form as a "common document format", that is, information indicating the page break and one of the first and second page numbers for each document element through the page information addition means described above. From document data that is configured by adding information indicating both of It is also possible to easily recognize which page an element exists relative to the page of the separated element as the first page. Therefore, even if document creation devices that accept and refer to such "common document formats" subsequently classify and re-edit each document element, it is possible to efficiently classify and re-edit on a page-by-page basis. Become.

[Embodiment] FIGS. 1 to 3 show an embodiment of the document conversion device according to the present invention.

This embodiment assumes that the system shown in FIG. It executes operations such as accepting document element) A and converting it into the electronic document (common format document) B. Further, the document creation device itself such as a workstation processes a predetermined page layout for each document element according to the user's instructions, and the form of this page layout is shown in FIG. 5, for example. Suppose there is. For convenience of explanation, in the following example, the document elements enumerated through the document creation device (workstation, etc.) 1 as the electronic document A to be transferred are assigned page numbers 11 to 15 as shown in FIG. It is assumed that the document consists of five pages worth of document elements.

Now, FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the internal structure of this embodiment of the document conversion device that accepts such a document element (electronic document A) and converts it into the aforementioned common format document (electronic document B). First, with reference to FIG. 1, the configuration of the document conversion apparatus and the functions of each component will be explained.

As shown in FIG. 1, this document conversion device 20
An enumerated document element buffer 21 stores the enumerated document elements (see FIG. 5), and the page number information PM actually written in each document element is extracted from each document element temporarily stored in this buffer 21. 11 to 15), and a page number acquisition device 22 that acquires relative page number information 11jPN (1 to 5) between document elements that are also temporarily stored, respectively, and each document temporarily stored in the same buffer 21. A document conversion device 23 that sequentially converts (encodes) an element in a predetermined manner as described above and converts it into a "common document format"; a common format document buffer 24 for temporarily storing document elements temporarily stored in the enumerated document element buffer 21; At each corresponding position of each document element, page break information PC indicating the page break and the two types of page number information P obtained by the page number obtaining device 22 are provided.
Each page information adding device 25 is configured to add M and PN.

In this case, each of these page information (PC, PM, and PN) shall be coded and added in a predetermined manner according to its content, as well as the above document elements, and this shall be accepted. It is assumed that the content of the added page information can be reliably read by the document creation device or the like on the side that creates the document.

Here, among these page information, the above two types of page number information PM acquired by the page number acquisition device 22
and PN, how to obtain them will be explained below.

As shown in FIG. 1, the page number acquisition device 22 includes an acquisition section 22a, a comparison section 22b1, and a storage section 22c.

Among these, the acquisition unit 22a is a part that sequentially reads each document element temporarily stored in the enumerated document element buffer 21 and detects the actually described page number information PM from these document elements, In this way, each time the page number information PM is detected, the detected page number information MPM itself is sent to the page information addition device 25, and the number of times of detection (relative page number) is sent to the internal comparison unit 22b. (corresponding to the information PN) are output respectively.

Further, the comparison unit 22b compares the value of the number of detections thus outputted from the acquisition unit 22a with the value of the number of detections outputted from the acquisition unit 22a and the comparison unit 22b itself.
The previous value temporarily stored for 2c (initial value is r
OJ) is compared each time.While performing such comparisons, when these values differ, the relative page number with the first page of each document element as page 1 is calculated as 1.
The page number information P described above is the value of the number of detections output from the acquisition unit 22a upon determining that the page has been advanced.
It is output as N to the page information adding device 25. That is, in this comparison section 22b, ■ the document conversion device 20
At the same time as starting up, the initial value “
0” is written.

■When the value "1" corresponding to the first page of the document element is input as the value of the number of detections from the acquisition section 22a, this value "1" and the value "0" stored in the storage section 22c are input. Based on the fact that the numbers are different, it is determined that the relative page number with the first page of each document element as the first page is advanced by one page. Then, the value "1" inputted from the acquisition section 22a is outputted as page number information PN to the page information adding device 25, and the storage section 2
The registered value to 2c is the value input from this acquisition unit 22a (
rlJ).

■Similarly, when the value r2J corresponding to the second page of the document element is manually entered from the acquisition unit 22a as the value of the number of times of detection, this value “2” and the value “2” stored in the storage unit 22c are inputted manually. 1" is different, the page information addition device determines that the relative page number has been advanced by one page, and uses the value "2" input from the acquisition unit 22a as page number information PN. This acquisition unit 22a also outputs the registered value to the memory K22c.
It is updated by the value (r2J) input from .

This operation is repeatedly executed each time the above value is input from the acquisition unit 22a, and when the document conversion device 20 is restarted, that is, another document element is transferred to the document conversion device 2o as the electronic document A. When the data is enumerated and accepted, the initial value "0" is written to the storage unit 22c and reset (returns to the operation of ■).

The page information adding device 25 temporarily stores the two types of page number information PM and PN thus obtained in the common format document buffer 24 along with the page break information PC for each document element that it forms. It will be added to each corresponding position of each document element.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart summarizing the overall operation flow of the document conversion device 20 of this embodiment, centering on page information processing by the page number acquisition device 22 and page information addition device 25. The overall operation of the document conversion device 20 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

Now, as the electronic document A that is desired to be transferred, appropriately listed document elements (here, the 11th to 15th document elements illustrated in FIG. 5)
Assuming that document data for one five pages is sent, the document conversion device 20 temporarily stores this in the enumerated document element buffer 21 (step S1 in FIG. 2).
), conversion of the enumerated document element (stored document element) into the aforementioned "common document format" by the document element conversion device 23 (step 510 in FIG. 2), and the page number acquisition device 22 and page information addition device 25 The page information processing described above (steps 52 to s5 in FIG. 2) is started. Note that the document elements converted into the "common document format" by the document element conversion device 23 are sequentially stored in the common format document buffer 24, but such document element conversion itself is performed as described above. This is well known and will not be explained here.

Now, when processing page information, the page number acquisition device 2
2, on the other hand, acquires page number information PM (-11 to 15), which is page number information actually added to the enumerated document element, through its acquisition unit 22a, and transmits this to the page information addition device. 25, and on the other hand, the above-mentioned comparison process is executed using the detection mode of the page number information PM by the acquisition unit 22a through the comparison unit 22b and the storage unit 22c (step S2 in FIG. 2). As a result of this comparison process, the two values to be compared (storage unit 2
If it is determined that the value corresponding to the number of times of previous page number detection temporarily stored in 2c and the value corresponding to the number of times of page number detection each time are different (step S3 in FIG.
), it is determined that the relative page number with the first page of the enumerated document element as the 1st page has been advanced by one page, and the value input from the acquisition unit 22a (the number of page number detections each time is corresponding value) to the page number information PN (
-1 to 5) (step 54 in FIG. 2). This determined page number information PN is also added to the page information adding device 25, like the page number information PM described above.

As described above, the page information adding device 25 recognizes each page break position of the enumerated document element and forms page break information PC indicating the page break position. Then, the two types of page number information PM and PN added above are added to the formed page break information PC, and this is transferred to the common format document buffer 24 as integrated page information.
Output for. At this time, the page information addition device 25
These page information outputted from the document element conversion device 23 and the document elements converted into the "common document format" outputted from the document element conversion device 23 are stored in the common format document buffer 24 while maintaining a predetermined correlation. be incorporated into. Of course, such processing regarding page information is repeatedly executed for all the document elements listed above (step S in Figure 2).
5).

As a result of the above-described operation of the embodiment document conversion device 20, the common format document buffer 24 stores the following information for each enumerated document element:
Information PC indicating page breaks, information PM indicating the page numbers actually written in these document elements, and information indicating relative page numbers among these document elements with the first document element as the 1st page. Document data to which PN has been properly added in the manner shown in FIG. 3, for example, is temporarily registered, and the document data as shown in FIG. The document is sent as document B' to another document creation device or common format document storage device. Of course, this tool significantly improves the work efficiency even when classifying or re-editing this document using other document creation devices, making it possible to make even more use of the same document data. It means that.

In the above embodiment, the page number retrieval device 2
2 has a comparison unit 22b and a storage unit 22c, and includes a value corresponding to the number of page number detections each time given from the acquisition unit 22a and the previous page number detection temporarily stored in the storage unit 22C. Through the comparison process described above based on the value corresponding to the number of times, page number information PN, which is information indicating relative page numbers between document elements, is obtained and determined. The acquisition method is arbitrary and is not limited to the method of the above embodiment. Alternatively, for example, it is also possible to use a counter means to obtain and determine such page number information PN.

Furthermore, in the same embodiment, as a practically preferable example, both the page number information PM and PN are acquired and both of these page number information are added to the document data together with the page break information PC. , the page number information to be added is based on these page number information PM and P.
Either one of N may be used. This also allows for use in a manner similar to the above, and even when this document data is classified or re-edited using other document creation devices, the work efficiency is sufficiently increased. It becomes like this.

In addition, in the same embodiment, for convenience of explanation, the document conversion device 20 itself is configured to include an enumerated document element buffer 21 and a common format document buffer 24, but regarding these buffers, the sending side device and the receiving side are respectively Of course, it is also possible to have it in the device.

By the way, the document conversion device 20 of the above embodiment is exemplified as a device that converts an electronic document created and edited by a document creation device such as a 7-station into the “common document format”; Once an electronic document is converted into a "common document format" in this way, it is easy to reversely convert it (document reproduction) into the document format of each device with which documents are to be exchanged. In other words, a new agreement for reproducing electronic documents based on the code format predetermined as the above-mentioned "common document format" is established through an appropriate inverse conversion device or at each of the above-mentioned devices to be exchanged. Just go.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, document data listed as transfer requests is converted into a "common document format" with page information suitably added to each document element. is converted to Therefore, even when this document data is classified or re-edited by another document creation device, the work efficiency is significantly improved, and the document data can be further utilized.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of enumerated document elements to be converted in the document conversion apparatus according to the present invention.

1... Document creation device, 2.20... Document conversion device,
21... Enumerated document element buffer, 22... Page number acquisition device, 23... Document element conversion device, 24...
Common format document buffer, 25...Page information addition device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of a document conversion device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation mode of the document conversion device of the embodiment, particularly regarding page information processing, and FIG. , a schematic diagram showing an example of a document data structure converted into a "common document format" by the document conversion device according to the embodiment, and FIG. 4 shows an overview of a document exchange system to which the document conversion device according to the present invention is applied. Block diagram, Figure 2, Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A document conversion device that converts one or more document elements appropriately listed from among electronic documents electronically created and edited by a document creation device into a document format common to other devices. A first page number that is a page number written in each document element from the listed document elements, and a second page number that is a relative page number between the listed document elements. a page number acquisition means for acquiring one or both of the above-mentioned document numbers; and a page number acquisition means that recognizes the page break for each of the listed document elements, and sets this page break for each of the document elements converted into a common document format. page information adding means for adding together the information indicating the page number and the information indicating the page number acquired by the page number acquisition means.