Document Processing System Capable of Simultaneously Displaying Two Continuous Document Pages in Accordance With a Selected Binding Position

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a document processing system which makes document files while displaying characters, figures, symbols, and the like which are inputted. In this invention, all of the characters, figures, symbols, images, and the like are referred to as a document. Namely, "document" may be constituted by only characters or characters, figures, graphs, images, and the like, or only images. The invention may be embodied in a whole system or in a single piece of equipment.

2. Related Background Art

In the case of editing a document of which the files created by a work station or the like were printed by a printer, it is demanded to edit the document with a format such that two sheets of printed matters can be simultaneously seen as a double-spread page consisting of the left and right pages as shown in, e.g., FIG. 1. Namely, in the case of reading the double-spread bound page, if the document is bound to has a format such that the reader must turn over the preceding page or next page to read, the document; further, it is extremely inconvenient to read. Practically speaking, if the headline of "CNNN NEWS REPORT" is edited on the left and right double-spread pages as shown in FIG. 1, this headline can be very easily seen. Unless otherwise, the function as a headline won't be attained. However, according to the conventional display system, the portion which is displayed in a display screen (hereinafter, referred to as a window) is only one page as shown in FIG. 2 (such a display mode is referred to as a mode "A" for convenience of explanation). Therefore, there is the drawback such that the position where the displayed page is printed after it was edited (for example, the left page or right page) cannot be preliminarily known until it is actually printed and bound.

The present invention is made in consideration of the foregoing drawback and intends to provide a document processing system in which when the contents of files are created or edited, the document editing work can be easily performed by enabling the relation of continuous pages and the printing positions which are presumed to be understood at a glance.

Another object of the invention is to provide a document processing system in which, even if a document is edited, desired continuous pages can be outputted without breaking the output format thereof.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a document processing system which creates document files while displaying characters, figures, symbols, and the like which are inputted. The system has a display section to display the files of documents and the like which are divided on a page unit basis, and instructing means for instructing a predetermined display, wherein at least two continuous pages are displayed on one screen (similar to the format after they are printed and bound), thereby enabling the document editing work to be easily performed.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an example of edition of the result of the print output;

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a method for the window display;

FIG. 3 is a fundamental arrangement diagram of an embodiment according to the present invention;

FIG. 4A is a circuit block diagram of the embodiment;

FIG. 4B is a diagram showing a constitution of information in a format information memory;

FIGS. 5A and 5B are diagrams for explaining keys which are added to a keyboard;

FIGS. 6A to 6C are flowcharts for a control procedure of the embodiment;

FIGS. 7 to 10 are diagrams for explaining the window display in the case of the left binding of the result of the print output;

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of edition in the case of the upper binding of the print output result; and

FIGS. 12 to 15 are diagrams for explaining the window display in the case of the upper binding.

The invention will now be described in detail hereinbelow with reference to the drawings.

A document processing system of an embodiment is shown in FIG. 3 as an example of means for accomplishing the foregoing objects. This system comprises a memory 100 to store a document or the like which is divided on a page unit basis; print position deciding unit 101 for outputting a print position displaying information 103 indicative of the printing position of each page; and display unit 102 for displaying the contents of a plurality of pages in the memory 100 and the print position displaying information 103 which is instructed by the print position deciding unit 101.

With this constitution, the print position deciding unit 101 generates the print position displaying information for allowing, for example, the page which is printed on the right side to be displayed on the right side of the display screen and allowing the page which is printed on the left side to be displayed on the left side of the display screen. As another display format, for instance, the indication representative of the right side is further added to the page which is printed on the right side and displayed, and the indication representative of the left side is further added to the page which is printed to the left side and displayed.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described further in detail hereinbelow with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram of a document processing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the diagram, a keyboard 2 is provided to input characters, symbols, and the like. A pointing device, e.g., a mouse 5 is provided as another input means. A CRT 8 displays data in a CRT memory 7. The data displayed on the CRT 8 corresponds one-to-one with the data stored in the CRT memory 7. A file memory 9 stores the document files created. A CPU 3 is a central processing unit to control the embodiment in accordance with a control procedure stored in a program memory 4 and shown in flowcharts of FIGS. 6A and 6B.

The keyboard 2 includes a "left binding" key 20 as shown in FIG. 5A as well as ordinary keys. By depressing the "left binding" key 20, a function according to the embodiment is executed. A page key 21 shown in FIG. 5B is provided to display the designated page number on the CRT 8.

A format information memory 6 stores the following information and its construction is shown in FIG. 4B.

PAGE 12: The page number of the portion which is currently being displayed in the window.

DISP-MAX 13: PAGEMAX

The maximum number of characters which can be displayed in one page.

DAGEMAX 14: The total number of pages of the relevant file.

"LEFT BINDING" FLAG 15:

When this flag is "1", it means that the file is printed so as to have the layout of the double-spread page such that, for example, the odd-number page is printed on the right side (the left edge is used as the binding margin) and the even-number page is printed on the left side (the right edge is used as the binding margin). This flag may be also considered as the flag indicating that the page which is currently being displayed is always printed on the right side of the double-spread page after the edition. The page preceding the page which is currently being displayed is inevitably printed on the left side.

The control operation of the embodiment will now be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 6A and 6B. These flowcharts are based on the assumption that the printed pages are bound like a double-spread page such that the odd-number page is printed on the right side and the even-number page is printed on the left side as shown in FIG. 1. However, the choice of whether the odd-number (evennumber) page is printed on the right (left) side or not is merely a problem of the printing sequence. Therefore, the flowcharts of FIGS. 6A and 6B are merely an example.

First, a check is made in step S1 to see if the operator has selected the editing operation or not. The editing operation is selected by pressing a predetermined key (editing key) in the keyboard 2. If the editing operation is not selected, the other process is executed in step S2.

If the editing operation is selected, step S4 follows and a check is made to see if the input key has been pressed or not. When the page key 21 is pressed, step S6 follows and the operator inputs the number of the page. This input page number is stored into the PAGE block 12 of the format information memory 6. Then, a check is made in step S12 to see if the "LEFT BINDING" flag 15 is "1" or not. In this case, since the "left binding" key 20 is not yet pressed, step S14 follows. In step S14, the display data designated by the content of the PAGE block 12 is shifted from the file memory 9 to the CRT memory 7. The mode "A" (FIG. 2) is displayed in step S16. The processing routine is then returned to step S4. The operator then executes the modification, change, or the like of the picture in step S8 while observing the display of the mode "A".

When the "left binding" key 20 is pressed in step S4, step S10 follows and the "LEFT BINDING" flag 15 is turned over. If this key is pressed for the first time, this flag is set from"0" to "1". Depressing the key 20 again means that the flag 15 is contrarily set from "1" to "0".

When the page key 21 is pressed in step S4 after the "LEFT BINDING" flag 15 was set to "1", the processing routine advances from step S4 to steps S6, S12, and S18. In step S18, a check is made to see if the content of the PAGE 12 in the memory 6 is "1" or not in order to check whether the page which is being displayed is the first page or not. If PAGE="1", the display data indicated by the PAGE 12 is stored into the CRT memory 7 as shown in FIG. 4 in step S20 and displayed with the mode "B" in step S22. As shown in FIG. 7 as well, in the mode "B", the blank (corresponding to the inside of the cover of the book) is displayed in the left window and the content of the first page is displayed in the right window.

If the content of the PAGE 12 is not "1" in step S18, step S24 follows and a check is made to see if the content of the PAGE 12 is an odd number or not. This is because the odd-number page is displayed on the right side of the window and the even number page is displayed on the left side of the window, individually.

If an odd-number page is indicated in Step S24, step S26 follows and the display data indicated by the PAGE block 12 and the display data of the preceding page (which is designated by PAGE-1) are read out of the file memory 9 and arranged as shown in FIG. 8. Then, these display data are stored into the CRT memory 7 and displayed with the mode "C" (FIG. 8) in step S28. In the mode "C", the content of the relevant page is displayed on the right side and the preceding page is displayed on the left side. Namely, the state of the double-spread page after completion of the printing and binding is displayed as it is on the display screen. This display state can be used in a manner such that, for example, when a graph exists in the right page, it is possible to easily check whether the description of this graph exists in the left page or not. If NO, by shifting only the graph to the next page due to the operation in step S8, it is possible to simultaneously see the graph and its description in the state of the double-spread page after completion of the printing and binding.

A check is made in step S30 to see if the designated page is the last page or not. If NO, the designated page (even-number page) is displayed on the left side and the next page is displayed on the right side (mode "D" in FIG. 9) in steps S36 and S38. If the designated page is the last page, the last even-number page is displayed on the left side and a blank is displayed on the right side (mode "E" in FIG. 10) in steps S32 and S34.

In this manner, according to the embodiment, two continuous pages in the format of the double-spread page are simultaneously displayed on one picture screen, so that the document can be edited such that it can be easily read as possible after completion of the printing.

Further, in addition to the above embodiment, if the binding is on the upper side as shown in FIG. 11 an effect similar to the foregoing embodiment can be derived by simultaneously displaying the upper and lower pages on the CRT as shown in FIGS. 13 and 14.

In the foregoing two embodiments, a description has been provided with respect to the case where the width of the preceding or next page (which is displayed together with the relevant designated page) is about 1/3 of the designated page which is displayed. However, the displaying position of the preceding or next page can be also changed by use of a horizontal or vertical scrolling function.

If the display capacity is increased to more than two pages, for example, three pages, and the contents of three pages are displayed, the relation of the documents dispersed in three pages can be seen at a glance, so that the documents can be further easily edited. However, in this case, an indication of whether the page is printed on the left side or right side after completion of the printing is displayed under the display picture of each page.

As described above, not only the designated page but also the pages adjacent thereto are also simultaneously displayed in the window. Thus, the position to which the page being displayed corresponds after it was printed and bound, as shown in FIG. 2 or 11, can be known at a glance while the file is being made. In particular, in the case of using a two-sided printer, the editing as shown in the foregoing examples is frequently executed; therefore, the division display method of the embodiments is very useful and convenient.

As described above, according to the invention, continuous pages can be simultaneously seen in one display screen together with the printing positions when they are printed, so that the document can be very easily created and edited.

The case where the document in the file is read out and subjected to the edition, such as modification and the like, has been described above. However, it is apparent that the operator may want to output both pages (the nth page and the (n+1)th page) including, for example the headline shown in FIG. 1, as the double-spread page when creating the document. In this case, therefore it is sufficient to set the "LEFT BINDING" flag 15 for, e.g., the (n+1)th page upon creating the document. Namely, in the other process in step S2 in FIG. 6A, by setting the (n+1)th page such that it is printed on the right side of the double-spread page when it is outputted in the document creating mode, the nth page is inevitably printed on the left side. The relations of the output positions of a plurality of special pages can be set during the document creating operation. In FIG. 6C, the document file is updated due to the document creating operation in step S39. It is apparent that the process to designate the two-sided print is included here. In the next step S40, a check is made to see if the editing operation shown in step S1 in FIG. 6A has been selected or not during the document making operation. If YES, the processing routine advances to B. If NO, step S41 follows. A check is made in step S41 to see if the left binding key 20 has been inputted or not. If YES, step S42 follows and the "LEFT BINDING" flag is set for the page which is currently being made. Thus, the page which is currently being made can be printed to the right (or left) side of the double-spread page and the preceding page of that page can be inevitably set to the left side of the same double-spread page (or the next page can be set to the right side of the same double-spread page).

As described in detail above, even while the document is being made or the document is being edited, the output format of at least two continuous pages can be designated. Thus, the document can be very easily edited and outputted without breaking a desired output format. In addition, even if the document is modified, it is possible to prevent the output format of two related pages from being broken. In a system which can perform two-sided printing, the invention is further useful.