Character input apparatus and method, and a recording medium

Details Character input apparatus and method, and a recording medium Character input apparatus and method, and a recording medium

1999-10-13

2003-04-01

Edwards, Jr., Timothy (Department: 2654)

Coded data generation or conversion

Bodily actuated code generator

C341S022000, C704SE21020, C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06542090

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD PERTINENT TO THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a character input apparatus and method that uses a plurality of character input means, such as keyboard and voice input device, for word processing and for inputting Japanese and English characters. This invention also relates to a recording medium.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In general purpose computers such as personal computers and workstations, character input is made using a keyboard.
In recent years, it has become possible to enter handwritten characters using a mouse and to use voice for entering characters.
The character input procedure normally involves inputting characters representing the pronunciation such as in Japanese hiragana by a keyboard and converting the hiragana into Chinese kanji and, for kanji whose pronunciation is not known to the user, a handwritten character is used to enter that kanji. In this way, the character inputting is becoming easy for the user.
With the character input apparatus of this kind, however, when character input devices with different input methods, such as keyboard, voice input device and handwritten character input device, are used in combination, each input device needs to finalize the input character. For example, when a word “
(Tokyo)” n a character string of “
(Tokyo station)” is entered by a keyboard and a word “
(station)” is entered by using a handwritten character input device, the user performs the following operation. First, the user enters “
(Tokyo)” in Japanese hiragana from the keyboard and presses a kanji conversion key, which causes a plurality of possible kanji candidates to be displayed. Then the user selects “
” to which he or she wants the entered hiragana to be converted.
Next, by using the handwritten character input device, the user enters a character pattern of “
” with a mouse. In this case too, possible kanji candidates are displayed and the user selects a desired one.
With this kind of a character input apparatus, input characters conventionally are finalized by each of a keyboard, a handwritten character input device and a speech recognition device, and a string of the finalized characters is handed over to word processing software. Hence, when for example a particular character key on the keyboard should become unusable, the handwritten character input device cannot be used Instead of the character key. For example, in the case of “
(Tokyo Station)” described above, when “
(denoted “TO”In romanized alphabet)” cannot be entered from the corresponding key and is entered from the handwritten character input device, the character input apparatus handles “
” as a finalized character and cannot use it as an unfinalized character that can be converted into kanji.
When two or more character strings are entered through different character input means, final characters must be selected from among candidate converted characters for each input means, which makes the user operation complicated.


REFERENCES:
patent: 6073146 (2000-06-01), Chen

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