Document editing system and method

Details Document editing system and method Document editing system and method

1997-05-30

2001-03-13

Feild, Joseph H. (Department: 2771)

Data processing: database and file management or data structures

Database design

Data structure types

C707S793000, C345S111000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06202073

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a document editing system and method for editing a document including image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional document editing system, a document which includes not only text data but also image data mixed in text data can be edited. Such a document editing system is realized by operating document-editing application software capable of mixing image data in text data, in a personal computer.
FIG. 14
is a diagram illustrating a conventional document editing system. A description of the conventional document editing system is provided with reference to FIG.
14
. In
FIG. 14
, blocks constituting the document editing system which are required for the system but are not directly necessary for describing the conventinal system are not illustrated.
In
FIG. 14
, reference numeral
301
represents the hardware of the document editing system. The hardware
301
includes a display device
304
including a display unit, such as a CRT (cathode-ray tube), a video board, an input device
306
such as a mouse, a keyboard, a main storage device
307
such as a DRAM (dynamic random access memory) and the like, and a secondary storage device
308
which is a nonvotatile storage device such as a hard-disk drive and hard disks.
An operating system
302
performs total control for effectively utilizing the hardware
301
and an application software group
303
in the document editing apparatus. The operating system
302
simultaneously executes a plurality of application software, such as Windows®95 which is an operating system of the Microsoft®Corporation, and simultaneously displays a plurality of windows, serving as user interfaces of respective applications, on the display device
304
.
In the operating system
302
, a drawing control system
314
displays requested characters, figures, images or other information on the display device
304
in response to a request from certain application software included in the application software group
303
. An input-device control system
315
transmits the user's event input via the input device
306
to an appropriate software module of the system. A memory control system
316
controls reading/writing of data from/to the main storage device
307
. A filing system
317
controls files in the secondary storage device
308
.
An inter-application communication function
318
allows data transmission/reception between applications within the application software group
303
, start of another application, and the like. The OLE2 technology of the Microsoft Corporation is a typical inter-application communication technique. In the application software group
303
, reference numeral
319
represents a document editing application. The document editing application
319
is configured by a data preserving/reading function
322
for preserving and reading document data edited by the user, an image-editing-result displaying function
323
for receiving display data of an image edited in an image editing application
321
from the image editing application
321
by inter-application communication, and displaying the display data on the display device
304
by asking the drawing control system
314
, and an image-editing-application starting function
324
for starting the image editing application
321
by inter-application communication in response to a command input from the user, and other functions which are not clearly shown in
FIG. 14
, such as a text-data editing function and the like.
An image filing application
320
facilitates retrieval of a large number of files stored in the secondary storage device
308
. The image filing application
320
transmits image data of an image data file assigned by the user from among an image data file group
330
of the secondary storage device
308
to the document editing application
319
and the image editing application
321
by inter-application communication function
318
in accordance with the user's assignment. The image editing application
321
performs image processing, such as gradation, color adjustment and the like, for an original image, and image editing, such as drawing of a figure in the original image, and the like. The image editing application
321
is configured by an image-data mapping function
325
for mapping an image received from the image filing application
320
onto the existing image; a data preserving/reading function
326
for writing/reading image data to/from the secondary storage device
308
; a user-interface controlling function
327
for controlling display of an image, menus, the framework of an application, and the like on the display device
304
, and the user's event from the input device
306
; an image editing function group
328
including a plurality of image editing functions, such as the provision of various kinds of image processing filters for gradation, luminance adjustment, color adjustment and the like; and the provision of drawing tools for lines, characters and the like; an image-editing executing function
331
for executing an image editing function from among the image editing function group
328
in accordance with the user's input command; and other functions which are not shown in FIG.
14
.
In the above-described configuration, in the OLE2 technology, an image editing application present at the side of supplying data by inter-application communication is called an “OLE server”, and a document editing application present at the side of receiving data by inter-application communication is called an “OLE container”.
Reference numeral
329
represents a document data file in the secondary storage unit
38
, which is edited by the document editing application
319
, and has a data structure as shown in FIG.
15
. The document data shown in
FIG. 15
is usually document data edited by the user, but may be a document supplied from the software developer provided as a sample when word-processor software is purchased.
In
FIG. 15
, a header-data storing portion
401
stores information, such as the font and colors of each text, the size of a sheet when printing the text, the direction of writing of the text (vertically written or horizontally written), and the like. A text-data storing portion
402
stores text data input by users or the software developer. An image-editing-application-data storing portion
403
(for storing “objects” in the OLE2 technology) includes an image-editing-application-identifying-information storing portion
404
for uniquely recognizing the image editing application for supplying image data by inter-application communication, an image-position-data storing portion
405
for storing information relating to the position and the size of image data in the document data, a display-data storing portion
406
for storing image data to be displayed on the display device
304
, and an image-data storing portion
407
for storing image data to be used by the image editing application assigned by the image-editing-application-identifying-information storing portion
404
(image data of a format not supported by the document editing application may be started, this image data being also called “native data” in the OLE2 technology, which data is not limited to image data).
Reference numeral
408
represents a portion for storing other data which are not important in the description of the conventional system. When a plurality of images are included within a document, the storing portion
408
includes image-editing-application-data storing portions corresponding to the plurality of images.
In current image editing applications, samples of document data files having a structure as shown in
FIG. 15
are, in most cases, included in the application software. The user can easily form a high-quality document without starting the entire design from scratch by correcting a text in one of such sample documents and replacing images.
FIG. 16
illustrates a user interface picture surface of the conventional document editing applica

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