Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Character or font
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-21
2004-11-09
Wallerson, Mark (Department: 2626)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Character or font
C358S001110, C358S001900, C715S252000, C715S252000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06816268
ABSTRACT:
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 11-237633 filed on Aug. 24, 1999, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to techniques for printing and displaying a multiplicity of character strings on one printing plane such as a sheet of paper. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a printed matter which is novel in printing form and which is capable of presenting desired character strings selected from the multiplicity of character strings, owing to a change of a distance between an observer and the printed matter, as well as a change of a view point of the observer on the printing plane.
The present invention is also concerned with a method and an apparatus for effectively printing such a printed matter.
2. Description of the Related Art
As one type of information providing media, there has been widely used printed matters in which character strings, such as words and sentences, are fixedly printed on printing planes made of paper or a resin material for presenting specific meanings or contents of the information, owing to their excellent utility, and their advantages in storage and handling. Most of these conventional printed matters as represented by books, are constructed on a premise that the observer obtains from the printed matter a desired character strings by reading through the printed matter from the top thereof in the order of the description, or alternatively, by manually selecting and limiting the information provided by the printed matter. That is, the conventional printed matter are arranged on the basis of a so-called “sequential access method”, so that the observer is required to change or move his or her own view point on the printing plane along the lines of character strings so as to select or obtain the desired character strings.
Recent remarkable development of computer technology makes it possible to provide such information consisting of the multiplicity of character strings by means of a computer system. For instance, a computer graphics technology may be utilized for displaying three-dimensional image on a display of a display device such as a CRT Display device. This makes it possible to map the multiplicity of character strings on respective positions of a three dimensional coordinate as a virtual space, and displaying the virtual space on the display of the display devise, so that the observer can recognize the virtual space, as if his or her view point moves on the three dimensional space. Therefore, the computer graphics is capable of selectively showing the multiplicity of character strings on one display.
However, the conventional printed matter as described above is adapted to provide a stable display, and is incapable of providing a dynamic display like in the computer graphics technology as described above. The conventional printed matter once printed does not change dynamically, thereby suffering from a problem of difficulty in providing the dynamic display. This drawback of the conventional printed matter results in that the conventional printed matter is limited in display formats in comparison with the display provided by utilizing the computer graphics techniques, although the conventional printed matter is advantageous in terms of utility, storage and handling.
For the above reasons, it is impossible to provide a printed matter which is printed on a single printing plane and is capable of drawing an observer's attention initially to the character strings of higher ranking, e.g., the character strings having higher degrees of importance, and then to the character strings of lower ranking, e.g., the character strings having lower degrees of importance, such that the character strings are recognized gradually by the observer from the ones having the higher degrees of importance to the ones having the lower degrees of importance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a first object of the present invention to provide a printed matter having a novel form wherein a multiplicity of character strings are printed in a single printing plane, and which permits an observer to selectively obtain or recognize desired character strings, on the basis of a predetermined ranking of the character stings, e.g., a ranking of degrees of importance of the character strings.
It is a second and a third object of the present invention to provide a printing method and a printing apparatus arranged for providing such a printed matter of the present invention.
It is a fourth object of the present invention to provide computer readable media for supplying a computer program to a computer system so that the computer system executes the printing method of the present invention.
The above first, second, third and fourth objects may be achieved according to the following modes (1)-(2), (3)-(9), (10) and (11)-(12) of the invention, respectively, each of which is numbered like the appended claims and depends from the other mode or modes, where appropriate, to indicate possible combinations of elements or technical features of the invention. However, it is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to those modes of the invention and combinations of the technical features, but may be otherwise recognized based on the thought of the present invention that disclosed in the whole specification and drawings or that may be recognized by those skilled in the art in the light of the disclosure in the whole specification and drawings.
(1) A printed matter comprising: a multiplicity of character strings such as words or sentences being printed on a single printing plane according to a ranking of said character strings determined based on a predetermined rule; the character strings being printed at respective font sizes which vary gradually in order of the ranking of the character strings; and at least two of the character strings being superposed on each other in which one of the two character strings whose font size is smaller than that of the other character string is provided with a fringe at a superposed portion thereof.
In the printed matter of the present invention, the multiplicity of character strings are printed at respective font sizes which vary gradually in order of the ranking of the character strings. If the observer observe the printed matter from a distance (hereinafter referred to as a “distant observation”), character strings printed at the smaller font sizes are likely to be illegible, so that the observer can observe substantially only character strings printed at the larger font sizes. On the other hand, the observer can observe such illegible character strings in the order from the larger font sized character string to the smaller font sized character strings, as the observer comes closer to the printed matter, or brings the printed matter close to his or her eyes (hereinafter referred to as a “nearsighted observation”). Once the observer is conscious or aware of the character strings having smaller font sizes, his or her degree of consciousness of the character strings having larger font sizes is accordingly reduced, leading to that the larger font sized character strings become illegible.
In particular, the present printed matter includes the plurality of character strings which are printed while being mutually superposed. In this case, the distant observation of the printed matter by the observer permits that the observer recognizes only the character strings printed at the larger font sizes, since the character strings printed at the smaller font sizes are superposed on the character strings printed at the larger font sizes and are seen as a part of the character strings printed at the larger font sizes. In addition, the character strings printed at smaller font size are provided with a fringe. In the distant observation, the fringes provided in the character strings having smaller font sizes also becomes illegible, permitting the observer observes only the character strings havin
Creative Brains, K.K.
Ebrahimi Saeid
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Wallerson Mark
LandOfFree
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