JPH0333895A - Font plotting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To display a character of small points with an outline font and to form a font speedily and readily by providing outline font data suitable for the resolution of an output device. CONSTITUTION:This device has the outline font data suitable for the resolutions of output devices such as a display device 18 and a printer 20. According to resolution specified by resolution specifying means 12 and 13, when a high resolution is specified, the control means 10 reads outline font data with high resolution out of storage means 17 and 21, whereas if a low resolution is specified, the control means 10 reads outline fort data with low resolution, and plots a bit map font for a desired character. In such a way, outline font data with suitable resolution is selected from the storage means 17 and 21, and the outline bit map font can be plotted. Thus, a font can be plotted speedily and readily.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a font drawing device that draws and creates a desired bitmap font from pre-stored outline font data that forms the contours of characters.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of device has one type of outline font data, and when creating a bitmap font for display to be output to a low-resolution display device such as a CRT, it is also necessary to create a bitmap font for output to a high-resolution printer. When creating a bitmap font, select the desired bitmap font from the same outline font data.
1, li images were created, and characters with black outlines were created from the created bitmap font and output to the display device or printer.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, the above font drawing device creates a bitmap font for characters using the same outline font data regardless of the resolution, so for example, when creating a character with a small point on a display device, the outline font When using font data, the characters created will be blurred and cannot be separated by ill.
It was not possible to perform functions such as transformation/correction, which are characteristics of outline fonts. In addition, when executing functions such as the above-mentioned transformation/correction, there was a method that separately stored a dot font and drove the above-mentioned dot font to perform the above-mentioned transformation/correction. There was a problem in that the displayed image and the printed image of the printer were different, and the user could not obtain the desired character image. Furthermore, the above-described method also has the problem that it takes time to distinguish and display the dots that make up the characters, which slows down the display time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and has outline font data suitable for the resolution of each output device such as a display device or printer, and even when displaying small point characters, the outline font is displayed. A font drawing device that makes it possible to perform functions such as transformation/correction using outline fonts, making font creation quick and easy, and making the displayed and printed images the same as the user desires. The challenge is to provide the following.

[Means for resolving issues]

In the present invention, in a font drawing device that stores outline font data constituting the outline of a character pattern in advance and draws and creates a bitmap font of a desired character in a real memory etc. according to the outline font data, at least a high resolution , a storage means such as a disk or ROM that stores the outline font data of two different resolutions (low resolution) in separate memory areas, and a resolution of a keyboard, mouse, etc. that specifies the resolution of the output character. and a control means such as a central processing unit that reads and controls outline font data of a predetermined resolution from the storage means in accordance with the specified resolution.

[Effect]

The control means has outline font data suitable for the resolution of each output device such as a display device or a printer, and according to the resolution specified by the resolution specifying means, for example, in the case of specifying a high resolution, the control means selects the high resolution from the storage means. (Read out the soft outline font data, and in the case of low resolution, read out the low resolution outline font data from the storage means, and draw and create a bitmap font of the desired character.

Therefore, by selecting outline font data of appropriate resolution from the storage means and drawing an outline bitmap font, the font can be drawn and created quickly and easily.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail based on the drawings of FIGS. 1 and 2.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a font drawing device according to the present invention. In the figure, keyboard/7
The mouse 8 part 11 stores various data including data and commands for specifying resolution and deforming/correcting outline fonts according to the present invention from the keyboard 12 and the mouse 13 connected to the keyboard 12; Commands are controlled manually.

The central processing unit 10 (hereinafter referred to as rcPUj) controls the keyboard/mouse control section 1 according to the commands manually input from the keyboard/mouse control #11 and the corresponding program.
1. It collectively controls each control section such as the disk control section 14 and the display control section 15, and each memory such as the real memory 16 and ROM 21, and executes predetermined calculations, processing, etc.

The real memory 16 is composed of a RAM, and stores therein an operating program for operating the system, a group of commands manually input from the keyboard 12 or the mouse 13, and a part of the group of data as necessary.

The disk 17 and ROM 21 store data that cannot be stored in the real memory 16, such as outline font data (hereinafter referred to as "outline data") according to the present invention. There are, for example, two types of outline data: ] is high-quality outline data created using straight lines and Bezier curves (cubic curves) in order for a high-resolution output device (printer 20 to be described later) to perform high-quality printing. Outline data for resolution, 6
Bitmap fonts with characters larger than 4 dots (
Hereinafter referred to as "font". ).

The other is a low-resolution output device (display device 1 described later).
8) is low-resolution outline data created using straight lines as the main character (B-splines (quadratic curves) are used only when straight lines cannot be interpolated) for high-speed drawing, and is available in 16 dots to 500 dots. It is used to draw fonts of characters up to a certain level. The above two types of outline data are stored separately in different predetermined memory areas of the disk 17 or ROM 21. The disk 17 also stores drawn fonts and the like. The data stored in the disk 17 and ROM 21 is read out from the disk 17 or ROM 21 as necessary under the control of the CPU 10 and stored in the real memory 16.

The display control unit 15 controls a display device 18 made of a CRT, and displays outline font data in the real memory 16, character outlines and font patterns corresponding to the transformed/corrected fonts, and windows corresponding to various functions. etc. will be displayed.

In the font h'6 image device with the above configuration, the keyboard 12
Alternatively, using the mouse 13, it is possible to select and instruct one of the two types of outline data stored in the disk 17 and ROM 21 to draw it. This will be explained in detail based on the flowchart in FIG.

In the figure, upon accepting a request for an outline font from a user via the keyboard 12 or mouse 13 (step 101), the CPU 10 analyzes whether the request is for a high-resolution outline font (step 102).

If the request is for a high-resolution outline font, the corresponding high-resolution outline data is read from a predetermined memory area of the disk 17 or ROM 21 and stored in the real memory 16 (step 103). Then, a font pattern of characters corresponding to the read outline data is created by stroke drawing or the like (step 105). In addition, if the above request is not a request for a high resolution outline font but a request for a low resolution outline font, the corresponding low resolution outline data is read from a predetermined memory area of the disk 17 or ROM 21 and is stored in the real memory. 16 (step 104). Then, a font pattern of characters corresponding to the read outline data is created by stroke drawing or the like (step 105).

That is, when printing characters on the printer 20,
When selecting and instructing high-resolution outline data to be displayed on the display device 18, selecting and instructing low-resolution outline data causes the CPU to select and display it on the display device 18.
10 is read from the disk 17 or the ROM 21 and stored in the real memory 16,
It is possible to draw and create a font pattern for white characters corresponding to the outline data read above, and then, for example, by converting all the dot information in the font pattern to "1", it is possible to create a fill that fills in the outline of the character. After performing an operation to generate black characters, or after performing transformation/modification on the drawn font pattern, the filling operation can be performed to generate black characters. The black characters can be output to the display device 18 or printer 20 specified by the user under the control of the CPU10.

Therefore, in the present invention, if low-resolution outline data is used, even when displaying characters with small points, the above-mentioned outline font can be used.
If you create outline data for high resolution and low resolution using the same image data, the displayed and printed images of each character output by the display device and printer can be the same image that the user desires. can do.

In addition, in the above embodiment, the case where outline data for high resolution and low resolution is possessed was explained.
The present invention is not limited to the above case, but it is also possible to create a font by having outline data of three or more different resolutions and selecting the outline data of a desired resolution as appropriate.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, in the present invention, it is possible to have outline font data suitable for the solution (softness) of each output device such as a display device and a printer, so even when displaying characters with small points, outline font data can be used. This makes it possible to perform functions such as transformation/correction using outline fonts on characters at any point, making font creation quick and easy, as well as allowing users to customize display and print images. You can create the same image you want.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a font-anchor drawing device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining outline data selection and horizontal placement operations of the font horizontal side device of FIG. 1. . 10... Central processing unit, 11... Keyboard/mouse control unit, 12... Keyboard, 13... Mouse,
14...Disk control unit, 15...Display control unit, 1
6... Real memory, 17... Disk, 18... Display device, one... Printer control unit, 20... Printer, 21... RM

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A font drawing device that stores outline font data constituting the outline of a character pattern in advance and draws and creates a bitmap font of a desired character according to the outline font data. storage means for storing the outline font data of a resolution; resolution specifying means for specifying the resolution of the characters to be output; and control for reading and controlling the outline font data of a predetermined resolution from the storage means according to the specified resolution. A font drawing device characterized by comprising means.