JP2008077581A - Document management system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To compress a storage capacity when all scanned images are stored.
The document management system of the present invention divides each image of each page obtained by scanning a document composed of a plurality of pages into a plurality of areas for each attribute, and obtains each of the areas obtained by the area division. The difference information is acquired by comparing the page area information with the document information stored in the storage means, and the acquired difference information is stored in the storage means as new version information.
[Selection] Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a document management system capable of version management of a document stored directly in a document management application from a multifunction peripheral having a scanning function.

  In a conventional document management system, after storing a document in a normal document management application, version management is performed after the document is manually opened and changed.

Patent Document 1 describes that a document image is divided into a plurality of areas and managed as content data, but all areas of the scanned image are stored as contents.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 08-147445

  In Patent Document 1, since all areas of a scanned image are stored as contents, the amount of data increases.

  For example, when saving paper documents such as accounting firm tax-related documents or customs clearance forms for each project, not all necessary pages are prepared from the beginning. Some corrections may be necessary. In that case, version management becomes necessary. At this time, in the conventional example, there is a problem in that the disk capacity of the server is compressed because the previous version is stored as it is.

  In order to solve the above problems, a document management system according to the present invention includes a region dividing unit that divides each image of each page obtained by scanning a document composed of a plurality of pages into a plurality of regions for each attribute. The difference information acquisition means for acquiring the difference information by comparing the area information of each page obtained by the area dividing means and the document information stored in the storage means, and the difference information acquisition means Storage control means for storing the difference information in the storage means as new version information.

  In the present invention, when the document page configuration is the same, only the difference pages or the difference blocks need be stored in version management, and the disk capacity of the document management server can be used efficiently.

  Further, the user only has to select the storage destination and the document to be updated when scanning the changed document, and there is no need to manually perform version management operations after storing.

(Example 1)
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  It is assumed that the multifunction peripheral and the document management server are in the same network configured with a LAN. Further, the document management server is accompanied by a Web server, and it is possible to select a storage destination and a document to be updated in the document management application via the Web server by a function equivalent to a browser from the multifunction peripheral.

  FIG. 1 shows an outline of a document management system according to an embodiment of the simplest configuration of the present invention. A multifunction machine having a single scan function, a document management server, and a Web server are mounted on a server machine. Connected via network.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the document management system shown in FIG. In the figure, reference numeral 1 has an image reading function for scanning a user's document and transmitting it to a document storage application via a network. Further, a function similar to a browser accesses a combination of a document management server and a Web server, and is managed by the document management application. A document management application for storing and managing a document sent from the multifunction device 1, and a multifunction device capable of selecting a document storage destination and selecting a document to be version-managed, Further, the document management server can allow the multifunction peripheral to select a document storage destination and a document to be version-controlled by a combination of Web servers.

  21 of the document management server 2 uses a software as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 to execute a document storage process or a process for updating a document subject to version management in the procedure as shown in FIG. , 22 is a ROM storing basic software such as the BIOS of FIG. 3, 23 is a RAM for temporarily loading the software shown in FIG. 3 or 4 from the HD 24 and allowing the CPU 21 to execute it, and 24 is the RAM of FIG. An HD storing the OS, a document storage application, and a Web server, 25 is an input device for operating the UI when executing the software shown in FIG. 3 or FIG. 4, and 26 is the software shown in FIG. A monitor for displaying UI, execution status, and the like, and 27 is a network I / F for connecting the document management server 2 to the LAN. .

  FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of software operating on the document management server 2 of the present embodiment. The operation control of the hardware of each component on the document management server 2 is performed by the BIOS and the OS. Communication on the LAN is performed using, for example, TCP / IP, and the protocol is handled by the OS.

  FIG. 4 is a module configuration diagram of the document storage application. The version management unit creates / updates difference information and version management information from the document selected as the target of version management by the multifunction peripheral and the newly stored document. The document management unit performs processing for storing a document sent from the multi-function peripheral in a designated storage location and processing for managing the stored document. The Web control unit provides a function for selecting a storage destination and a function for selecting a document to be subjected to version management to the multi-function peripheral via the Web server, and also receives a scan document from the multi-function peripheral via the Web server. The overall control unit cooperates with data exchange among the version management unit, document management unit, and Web control unit.

  FIG. 5 shows the structure of the document image and version management information in the document management application.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of selecting a storage destination, selecting a target document for version management, scanning, disassembling a scanned document, and transmitting a scanned document in the present embodiment.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a procedure for storing document images, pages, and blocks and updating version management information when storing a document in the document management application in this embodiment.

  The document management system will be described below with reference to FIGS.

  First, in the multifunction device 1, in step S 61 in FIG. 6, the user operates an operation panel having a function similar to the browser of the multifunction device 1, and accesses the Web server from the LAN through the network I / F 27 in the document management server 2. Then, storage location information including the folder structure of the document management application is acquired from the Web control of the document management server, and a storage location folder is selected. In step S62, a document to be subjected to version management in the storage folder is further selected. In step S63, the set document is scanned, and in step S64, each page of the document that is an image is decomposed into area blocks for each attribute such as a figure and text. Each block decomposed at this time is filed as one document in a file format such as PDF. Finally, in step S65, the image of the document to be stored is transmitted as a file to the document management application via the Web server via a protocol such as HTTP.

  On the other hand, the document management application is waiting to receive a document in step S71. When a document is received, the received document file is transferred from the Web control unit to the document management unit under the control of the overall control unit. . In step S72, storage processing is performed, and the document file is placed in the selected folder.

  In step S73, the version management unit shown in FIG. 4 compares the configuration of the selected version management target document file with the document page. The simplest way to compare is whether the number of pages is the same. If they are different, the process proceeds to step S74, the transmitted document file is stored as it is as the latest version, and the process returns to step S71. Later versions will be compared to this document file.

  If they are the same, the process proceeds to step S75 to compare the block configuration in units of pages. If the block configuration is different, the process proceeds to step S76, and the page is stored as a difference. If they are the same, the process proceeds to step S77, and the contents of the blocks in the page are compared. For comparison of the contents of each block, for example, image comparison using an image recognition technique can be considered. If the contents of the block are different, the process proceeds to step S78 and the block is stored as a difference. The processing from step S75 to S78 is repeated until the last page while checking in step S79. When the processing of the last page is completed, the process returns to step S71 and enters a document file reception waiting state.

  In FIG. 5, the version number of the document that has been scanned and stored is set to 1.0 in the sense of the first version, and the entire page 2 is changed and the block 2 and the page 7 of the page 5 are changed with the document as a version management target. Block 1 shows the relationship between the original document file and the version management information when a paper document that has been changed is scanned and stored.

  In the present invention, when the document page configuration is the same, only the difference pages or the difference blocks need be stored in version management, and the disk capacity of the document management server can be used efficiently.

  The user only has to select the storage destination and the document to be updated when scanning the changed document, and there is no need to manually perform version management operations after the storage.

(Other examples)
Although the embodiments have been described in detail above, the present invention can take an embodiment as, for example, a system, apparatus, method, program, or storage medium (recording medium). For example, the present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices, or may be applied to an apparatus composed of a single device. In addition, the present invention may be configured by hardware such as an electronic circuit, or may be controlled in part or in whole using a computer and a program. Moreover, the form using the memory provided in the function expansion board inserted in the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer may be used.

  When the present invention is realized by a computer program, the program (a program corresponding to the flowchart in the embodiment) is supplied directly or remotely to the system or apparatus. Then, the present invention is realized by the computer of the system or apparatus reading and executing the supplied program code. Accordingly, the program code itself installed in the computer also implements the present invention. In that case, as long as it has the function of a program, it may be in the form of object code, a program executed by an interpreter, script data supplied to the OS, or the like.

  As a method for supplying the computer program, various computer-readable recording media such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, and a semiconductor memory can be used.

  As another program supply method, the program can be supplied by downloading it from the Internet to a recording medium such as a hard disk using a computer browser or the like. That is, it can be supplied by downloading the computer program itself of the present invention or a compressed file including an automatic installation function from the Internet. It can also be realized by dividing the program code constituting the program of the present invention into a plurality of files and downloading each file from a different server. In other words, a server that can download a program file for realizing the functional processing of the present invention on a computer to a plurality of users is also included in the present invention.

1 is an overview of a document management system according to the present embodiment. The block diagram which shows the structure of a present Example. The software block diagram of the document management server of a present Example. The module block diagram of the document management application of a present Example. An example of an original document and version control information. 6 is a flowchart illustrating processing in the multifunction machine according to the present exemplary embodiment. 6 is a flowchart illustrating processing in the document management application according to the embodiment.

Claims (2)

Area dividing means for dividing each image of each page obtained by scanning a document composed of a plurality of pages into a plurality of areas for each attribute;
Difference information acquisition means for acquiring difference information by comparing the area information of each page obtained by the area dividing means and the document information stored in the storage means;
Storage control means for storing the difference information acquired by the difference information acquisition means in the storage means as new version information;
A document management system comprising:   In the difference information acquisition means, when the configuration of the page included in the document is changed, all the pages of the scanned document are acquired as the difference information, the page configuration is not changed and the page If the configuration of the area within is changed, the changed page is acquired as the difference information, the page configuration and the area configuration within the page are not changed, and the contents of each area are changed. The document management system according to claim 1, wherein the changed area is acquired as the difference information.

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