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US 5,179,646 AGranted
Frame processing system capable of expanding and contracting a frame
AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsYasushi Kawakami, Keiichi Hirata, Tomoko Miura, Yoshimi Itagaki, Tomohiro Ban, Akihiro Furukawa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A frame processing system is capable of expanding and contracting a frame having a plurality of frame lines to define a plurality of areas. One of the areas can be expanded or contracted without expanding or contracting the other areas. One of the frame lines is designated by a cursor, for example, and the designated frame line is moved together with the cursor on the display. At this time, all the other frame lines connected to the designated frame line are automatically expanded or contracted to maintain the connection therebetween.
Claims12
A frame processing system for an electronic word processing system capable of expanding and contracting a matrix-like defined table frame having a plurality of vertical and horizontal lines defined by the same line creating mode to define a plurality of areas, comprising:
- a display device having a screen for displaying said table frame;
- table frame expansion/contraction commanding means operable during a data input mode for selectively commanding one of expansion and contraction of said table frame in one direction from a group of directions consisting of vertical, horizontal and both simultaneously;
- frame line designating means operable during the data input mode for designating at least one of said vertical and horizontal frame lines as a designated frame line to be moved on said screen for said one of expansion and contraction of said table frame;
- and
- expansion/contraction processing means for parallelly moving said at least one designated frame line in a direction different from a longitudinal direction of said at least one designated frame line when a command for said one of expansion and contraction of said frame is supplied from said table frame expansion/contraction commanding means to said expansion/contraction processing means, wherein when the command for expansion is supplied, all of said areas defined between a first frame line of said at least one designated frame line running in a one of the vertical and horizontal directions and an adjacent frame line parallel to said first frame line are expanded in a first direction in such a manner that all frame lines transversely connected to said first frame line are expanded in said first direction to maintain connection therebetween without expanding any areas not defined by said first frame line, while when the command for contraction is supplied, all of said areas defined between said first frame line and an adjacent frame line parallel to said first frame line are contracted in a second direction in such a manner that all frame lines transversely connected to said designated frame line are contracted in said second direction to maintain connection therebetween without contracting any areas not defined by said first frame line, wherein a second frame line of said at least one designated frame line can also be one of expanded in a third direction and contracted in a fourth direction in an action corresponding to expansion and contraction of said first frame line such that only areas defined by at least one of said first frame line and said second frame line are respectively expanded and contracted and so to are all frame lines transverse to each said frame line being expanded or contracted.
2 more elements
A frame processing system for an electronic word processing system capable of expanding and contracting a matrix-like defined table frame to be printed having a plurality of frame lines stored in a memory wherein each frame line corresponds to characters to be printed to define an area, comprising:
- a display device having a screen for displaying said table frame;
- table frame expansion/contraction commanding means operable during a data input mode for selectively commanding one of expansion and contraction of said table frame;
- table frame line designating means for designating at least one of said frame lines as a designated frame line to be moved on said screen for said one of expansion and contraction of said table frame;
- and
- expansion/contraction processing means for parallelly moving said designated frame line in a direction different from a longitudinal direction of said designated frame line without changing a length of said designated frame line when a command for said one of expansion and contraction is supplied from said table frame expansion/contraction commanding means to said expansion/contraction processing means, wherein when the command for expansion is supplied, all frame lines connected to said designated frame line are expanded so as to expand an area inside said table frame and adjacent to said designated frame line, while when the command for contraction is supplied, all frame lines connected to said designated frame line are contracted so as to contract an area inside said frame line and adjacent to said designated frame line, wherein a second designated frame line of said at least one of said frame lines can also be one of expanded and contracted in an action corresponding to expansion and contraction of said designated frame line such that only areas defined by at least one of said designated frame line and said second designated frame line are respectively expanded and contracted and so to are all frame lines transverse to said second designated frame line in a manner identical to that of said designated frame line, said expansion/contraction processing means comprising a central processing unit, a ROM including a program memory storing a control program which controls expansion and contraction of said frame, and a RAM including a vertical frame line position memory means for storing position data of vertical frame lines constituting said frame and a frame line memory means for storing vertical and horizontal frame line data indicative of orientation of vertical and horizontal frame lines.
2 more elements
A frame processing system for an electronic word processing system capable of expanding and contracting a matrix-like defined table frame to be printed having a plurality of frame lines stored in a memory wherein each frame line corresponds to characters to be printed to define an area, comprising:
- a display device having a screen for displaying said table frame;
- table frame expansion/contraction commanding means operable during a data input mode for selectively commanding one of expansion and contraction of said table frame;
- a cursor means operable during the data input mode for designating at least one of said frame lines as a designated frame line to be moved on said screen for said one of expansion and contraction of said frame, said cursor means being positioned adjacent to at least one of said frame lines to be designated and being moved together with said designated frame line;
- and
- expansion/contraction processing means for parallelly moving said designated frame line in a direction different from a longitudinal direction of said designated frame line without changing a length of said designated frame line when a command for said one of expansion and contraction of said frame is supplied from said table frame expansion/contraction commanding means to said expansion/contraction processing means, wherein when the command for expansion is supplied, all frame lines connected to said designated frame line are expanded so as to expand an area inside said frame and adjacent to said designated frame line, while when the command for contraction is supplied, all frame lines connected to said designated frame line are contracted so as to contract an area inside said frame and adjacent to said designated frame line, wherein said cursor means may be positioned adjacent a second designated frame line and said second designated frame line can also be one of expanded and contracted in an action corresponding to expansion and contraction of said designated frame line such that only areas defined by at least one of said designated frame line and said second designated frame line are respectively expanded and contracted and so to are frame lines transverse to each of said designated frame line and said second designated frame line.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.