Method and system for producing from document image a form display with blank fields and a program to input data to the blank fields

A method or producing a form document, the method comprising the steps of:

• recognizing from an original document image, a layout of character and line patterns constituting a document, and storing a recognition result as physical structure data of the document;
• converting the layout of the character and line patterns recognized in said recognizing step into a second layout of a form including at least one blank field modified to correspond to an integral multiple of a basic pitch of a cursor movement responsive to an input operation of character or numeric data on a display screen and storing a conversion result as normalized document data;
• presenting on the display screen a form display having the second layout created from the normalized document data;
• displaying characters or numerals inputted by the user in said modified blank field in the form display;
• and
• combining the data of characters or numerals inputted by the user in said displaying step with the physical structure data of the document and outputting a combined result to a printer, to thereby produce a form document filled with data.

A method of inputting data by use of a form display having a plurality of blank input/output fields in which data items are to be set, the method comprising the steps of:

• recognizing a layout of character and line patterns constituting a form from an original form image to store in a memory a recognition result as physical structure data of the form;
• analyzing the physical structure data to detect data input/output fields included in the form and item names associated with the respective data input/output fields;
• referencing, based on the detected item names, a knowledge base to determine for each said input/output field a field attribution indicating an output source or a generation rule of data to be set thereto;
• presenting on a display screen a form display created based on the physical structure data;
• and
• achieving, for each said data input/output field included in the form display presented on the display screen, data processing associated with the field attribution thereof to set in the data input/output field a data manually supplied from the user or a data automatically generated.

A method of automatically generating a program for setting data in a form display having a plurality of blank input/output fields to be loaded with data, the method comprising the steps of:

• recognizing from an image of a form document having a plurality of input/output fields, physical structure data denoting a layout of character and line patterns constituting a form document;
• analyzing the physical structure data to detect a plurality of input/output fields for use in data input/output operations and at least one fixed field including therein a character string indicating an item name;
• examining a positional relation between the fixed field and the input/output fields to determine for each said input/output field an item name of data to be set thereto;
• determining for each input/output field, based on the item name of data and a knowledge base, a field attribution indicating an input source or a generation rule of data to be set in the input/output field;
• and
• automatically generating a program for the user to input data to blank input/output fields of the form display presented on the display screen based on the field attributions and the physical structure data.

A data processing system for inputting data to a form display presented in a display screen comprising:

• first memory means for storing therein image data of a form having a plurality of blank fields in which character or numeric data are to be placed;
• display means provided with a display screen for presenting the form display;
• input means for inputting character and/or numeric data;
• and
• control means for achieving a control operation such that data supplied from said input means is inputted to a blank field indicated by a cursor in the form display presented in the display screen;
• said control means including:
• means for recognizing based on the form image stored in said first memory means a layout of a plurality of character and line patterns constituting a form and for producing physical structure data of the form;
• and
• means for producing normalized form data from the physical structure data of the form by modifying the layout of the character and line patterns to correspond to an integral multiple of the basic pitch of the cursor movement responsive to an input operation of character or numeric data on the display screen,
• the normalized form data defining a form display to be presented on the display screen for a data input operation.

A data processing system for inputting data to a form display presented in a display screen comprising:

• first memory means for storing therein image data of a form document having a plurality of blank fields for setting therein character or numeric data;
• display means provided with a display screen for presenting a form display;
• input means for inputting character and/or numeric data;
• second memory means for storing therein a plurality of data records;
• knowledge base means loaded, for each word or term, with knowledge information of a plurality of items;
• control means for achieving a control operation of data inputs to blank fields in the form display presented in the display screen;
• said control means including:
• first means for recognizing based on the form document image stored in said first memory means a layout of a plurality of the character and line patterns constituting a form document and for producing physical structure data of the form document;
• second means for analyzing the physical structure data to detect data input fields included in the form document and item names associated with said data input fields;
• third means for referencing based on the item names the knowledge base and for respectively detecting for said input field attributions indicating input sources or generation rules of data to be set to the input fields;
• and
• fourth means for automatically producing based on the field attributions a program for inputting data to blank data input fields of the form display defined by the physical structure data and presented on the display screen, wherein
• when the program is executed, data inputted from said input means by the operator, data of either one of the items included in a data record read out from said second memory means, and data obtained through a calculation are selectively set to the blank input fields of the form display.

A method of automatically generating a program for setting data in a form display having a plurality of blank fields to be filled with data, the method comprising the steps of:

• recognizing from an image of a form document having a plurality of fields, physical structure data denoting a layout of the form document;
• analyzing the physical structure data by referring to a knowledge base to obtain logical structure data denoting attributions of respective fields in said document and relations between said fields;
• and
• automatically generating based on said logical structure data and said physical structure data a program for presenting a form display on a display screen and for setting data in blank fields of said form display in response to an user's data input operations.