Abstract:
An information processing apparatus comprises a first input device capable of inputting character information, a second input device capable of inputting coordinates, and a handwritten character recognizing unit which recognizes character information based on the coordinates input by the second input device.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
         [0001]    This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-020553, filed Jan. 29, 2003, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0003]    The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus comprising an input device and a display device capable of performing a word processor function, and to a method of inputting a character.  
           [0004]    2. Description of the Related Art  
           [0005]    Portable personal computers of a notebook type or laptop type have recently been provided with a pointing device which enables, for example, a mouse pointing operation and a numeric key input operation (e.g., refer to Japanese Patent KOKAI Publication No. 2000-339097).  
           [0006]    Here, an LCD is disposed behind a touch pad made of a transparent material. The touch pad is used as the pointing device to specify a position on an LCD screen, thereby inputting a trajectory of a point. The pointing device is used to input a movement trajectory of an index (pointer) which is displayed on the display screen of the LCD and moved in response to an input operation. The pointing device of this kind is capable of various screen operations, for example, movement control of a mouse pointer displayed on a display device and selection of a display button, by performing a pointing operation on a touch pad such as a touch movement operation and a tap operation.  
           [0007]    On the other hand, in personal computers having a word processor function, document input is commonly achieved by keyboard operation. Under the present circumstances, document input can be most efficiently accomplished by the keyboard operation. For two-byte code characters as used in Japanese, the keyboard operation after all enables the most efficient document input by using a kana-kanji conversion function.  
           [0008]    However, when a Chinese character, special character or the like that is not registered for kana-kanji conversion candidates is input from the keyboard, it is necessary to once stop a key operation so that a character code list is displayed on the display device, and then select a desired character with a mouse cursor or the like from the character code list, and this time-consuming input operation has been a problem.  
           [0009]    As a method of inputting a character to solve this problem, such a method has been available wherein a handwriting recognition window in addition to a character input window is displayed on the display device, and a character desired to be input is input by hand through the pointing operation of the pointing device, and then character conversion is performed (e.g., “ATOK 13” issued on Sep. 8, 1999 by Justsystem Corporation (page 45)).  
           [0010]    However, the method of inputting a character of this kind has a problem in terms of operability because it requires operations such as displaying the handwriting recognition window, changing windows for the mouse pointer, handwriting input and determining a recognition result, and handwriting character input is indirectly carried out by a pointing operation using the pointing device in the limited small handwriting recognition window.  
           [0011]    Furthermore, in all of the input methods described above, it is necessary to once stop the keyboard operation every time a character is input by an operation other than the keyboard operation so as to operate the pointing device, and thus poor operability in character input has been a problem.  
         BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0012]    The present invention is directed to method and apparatus that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.  
           [0013]    According to an embodiment of the present invention, an information processing apparatus comprising:  
           [0014]    a second input device capable of inputting coordinates representing character information;  
           [0015]    an input character recognizing unit which recognizes the character information input by the first input device; and  
           [0016]    a handwritten character recognizing unit which recognizes the character information represented by the coordinates input by the second input device.  
           [0017]    According to another embodiment of the present invention, a method of inputting a character for a system comprising a main display device which displays a main operation screen, a sub display device capable of touch operation, and a keyboard which inputs a character by use of the main display device, the method comprising:  
           [0018]    providing a handwritten character recognizing unit in the sub display device;  
           [0019]    displaying document information input by an operation of the keyboard on the main display device; and  
           [0020]    displaying on the sub display device candidate characters recognized by the handwritten character recognizing unit in accordance with an input operation trajectory by the sub display device.  
           [0021]    Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present invention.  
           [0022]    The objects and advantages of the present invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING  
       [0023]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the present invention and, together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the present invention in which:  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an external configuration of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0025]    [0025]FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of the information processing apparatus;  
         [0026]    [0026]FIG. 3 is a diagram showing functional components of a sub display device in the information processing apparatus;  
         [0027]    [0027]FIG. 4 is a diagram explaining an operation for document creation processing in the information processing apparatus;  
         [0028]    [0028]FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of a handwritten character recognition processing program in the document creation processing;  
         [0029]    [0029]FIGS. 6A, 6B and  6 C are views showing operation screen transitions and operation examples thereof in the handwritten character recognition processing; and  
         [0030]    [0030]FIG. 7 is a view showing a display example of the operation screen in the handwritten character recognition processing in another embodiment. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0031]    An embodiment of an information processing apparatus according to the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.  
         [0032]    [0032]FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an external configuration of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. A notebook-type personal computer is shown here as an example.  
         [0033]    The notebook-type personal computer comprises a computer main body  11  and a display unit  12 . A main display device  121  including an LCD is built into the display unit  12 . The display unit  12  is attached to the computer main body  11  rotatably between an open position and a closed position. The computer main body  11  has a thin box-shaped case, and on an upper surface of the case, a power button  114  for turning on/off a power supply of the computer main body  11 , a keyboard  111  and the like are disposed. An armrest is formed on the upper surface of the case portion before the keyboard  111 . In an almost central portion of the armrest, a sub display device (touch pad device)  112  having a touch screen function is provided. The sub display device  112  forms a display-integrated type pointing device which is integrally provided with a display panel, such as the LCD having a display screen size smaller than that of the main display device  121 , and a tablet, and this sub display device  112  is disposed on the upper surface of the case forming the armrest, together with a left button  113   a , a right button  113   b  and a middle button  113   c . The tablet is made of a transparent material, and the display panel is provided at the back of the tablet.  
         [0034]    [0034]FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a system configuration of the computer shown in FIG. 1. The present system comprises a CPU  201 , a host bridge  202 , a main memory  203 , a graphics controller  204 , a PCI-ISA bridge  206 , an I/O controller  207 , a hard disk drive (HDD)  208 , a CD-ROM drive  209 , a USB controller  210 , an embedded controller/keyboard controller IC (EC/KBC)  211 , a power supply controller  213  and the like.  
         [0035]    The sub display device  112  mentioned above is connected to the USB controller  210 . The sub display device  112  integrates a touch pad  112   a , a display section  112   b  and a backlight  112   c  to enable a touch screen function, and includes the left button  113   a , the right button  113   b  and the middle button  113   c.    
         [0036]    The CPU  201  controls an operation of the present embodiment, and executes an operating system (OS) loaded into the main memory  203  from the hard disk drive (HDD)  208 , application programs, utility programs and the like. In this embodiment, the CPU  201  executes processing of a control program (see FIG. 3) for the sub display device  112  and processing of an input-output program to enable a positioning processing function of a mouse pointer through one-touch operation on the sub display device  112  shown in FIG. 5 described later in collaboration with a mouse driver.  
         [0037]    The host bridge  202  is a bride device which bi-directionally connects a local bus of the CPU  201  and a PCI bus  1 . The graphics controller  204  comprises a video RAM (VRAM), and controls the main display device  121  used as a display monitor of the present embodiment under the control of a dedicated display driver. The I/O controller  207  controls the hard disk drive (HDD)  208 , the CD-ROM drive  209  and the like. The PCI-ISA bridge  206  is a bridge device which bi-directionally connects the PCI bus  1  and an ISA bus  2 , and various kinds of system devices such as a system timer, a DMA controller and an interrupt controller are built therein.  
         [0038]    The embedded controller/keyboard controller IC (EC/KBC)  211  is a one-chip microcomputer in which an embedded controller (EC) for power management and a keyboard controller (KBC) for controlling the keyboard  111  are integrated. The embedded controller/keyboard controller IC (EC/KBC)  211  has a function to power on/off the present embodiment in accordance with an operation of the power button  114  by a user in collaboration with the power supply controller  213 .  
         [0039]    [0039]FIG. 3 is a diagram showing functional components of the sub display device  112  in the embodiment of the present invention, and the components here include a setting table  301  which sets a function of the sub display device  112 ; a control program  302  which controls the function of the sub display device  112  in accordance with contents of the setting table  301 ; an interface  303  which controls input and output of information exchanged between the sub display device  112  and the control program  302 ; a setting program  311  which creates the setting table  301  by use of a GUI; execution means  312  for executing various kinds of processing in accordance with instructions from the control program  302 ; and the sub display device  112 .  
         [0040]    In the embodiment, the execution section  312  switches the function of the sub display device  112  between a pointing function which follows control of a mouse setting program and a handwritten character recognition function which follows a handwritten character recognition processing program, in accordance with an operation of the middle button  113   c  (see FIG. 5).  
         [0041]    [0041]FIG. 4 is a diagram explaining an operation for document creation processing in the embodiment of the present invention. Here, it shows processing in which a character input by a key operation on the keyboard  111  and kana-kanji-converted, and a character which is input by a figure touch operation on the sub display device  112  and on which handwritten character recognition is performed by following an operation trajectory are input into a created document in accordance with an input prompt of this created document displayed on the main display device  121 .  
         [0042]    The CPU  201  executes processing of a document input program (kana-kanji conversion software)  402  stored in the main memory  203  so as to accomplish input processing of the kana-kanji-converted character input by the key operation on the keyboard  111 . The CPU  201  executes processing of a handwritten character recognition processing program  412  stored in the main memory  203  so as to accomplish input processing of the character input by the figure touch operation on the sub display device  112  and on which handwritten character recognition is performed.  
         [0043]    When a document is created in an ordinary keyboard operation, the document input program (kana-kanji conversion software)  402  is started up, and key input data input from the keyboard  111  is supplied to the document input program  402  via a keyboard driver  401 . The document input program  402  subjects the key input data to kana-kanji conversion processing by use of a kana-kanji character conversion dictionary  403 , and inputs the kana-kanji-converted character into the created document in accordance with the input prompt of this created document displayed on the main display device  121 .  
         [0044]    When a user inputs a character by use of handwritten character recognition on the sub display device  112  instead of the keyboard operation, the user depresses the middle button  113   c . The depressing of the middle button  113   c  starts up the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  in place of the document input program  402 , and data on the operation trajectory input by the finger touch operation on the sub display device  112  is supplied to the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  via a driver (touch pad driver)  411  of the sub display device  112 . The handwritten character recognition processing program  412  obtains candidate characters from a handwritten character recognition dictionary  413  in accordance with the operation trajectory input as shown in FIG. 6A, and displays the obtained candidate characters in a character selection window in such a display form as shown in FIG. 6B on the sub display device  112 . When one character is selected, for example, by the touch operation on the character selection window (FIG. 6C), the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  regards the selected candidate character as a determined character and inputs it into the created document in accordance with the input prompt of this created document displayed on the main display device  121 . In this way, the handwritten character obtained from the operation trajectory on the sub display device  112  is input into the input document while being treated in the same manner as the kana-kanji-converted character input by the key operation.  
         [0045]    [0045]FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  in the embodiment, and the CPU  201  achieves the processing of the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  stored in the main memory  203 . Here, the function of the sub display device  112  is switched (switched between the pointing function which follows the control of the mouse setting program and the handwritten character recognition function which follows the handwritten character recognition processing program) by the operation of the middle button  113   c , but this function can also be switched by other key or button operations, for example, an operation of a specific key of the keyboard  111  and an operation of a specific tap on the sub display device  112 .  
         [0046]    [0046]FIGS. 6A, 6B and  6 C are views showing operation screen transitions and operation examples thereof in handwriting character input in the embodiment. As one example, an operation to switch the candidate characters on a character selection window  601  is performed with the right button  113   b  and an operation to select (enter) a character is performed with the middle button  113   c , but a desired candidate character can also be directly selected by touching on the character selection window  601  with a finger.  
         [0047]    A handwritten character recognition processing operation in the embodiment of the present invention will here be described in reference to the drawings.  
         [0048]    When a word processor is started up (when document creation is started), the CPU  201  starts the document input program (kana-kanji conversion software)  402 , and executes processing in accordance with this program to subject the key input data input by the key operation on the keyboard  111  to the kana-kanji conversion by use of the kana-kanji conversion dictionary  403 , and then inputs the kana-kanji-converted character in an input prompt position of the created document displayed on the main display device  121  by way of a predetermined determination section (see FIG. 4).  
         [0049]    When a character is input by use of the kana-kanji conversion through the key input operation on the keyboard  111 , the sub display device  112  is in a state of the pointing function capable of the pointing operation in accordance with the control of the mouse setting program (step S 11  of FIG. 5).  
         [0050]    When inputting a character by use of the kana-kanji conversion through the key input operation on the keyboard  111 , if the user operates the middle button  113   c  instead of operating on the keyboard as an extended operation of the keyboard operation, the CPU  201  starts the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  in place of the document input program (kana-kanji conversion software)  402  (step S 12  of FIG. 5). In this processing, it is confirmed that the word processor is started (Yes in step S 13  of FIG. 5) and that an input program for inputting documents is in a state displayed on the main display device  121  (Yes in step S 14  of FIG. 5), before moving to the handwritten character recognition processing.  
         [0051]    In the handwritten character recognition processing, the operation trajectory on the sub display device  112  is sequentially recognized, and the candidate characters are obtained from the handwritten character recognition dictionary  413  on the basis of the operation trajectory, and thus the character selection window  601  is displayed on the sub display device  112  in such a display form as shown in FIG. 6B in accordance with the candidate characters (steps S 15  and S 16  of FIG. 5).  
         [0052]    Furthermore, in the handwritten character recognition processing, when a desired candidate character is selected, for example, by the finger touch operation shown in FIG. 6C on the character selection window  601  (Yes in step S 17  of FIG. 5), the selected candidate character is regarded as a character determined by the handwriting character input and is input into the input prompt position of the created document displayed on the main display device  121  (step S 18  of FIG. 5), and the function of the sub display device  112  is switched from the handwritten character recognition function which follows the handwritten character recognition processing program  412  to the pointing function which follows the control of the mouse setting program (steps S 19  and S 20  of FIG. 5).  
         [0053]    In addition, if the input by the operation trajectory on the sub display device  112  is stopped within a range that does not exceed a preset time (e.g., 2 seconds), the character selection window  601  of the candidate characters in accordance with the input operation trajectory is displayed during this period (No in step S 21  of FIG. 5), but if the operation trajectory is not input even after the set time has passed (Yes in step S 21  of FIG. 5), the function of the sub display device  112  is switched to other functions or the pointing function (See FIG. 3; step S 22  of FIG. 5).  
         [0054]    In this way, character input can be changed from the kana-kanji conversion input by the keyboard operation to the handwriting character input by the touch operation on the sub display device  112  as the extension of the keyboard operation with little change in a hand position, thereby making it possible to efficiently and quickly perform the handwriting character input as compared with the input operation that requires to change to an operation device such as a mouse or pen.  
         [0055]    According to the embodiment of the present invention, there are provided an information processing apparatus and a method of inputting a character which enable efficient character input in an operation other than a keyboard operation.  
         [0056]    [0056]FIG. 7 is a view showing a display example of the operation screen for the handwriting character input in another embodiment of the present invention. For the handwritten character recognition dictionary  413 , the same dictionary as the dictionary for the kana-kanji conversion in the key input operation is used in the embodiment described above. In a configuration of the embodiment shown in FIG. 7, however, only characters or character types that are not handled in the kana-kanji conversion, or predetermined characters or character types (e.g., those limited in accordance with application) are registered on the handwritten character recognition dictionary  413 , and in the handwritten character recognition processing, the candidate characters are displayed in a selectable manner within a small range of characters or character types registered on the handwritten character recognition dictionary  413  in accordance with the operation trajectory on the sub display device  112 .  
         [0057]    With such a configuration that limits the candidate characters for the handwritten character recognition, an operation to select the candidate characters can be efficiently performed, and the handwritten character recognition function can be more easily used. Further, the characters or character types are separated respectively for the character input performed by the keyboard operation using the kana-kanji conversion and for the handwriting character input performed on the sub display device  112  using the handwritten character recognition, thereby making it possible to improve operability in the character input.  
         [0058]    While the description above refers to particular embodiments of the present invention, it will be understood that many modifications may be made without departing from the spirit thereof. The accompanying claims are intended to cover such modifications as would fall within the true scope and spirit of the present invention. The presently disclosed embodiments are therefore to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the invention being indicated by the appended claims, rather than the foregoing description, and all changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein. For example, the present invention can be practiced as a computer readable recording medium in which a program for allowing the computer to function as predetermined means, allowing the computer to realize a predetermined function, or allowing the computer to conduct predetermined means.