Character display device and character display method

Abstract

The present invention is intended to speed up rendering that is performed in the course of displaying a document that contains both icons and characters. A character display device that displays a document containing both icons and characters includes: a searching unit that searches the position in the document where an icon appears, a counter unit that counts the number of characters which successively appear until the position where the icon appears searched by the searching unit; and a rendering unit that renders the same number of characters, which successively appear, as the number of characters counted by the counter after designating the attributes shared by the characters, and then renders the icon after designating the attributes of the icon.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an icon display device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a concrete example of display of a document containing both characters and icons;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart describing an icon display routine in accordance with the embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 4 shows an icon registration table.

Claims

1. A character display device that displays a document containing kinds of characters which are different from each other in terms of an attribute, comprising: a counting unit for counting the number of characters, which share a first attribute and successively appear in the document, until a character having a second attribute different from the first attribute appears; anda rendering unit for rendering the same number of characters, which share the first attribute, as the number of characters counted by the counting unit after designating the attributes shared by the characters, and then rendering the character, which has the second attribute, after designating the attributes of the character.

2. The character display device according to claim 1, wherein it further comprises a searching unit for searching for the position in the document where a character having a second attribute different from a first attribute appears, whereinsaid searching unit searches by checking whether a character code representing the character having the second attribute agrees with any of character codes previously registered in association with respective icons in an icon registration table.

3. A character display device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein characters having a first attribute are characters other than icons and characters having a second attribute are icons.

4. A character display method that displays a document containing kinds of characters which are different from each other in terms of an attribute, comprising: a counting step of counting the number of characters, which share a first attribute and successively appear in the document, until a character having a second attribute different from the first attribute appears; anda rendering step of rendering the same number of characters, which share the first attribute, as the number of characters counted at the counting step after designating the attributes shared by the characters, and then rendering the character, which has the second attribute, after designating the attributes of the character.

5. A character display method according to claim 4, wherein it further comprises a searching step of searching for the position in the document where an icon appears, whereinsaid searching step searches by checking whether a character code representing the character having the second attribute agrees with any of character codes previously registered in association with respective icons in an icon registration table.

6. A computer-readable recording medium in which a program for displaying a document that contains kinds of characters which are different from each other in terms of an attribute is recorded, wherein the program allows a computer to execute: a counting step of counting the number of characters, which share a first attribute and successively appear in the document, until a character having a second attribute different from the first attribute appears; anda rendering step of rendering the same number of characters, which share the first attribute, as the number of characters counted at the counting step after designating the attributes shared by the characters, and then rendering the character, which has the second attribute, after designating the attributes of the character.

7. A computer-readable recording medium according to claim 6, wherein it further comprises a searching step of searching for the position in the document where an icon appears, whereinsaid searching step searches by checking whether a character code representing the character having the second attribute agrees with any of character codes previously registered in association with respective icons in an icon registration table.