Visual editing system incorporating selectable letter spacing display and associated scale display

Claim 2

A visual text display system comprising: a character storage unit for storing a plurality of coded character representations; a character generator responsive to the storage unit for generating a plurality of character representation signals, each signal corresponding to a stored coded character representation; a character display unit responsive to the character representation signals of said character generator for displaying at least one line of character representations, each displayed character representation occupying a space defined by a number of display escapement units; scale-defining means for defining a number of display escapement units which are contained within a measure unit; scale-generating means responsive to the scale-defining means for generating a plurality of scale representation signals, each signal corresponding to a scale representation character; said character display unit being further responsive to said scale-generating means for displaying at least one line of scale character representations adjacent to said at least one line of character representations, each displayed scale character representation being separated from each adjacent displayed scale character representation by a number of escapement units corresponding to the number of escapement units contained within said measure unit.

Claim 3

The visual text display device set forth in claim 1 further comprising: pitch selection means for selecting one of a plurality of character display pitches; said scale-defining means being responsive to said pitch selection means for defining a different number of display escapement units which are contained within a measure unit for each display pitch selected.

Claim 4

The visual text display device set forth in claim 2 wherein: said character display unit being further responsive to said pitch selection means to define a number of display escapement units for each character representation in accordance with the selected display pitch.

Claim 5

The visual text display device set forth in claim 2 further comprising: boundary-defining means for defining at least one set of left and right margin line boundaries, said set of boundaries being separated from each other and from a defined position by defined numbers of escapement units; said character display unit being further responsive to said boundary defining means for displaying a set of boundary representations within said at least one line of scale character representations, said boundary representations being separated from each other and from an edge of said line of scale character representations by numbers of display escapement units corresponding to said defined numbers of escapement units.

Claim 6

The visual text display device set forth in claim 4 further comprising: visual addressing means for defining a selected one of a plurality of discrete locations within said line of scale character representations; said character display unit being further responsive to said visual addressing means for displaying a visual address representation adjacent said displayed line of scale character representations at the selected location defined by said visual addressing means; selectively operable boundary varying means for specifying one line boundary of said at least one set of line boundaries at the selected location defined by said visual addressing means; said boundary-defining means being responsive to said boundary-varying means and to said visual addressing means for defining said one line boundary at the selected location defined by said visual addressing means.

Claim 7

A visual editing and display system for displaying text character representations in a plurality of character display pitches comprising: an addressable text storage unit for storing a serial stream of data character codes in adjacently addressed storage locations; pitch selection means for defining one of a plurality of character display pitches; escapement decoding means responsive to said pitch selection means for defining an escapement value for each stored data character code in proportion to the width occupied by a corresponding character representation in the display pitch selected; word-defining means for defining grammatical words of data character codes in adjacently addressed storage locations; line-defining means for defining the left and right margin boundaries of each of a plurality of adjacent display lines, each defined left and right margin boundary being separated from one another by a defined number of escapement units; text-scanning means responsive to the escapement decoding means for determining a total escapement value of a plurality of adjacently addressed data character codes in said serial stream of data character codes; text modification means for inserting data character codes into said serial stream of data character codes at any addressable storage location, for deleting data character codes from any addressable storage location, the storage address of existing data character codes shifting to accommodate inserted data character codes and to close over deleted data character codes; word optimizing means responsive to said text-scanning means, to said word-defining means and to said line-defining means for defining the optimum number of words of adjacently addressed data character codes for each successive display line, the data character codes displayed for each defined line having a total escapement value equal to or less than the defined number of escapement units defined by the line-defining means, said word-optimizing means being responsive to the text modification means to initiate the defining operation; display means responsive to the text storage unit, the escapement decoding means and the line-defining means for displaying at least one line of data character representations corresponding to adjacently addressed stored data character codes, the width of each displayed character representation being proportional to the escapement value defined by the escapement decoding means, said display means being further responsive to the word optimizing means for defining the data character codes displayed as character representations and responsive to the pitch selection means for defining a display pitch for each character representation in accordance with the pitch selected.

Claim 8

A visual editing and display system for displaying text character representations in a plurality of character display pitches comprising: an addressable text storage unit for storing a serial stream of data character codes in adjacently addressed storage locations; pitch selection means for defining one of a plurality of character display pitches; escapement decoding means responsive to said pitch selection means for defining an escapement value for each stored data character code in proportion to the width occupied by a corresponding character representation in the display pitch selected; word-defining means for defining grammatical words of data character codes in adjacently addressed storage locations; line-defining means for defining the left and right margin boundaries of each of a plurality of adjacent display lines, each defined left and right margin boundary being separated from one another by a defined number of escapement units; text-scanning means responsive to the escapement decoding means for determining a total escapement value of a plurality of adjacently addressed data character codes in said serial stream of data character codes; text modification means for inserting data character codes into said serial stream of data character codes at any addressable storage location, for deleting data character codes from any addressable storage location, the storage address of existing data character codes shifting to accommodate inserted data character codes and to close over deleted data character codes; word optimizing means responsive to said text-scanning means, to said word-defining means and to said line-defining means for defining the optimum number of words of adjacently addressed data character codes for each successive display line, the data character codes displayed for each defined line having a total escapement value equal to or less than the defined number of escapement units defined by the line-defining means, said word-optimizing means being responsive to the text modification means to initiate the defining operation; display means responsive to the text storage unit, the escapement decoding means and the line-defining means for displaying at least one line of data character representations corresponding to adjacently addressed stored data character codes, the width of each displayed character representation being proportional to the escapement value defined by the escapement decoding means, said display means being further responsive to the word optimizing means for defining the data character codes displayed as character representations and responsive to the pitch selection means for defining a display pitch for each character representation in accordance with the pitch selected.

Claim 9

The visual editing and display system set forth in claim 6 wherein: said word-optimizing means being responsive to said pitch selection means for initiating said defining operation whenever a different character display pitch is defined by the pitch selection means.

Claim 10

The visual editing and display system set forth in claim 6 further comprising: scale-defining means responsive to the pitch selection means for defining a number of escapement units which are contained within a measure unit, said number of escapement units varying in accordance with the pitch defined; said display means being responsive to said scale-defining means for displaying at least one line of scale character representations adjacent said at least one line of data character representations, said scale character representations being spaced apart by a distance proportional to a multiple number of measure units.