Photocomposition error correction system

Claim 2

A photocomposing system for assembling copy in lines of substantially uniform length comprising means for sequentially selecting the characters to be composed, each of said characters having an associated character width, counting means receiving signals from said selecting means for accumulating the sum of said character widths to create a measure of the minimum length of each line as it is composed, memory means for accumulating said character widths in each word of said line, said memory means being incremented by the width of each character on selection thereof and being reset upon initiation of each word space, and means operative upon occurrence of an error for adjusting the sum of character widths in said counter in accordance with the sum of character widths in said memory to restore said counter to its condition immediately proceeding commencement of the errored word and its preceding word space, so that said error can be corrected by deleting and reselecting the characters of said word without deleting and reselecting all characters of said line.

Claim 3

Error correcting apparatus for use in photocomposing system having a keyboard for sequentially selecting characters forming a text to be composed, each character having a preselected character width, means for accumulating said character widths as said characters are selected to create a measure of the minimum length of each line as it is composed and means for justifying each line by adjusting the spaces between words of said line in accordance with the minimum length of said line and the desired length of said line, said error correcting apparatus comprising a memory communicating with said keyboard for accumulating the widths of characters in each word as the characters of said word are selected, said memory being cleared on initiation of each word space, and means for adjusting the measure of the minimum length of said line in said accumulating means in accordance with the accumulated widths of said characters in said memory on the recognition of an error in the composition of a word whereby the characters of said word may be deleted and reselected without reselecting the characters of an entire line.

Claim 4

Error correcting apparatus for use in photocomposing system having a keyboard for sequentially selecting characters forming a text to be composed, each character having a preselected character width, means for accumulating said character widths as said characters are selected to create a measure of the minimum length of each line as it is composed and means for justifying each line by adjusting the spaces between words of said line in accordance with the minimum length of said line and the desired length of said line, said error correcting apparatus comprising a memory communicating with said keyboard for accumulating the widths of characters in each word as the characters of said word are selected, said memory being cleared on initiation of each word space, and means for adjusting the measure of the minimum length of said line in said accumulating means in accordance with the accumulated widths of said characters in said memory on the recognition of an error in the composition of a word whereby the characters of said word may be deleted and reselected without reselecting the characters of an entire line.

Claim 5

A photocomposing system comprising a keyboard for selecting characters forming a text to be composed and for signaling the end of each word and of each line of said text, means communicating with said keyboard for assigning a character width to each character and normal word space on said keyboard as it is selected, a line length circuit communicating with said character width assigning means for accumulating the character widths in each line as the characters of said line are selected, said line length circuit being reset upon completion of each line of said text, a word space counter associated with said keyboard, said word space counter being incremented upon initiation of each word space and being reset upon completion of each line, a word length circuiT communicating with said character width assigning means for accumulating the character widths in each word as the characters of said word are selected, said word length circuit being cleared upon initiation of each word space, means for adjusting the accumulated width measures in said line length circuit in accordance with the accumulated width measures in said word length circuit to restore said line length circuit to its condition prior to commencement of said errored word, means for deleting one unit from said word space counter upon adjustment of said line length counter and means for communicating information with respect to the accumulated character widths in said line length counter and the number of word spaces in said word space counter to a photoassembling apparatus whereby an operator may delete and correct a word of said text without deleting an entire line.

Claim 6

A photocomposing system comprising a keyboard for selecting characters forming a text to be composed and for signaling the end of each word and of each line of said text, means communicating with said keyboard for assigning a character width to each character and normal word space on said keyboard as it is selected, a line length circuit communicating with said character width assigning means for accumulating the character widths in each line as the characters of said line are selected, said line length circuit being reset upon completion of each line of said text, a word space counter associated with said keyboard, said word space counter being incremented upon initiation of each word space and being reset upon completion of each line, a word length circuiT communicating with said character width assigning means for accumulating the character widths in each word as the characters of said word are selected, said word length circuit being cleared upon initiation of each word space, means for adjusting the accumulated width measures in said line length circuit in accordance with the accumulated width measures in said word length circuit to restore said line length circuit to its condition prior to commencement of said errored word, means for deleting one unit from said word space counter upon adjustment of said line length counter and means for communicating information with respect to the accumulated character widths in said line length counter and the number of word spaces in said word space counter to a photoassembling apparatus whereby an operator may delete and correct a word of said text without deleting an entire line.

Claim 7

A photocomposing system in accordance with claim 3, wherein the character width of each character is assigned as a selected number of fixed width units.

Claim 8

Apparatus in accordance with claim 4 when said line length circuit comprises a sequential counter incremented by a number of units equal to the units assigned to each character as said character is selected and wherein said word length circuit comprises a memory unit interconnected with said counter, said memory unit being incremented in unison with said counter.

Claim 9

Apparatus in accordance with claim 5 wherein said adjusting means further includes a multivibrator activated by said operator for adjusting the number of units in said counter and simultaneously augmenting said memory until said memory reaches a selected state and a binary circuit for terminating operation of said multivibrator when said memory reaches said selected state.