JP2002132695A - Printer system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a printer system whose printing is note efficiently limited. SOLUTION: A host computer 112 is connected to a printer 115, and the host computer 112 transmits a printer setting command or print data to the printer 115. An application instructs a printer driver to start printing so that the print data can be printed. The printer deriver reads the contents from the host computer 112 for a manager by referring to a user management file. The printer driver acquires a charged amount corresponding to the user name of its own from the read contents, and when the value in not less than a fixed amount, the printer driver interrupts the printing processing, and in the other case, continues the printing processing. Thus, the use of all the printers connected to the network can be limited with the charging information of the corresponding user name, and the printers can be easily managed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer system, and more particularly, to a printer system including a printer and a host computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a printer system generally adds information such as a user name to print data, compares the user name on the printer side with a user list held on the printer side, and determines whether the conditions match. In such a case, printing is restricted.

[0003] Prior application invention example 1 similar to the present invention in the technical field
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-30057 discloses a "printing system". The first prior invention example 1 is provided with a plurality of upper limit devices and a printing device, and aims to easily monitor / manage the use status of the printer device and limit the use for each user.

[0004] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-207661 of Invention Example 2 of the prior application
The object of the present invention is to provide a printer driver capable of preventing missing settings and preventing output paper from being mixed on a sorter.

Conventionally, when printing is restricted, information such as a user name is included in print data as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-30057 of the first prior invention and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-207661 of the second prior invention. , And the user name and
The user list is compared with the user list held by the printer, and if the conditions are matched, printing is restricted. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-85840 does not particularly relate to the billing information in this system.

[0006]

As described above, in the conventional method, when printing is restricted, information such as a user name is added to print data, and the printer side has the user name and the printer side. The method has been performed in which a user list is compared with a user list, and if conditions are matched, printing restriction is imposed. Therefore, there is a problem in that the transmission and reception of print data including the user name information are performed on the network, which causes an increase in traffic.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a printer system which prevents an increase in traffic due to sending print data over a network by making a determination on a user host computer to restrict printing. .

Further, according to the present invention, since the administrator host has the charging information with the user name, it is possible to restrict the use of the charging information of the corresponding user name for all the printers connected to the network. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a printer system that can simplify management.

In addition, the present invention provides a method for managing only a user name, a case where another host uses the same user name,
It takes into account that it cannot be determined whether the user is the same person or happens to be another person with the same user name. That is,
It is another object of the present invention to provide a printer system in which the host name is also registered in the host for the administrator, the host for the user inquires the corresponding host name and accounting information of the user name at the time of printing, and printing is restricted by the information. As a result, whether to use only the user name, only the host name, or to use information in which both are used may be selected depending on the operation method of the system, and can be changed by setting. In addition, a group name or the like can also be used.

[0010] Further, according to the present invention, by giving information on the presence / absence of a message to the host for the administrator, when printing from the host for the user, billing information is displayed on the host as a message to notify the user of the situation. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer system capable of performing such operations.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer system with more efficient printing restrictions.

[0012]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printer system in which a printer, an administrator host computer, and a user host computer are connected via a network. When printing from a computer, the printer driver that creates print data inquires management information from the administrator host computer. If the amount of the inquiry in this inquiry exceeds a predetermined value, do not execute printing. It is characterized by.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the printer system according to the first aspect, management information is inquired to an administrator's host computer, and the name of the own host computer or the name of the own host computer and the own user name in the management information are sent. It is characterized in that printing is restricted by the charge amount of the combination.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the printer system according to the first or second aspect, the acquired charging amount is displayed on the user host computer based on the management information of the administrator host computer.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment of a printer system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
1 to 6 show an embodiment of the printer system according to the present invention.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below. FIG.
2 is a block diagram of the configuration of the printer 115 connected to the host computer 112 and the inside of the controller 100. FIG. The host computer 112 is connected to a printer 115, and the host computer 112 is connected to the printer 115.
To send printer setting commands and print data.

The printer 115 includes a controller 1
00, an engine 108, a panel device 110, a disk device 114, and the like. The configuration of the controller 100 is as follows. 101 is a program RO
M104 program, mode instruction from panel device,
It is a CPU that controls the entire controller by a command from a host computer. Reference numeral 102 denotes an IC card that supplies font data and a program from the outside.
It is. Reference numeral 103 denotes a nonvolatile storage device that stores the content of a mode instruction from the panel device and the like, and is an NVRAM.

A program ROM 104 stores a control program for the controller. 105 is
Font RO that stores font pattern data, etc.
M. Reference numeral 106 denotes a RAM used as a work memory of the CPU 101, an input buffer for input data, a page buffer for print data, a memory for download fonts, and the like.

Reference numeral 107 denotes an engine interface for communicating commands, statuses, and print data with the engine 108. Reference numeral 108 denotes an engine that actually performs printing. A panel interface 109 communicates commands and status with the panel device 110. Reference numeral 110 denotes a panel device for notifying a user of a current printer state and giving a mode instruction. Reference numeral 111 denotes a host interface for communicating with the host computer 112.
/ F and RS232C.

Reference numeral 112 denotes a host computer which is a host device of the printer. 113 is a disk device 114
This is a disk interface for communicating with the server. A disk device 114 stores various data such as font data, programs, and print data, such as a floppy disk device or a hard disk device.

When the controller 100 receives data (character code, control code, control command) from the host computer 112 through the host interface 111, the data is temporarily stored in the input buffer.

Next, the data held in the input buffer is extracted, and the head address of the font pattern for each character of the data, the width of the font pattern, the height of the font pattern, Stores page layout information such as print position. Then, when the page buffer is completed for one page, the data in the page buffer is developed in the frame buffer as a bitmap. When the development is completed, a feed tray selection command, a discharge tray selection command, and a print command are sent to the engine 108 through the engine interface 107, and the bitmap data developed in the frame buffer is output as video data. on the other hand,
The engine 108 executes paper feeding from the designated paper feeding tray in accordance with a paper feeding tray selection command, a paper output tray selection command, and a printing command sent from the controller 100.
Printing is performed in accordance with the video data and output to the designated paper output tray.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the host computer 112. When printing data, the application 116 uses an OS (operating system).
The intermediate print data unique to the OS created via the interface 117 is sent to the printer driver 118. The printer driver 118 converts the received intermediate print data into a printer control command (final print data) unique to the printer 115 and sends it to the print manager 119.
Here, after temporarily spooling the print data, the print manager 119 transmits the print data to the printer 115.

Here, the print manager 119 can quickly finish the print processing of the application 116 by temporarily spooling the print data.
There is an advantage that the release of the application is faster.
Further, the printer manager can acquire information such as a printer status from the printer 115 via the printer monitor 120. Also, the printer monitor 1
20 can send the set items as commands to the printer from the user interface based on the information acquired from the printer. When the printer driver 118 imposes printing restrictions, the display contents are obtained from the message file 122 and displayed. When the user uses the host computer, the user logs in the user name when using the host computer.

The name of the user who has logged in and the name of the host computer that has been set in advance are set to 124, and the printer driver 118 can refer to the settings as needed.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a printer and a host computer connected to a network. User host computer 112, administrator host computer 1
12a and the printers 115 and 115a are connected to a network. Also, the administrator host computer 11
2a has a user management information file 121, which is referred to when the user host computer 112 performs printing. When printing from the user's host computer 112 to a printer, the user name and host computer name information 124 set in the host computer in advance together with the number of prints are printed together with the print log file 123 of the administrator's host computer 112a.
To record.

With reference to the print log file 123, the administrator directly edits the user management information file and registers the charge corresponding to the user name. When this update is performed automatically, the contents of the print log file 123 are referred to, the billing amount is calculated from the contents, and the value is updated to the user management information file. User management application 125
May be used.

The details of the processing will be described below. The processing according to claim 1 is shown in the flowchart of FIG. First, the application 116 instructs the printer driver 118 to start printing for printing (step S).
1). The printer driver 118 sends the user management information file 121 from the administrator host computer 112a.
And read its contents.

An example of the content read above is shown below. In this file, setting items are described on the first line, and the second and subsequent lines are user information data (one user setting per line).

<Example of User Management File Contents>"MachineName","UserName","Fee","Message""PC_
123 "," yamada "," 5,000 "," ON "" PC_555 "," s
ato "," 1,200 "," OFF "" PC_001 "," nakayama "," 30,
500 "," ON "" PC_201 "," nakano "," 300 "," ON "

Here, the administrator host computer 11
2a address, user management information file 1 in host
The location 21 needs to be set in advance at the time of driver installation or at any other time.

The set contents are stored in the address information 126 of the administrator's host computer shown in FIG. 2, and the printer driver can refer to the contents at the time of printing. The printer driver 118 reads “UserName” from the read content.
Amount corresponding to the user name of the local host in the item ("Fe
e ") (step S)
2) If the value is equal to or more than a fixed amount, the printing process is interrupted (steps S3 and S5), and if not, the printing process is continued (steps S3 and S4).

The processing according to claim 2 is shown in the flowchart of FIG. In contrast to claim 1, when a user with the same name is registered in "UserName", "UserName" and "Machi
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a case in which print restriction is performed using the billing amount of data that matches the combination using "neName".
5). In addition, if there is a group name item in the contents of the user management information file 121, a group condition may be added and printing may be restricted.

The processing according to claim 3 is shown in the flowchart of FIG. In response to claim 1, message display information ("Message") corresponding to the user name is obtained from the user management information file 121 (step S21, step S22). Display message ("Message" is "O"
N ") (step S23 / YES), the charge amount is displayed as a message (step S24), and if" Message "is" OFF ", the charge amount is not displayed (step S23 / NO).
If the billing amount is equal to or more than a certain value, printing is stopped (step S2).
5 / YES, step S27), if not more than a certain value,
Continue printing (step S25 / NO, step S2)
6).

[0035]

As is apparent from the above description, in the printer system according to the first aspect of the present invention, the printer has previously determined whether to restrict printing. However, by judging this by the user's host computer, the print data does not go out on the network, and an increase in network traffic can be prevented. Also, the conventional method had to maintain a list of available user names for each printer. However, according to this method, by having the charging information of the user name in the host for the administrator, it is possible to restrict the use of the charging information of the corresponding user name to all the printers connected to the network. In addition, the management can be simplified. Conventionally, when printing is restricted, information such as a user name is added to print data, the user name is compared on the printer side with a user list held on the printer side, and when the conditions are matched, I've been doing this by using printing restrictions.

In the printer system according to the second aspect of the present invention, when the management is performed only by the user name, when the other host uses the same user name, if the user is the same person, You can't tell if you happen to be the same user name or another person. Therefore, there is an advantage that the host name is also registered in the administrator host, and the user host inquires the accounting information of the host name and the user name at the time of printing, and the printing can be restricted by the information. Whether to use only the user name, only the host name, or to use information in which both are used may be selected depending on the operation method of the system, and can be changed by setting. Also,
In addition, group names can be used.

Further, in the printer system according to the third aspect, in the invention according to the first or second aspect, the administrator host is provided with information on the presence or absence of a message, so that printing is performed when printing from the user host. Information can be displayed as a message on the host to inform the user of the situation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a printer system of the present invention,
Printer 1 connected to host computer 112
15 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer and a controller. FIG.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a host computer 112.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a printer and a host computer connected to a network.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a first operation example;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a second operation example.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a third operation example.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 Controller 101 CPU 102 IC Card 103 NVRAM 104 Program ROM 105 Font ROM 106 RAM 107 Engine Interface 108 Engine 109 Panel Interface 110 Panel Device 111 Host Interface (Centro I / F or R
S232C) 112, 112a Host computer 113 Disk interface 114 Disk device (floppy disk device or hard disk device) 115, 115a Printer 116 Application 117 OS (operating system) 118 Printer driver 119 Print manager 120 Printer monitor 122 Message file 123 Print log file 124 Host computer name information

Claims (3)

[Claims] In a printer system in which a printer, a host computer for an administrator, and a host computer for a user are connected via a network, when printing is to be performed from the host computer for the user, a printer driver that creates print data is managed by the printer driver. Query management information from the host computer for
If the charge amount in the inquiry is equal to or greater than a predetermined value, printing is not performed. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the management host computer is inquired of management information, and printing is restricted by a charge amount of the own host computer name of the management information or a combination of the own host computer name and the own user name. The printer system according to claim 1. 3. The printer system according to claim 1, wherein the acquired charge amount is displayed on the user host computer based on the management information of the administrator host computer.