JP2002278727A - Character extraction printing program and printing controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To extract and print character data from a display picture in which the character data and image data coexist. SOLUTION: A converting part 142 of a printer driver 140 generates printing data by extracting a character plotting command in plotting data transmitted from an operation system. Thus, only the character data can be printed since only a printing command based on the character plotting command is generated and no printing command based on an image plotting command is generated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a print control device, and more particularly to a print control device for extracting characters from a screen displayed on a Web page on the Internet and printing the characters.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of the Internet, various W
An e-site is operated. The user accesses the Web site using the Web browser, and thereby obtains the Web site.
Various information can be obtained from a Web page provided by the site.

[0003] Web pages provided by Web sites are:
It is described in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language), and the Web browser of the user's terminal uses the HT
The Web page is displayed by interpreting the ML language.

[0004] A Web page is mainly composed of character (text) data and image (image) data.
The creator of the Web site creates a Web page by appropriately arranging the data.

FIG. 6 shows a Web browser displayed on a Web browser.
It is a figure for explaining an example of page b. In the figure, a Web page 600 includes image data A601.
, Image data B 602, heading 603 as text data, text 604 as text data,
Image data C605 is arranged.

Generally, a Web browser is provided with a button, a menu, and the like for receiving a print command from a user. When a print command is received from the user, the drawing data of the displayed Web page is transmitted to the printer driver via the operating system. Then, the printer driver converts the drawing data of the Web page into a code for controlling the printer, and transmits it as print data to a printer connected to the terminal. The printer performs printing based on the received print data. Then, the user can obtain the print result of the image displayed on the Web browser as shown in FIG.

[0007]

[Problems to be solved by the invention] As shown in FIG.
Normally, a Web page is a mixture of character data and image data. Therefore, when printing and reading information of a Web page, character data and image data are printed as shown in FIG.

However, generally, printing of image data is performed by
It takes longer than printing character data. For this reason, there is a case where only the character data is desired to be printed quickly. Also, depending on the content to be printed, it may be sufficient if only character data can be printed, for example, in a newspaper article.

An object of the present invention is to provide a technique for extracting character data from a display screen composed of character data, image data, and the like and printing the character data.

[0010]

According to the present invention, there is provided, in accordance with the present invention, a drawing method comprising the steps of: drawing data including a character drawing command having information on a character string to be printed;
A program for generating a print command for controlling a printer, a process for receiving an instruction as to whether or not to perform character extraction printing, and, when receiving an instruction to perform character extraction and printing, extracting and extracting a character drawing command from drawing data. A program for causing a computer to execute a process of generating a print command based on the rendered character drawing command.

According to the present invention, there is also provided a print control apparatus for generating a print command for controlling a printer based on drawing data including a character drawing command having information on a character string to be printed and sending the print command to the printer. Means for receiving an instruction as to whether or not to perform character extraction printing, and means for, when receiving an instruction to perform character extraction printing, extracting a character drawing command from drawing data and generating a print command based on the extracted character drawing command And a print control device characterized by comprising:

Thus, only the print command based on the character drawing command is generated, and the print command based on the image drawing command is not generated, so that only the character data can be printed.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. The present invention is particularly effective at the time of printing a Web page. Therefore, in the present embodiment, a case where a Web page displayed by a Web browser is printed will be described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the configuration of a printing system to which the present invention is applied. As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system includes a host computer 10 for realizing various processes by an application, a printing process by a printer driver, and the like, and a printer 30 connected to the host computer 10. . However, the configuration of the printing system is not limited to this.

The host computer 10 has a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 1 for executing various programs.
1. RAM for temporarily storing data and programs
(Random Access Memory) 12, ROM in which various data, various programs, and the like are stored in a nonvolatile manner in advance
(Read Only Memory) 13, a printer interface 14 for transmitting and receiving data to and from the connected printer 30, and a communication control device 15 for connecting to the Internet 50. Host computer 1
0 indicates that the program or the like read into the RAM 12 is
1 executes a predetermined process to function as a printer host. The host computer 10 has an internal or external auxiliary storage device 2.
4. A display device 21 such as a color display, an input device 22 such as a mouse and a keyboard, and a media reading device 23 that reads data from a recording medium such as a CD-ROM are connected.

The printer 30 is, for example, a laser type page printer. However, it is not limited to this. For example, an inkjet type line printer may be used. The printer 30 performs printing based on print data sent from the host computer 10.

Next, a functional configuration realized by the host computer 10 in the printing system will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. In this embodiment,
Drawing data of a Web page is taken as an example of a print control, but is not limited to this.

As shown in FIG. 1, the host computer 1
The web browser 100, the operation system 120, and the printer driver 140 are built on 0.

The Web browser 100 is a function for browsing Web pages, and can be realized by general-purpose application software.

The operation system 120 is so-called basic software for controlling the host computer 10, and in this embodiment, mediates the exchange of data between the web browser 100 and the printer driver 140.

The printer driver 140 can process the drawing data of the Web page displayed by the Web browser 100 sent from the operation system 120, further converts the drawing data into a format that can be interpreted by the printer 30, and converts the drawing data into print data. Send to printer 30.

In this embodiment, the printer driver 1
40 is a conversion unit 142, a print data creation unit 144,
An interface unit 146 is provided.

The conversion unit 142 includes a character extraction unit 142a, a vertical writing conversion unit 142b, and a code correspondence table 142c. The character extracting unit 142a performs a process of extracting a character drawing command included in the drawing data of the Web page according to an instruction from the user. Vertical writing conversion unit 142b
Performs a process of converting to vertical writing of character data in a character drawing command included in drawing data of a Web page in accordance with an instruction from a user. The code correspondence table 142c is a table in which the correspondence between the horizontally written character code and the vertically written character code is recorded for the same character having different character codes between the horizontally written character and the vertically written character. Note that the code correspondence table 142c may be provided outside the printer driver 140.

The print data creation unit 144 includes a conversion unit 142
Performs rasterization, halftone processing, and the like on the rendering command that has been processed (the rendering command sent from the operation system 120 when there is no conversion instruction from the user).
0 generates interpretable print data. That is, the print data creation unit 144 has the same function as the conventional printer driver.

The user interface unit 146 is a Web interface.
When the browser 100 receives a print command from the user, for example, a print setting screen 50 as shown in FIG.
0 is displayed on the display device 21 and print settings from the user are accepted. As shown in FIG.
Are a paper type setting column 501 and a paper size setting column 502
, An ink setting column 503, a print quality setting column 504,
A print copy setting column 505 and a character extraction print designation column 506
Vertical print designation field 507, a cancel button 508 for canceling the printing process, and a print execution button 509.
And

The user can make various settings on this screen 500 and perform desired printing on the paper type, paper size, ink, print designation, number of copies, etc., as in the related art. Although detailed processing will be described later, in the present embodiment, if the character extraction print designation field 506 is checked, only character data can be extracted from the Web page and printed. When the vertical writing print designation field 507 is checked, character data of a Web page can be printed in vertical writing.

Next, the operation of the host computer 10 in this embodiment will be described. Here, a case will be described as an example where the web browser 100 receives a print command from the user while displaying the web page 500 shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 shows the printer driver 14 at this time.
FIG. 9 is a flowchart for explaining the process of a conversion unit 142 of 0.

The printer driver 140 displays the print setting screen 500 shown in FIG. 3 on the display device 21 and accepts print settings from the user. Then, when a click of the print execution button 509 is received, the Web browser 1
From 00, the drawing data of the Web page 500 is obtained via the operation system 120 (S101). Here, the drawing data is composed of a character drawing command, an image drawing command, other control commands, and the like. In general, a drawing position, a drawing content, and the like are specified by parameters of these commands. Specifically, for example, drawing coordinates, centering information, character or image contents, font, character modification information such as underline, and the like are specified.

The printer driver 140 checks whether a check has been entered in the character extraction print designation field 506 (S102). As a result, when the check is input, only the character drawing command is extracted from the drawing commands included in the obtained drawing data (S
103).

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a printing result when printing is performed using drawing data from which a character drawing command has been extracted. That is, only the character portion is extracted from the conventional print result shown in FIG. 11 and the image result is deleted. In general, an image portion requires a longer printing time than a character portion. Therefore, by performing this process, the printing time can be shortened. In practice, the drawing data converted by the conversion unit 142 through the above-described processing is converted into print data by the print data creation unit 144 and printed by the printer 30.

The print result shown in FIG. 7 has a layout in which the extracted character drawing command is printed as it is and the image portion is deleted, so that blank spaces in the image portion are conspicuous. Therefore, the printer driver 140
For example, the rearrangement process (S104) may be performed so that the character portion can be printed from the upper left, for example.

In the rearrangement process (S104), the printer driver 140 ignores the print position information included in the drawing data acquired from the operation system 120,
The drawing commands are rewritten so that the character data specified by the character drawing commands are sequentially arranged in the printable area from the upper left in the order of the character drawing commands. At this time, information on characters included in the character drawing command, for example, designation of font modification, character modification such as font, size, and underline is used as it is. In this example,
The character drawing command for drawing the “heading” includes the specification of centering, and the character drawing command for drawing the text includes the specification of underlining “Tatsutsuto”. It is assumed that

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a printing result when printing is performed using the drawing data in which the character drawing command is extracted and rearranged. That is, the result is that the character portion is rearranged with respect to the print result shown in FIG. In this figure, the “heading” is printed centered on the upper part of the printable area, and the text is printed after the “heading”, with the drawing area stretched left and right. "Tatsutsuto" is printed with an underline.

Next, the printer driver 140 checks whether or not a check has been entered in the vertical writing print designation field 507 (S105). As a result, when the check is input, the vertical writing conversion process (S106) is performed on the character drawing command included in the drawing data. If the above-described character extraction processing has been performed, the processing is performed on the character drawing command after the extraction (after the rearrangement processing when the rearrangement processing is also performed).

FIG. 5 shows the vertical writing conversion process (S106).
This will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

Vertical writing conversion unit 1 of printer driver 140
42b sequentially extracts characters one by one from the character string data to be printed included in the character drawing command (S20).
1).

Then, it is determined whether or not the extracted character is a two-byte character (S202). In other words, in the vertical writing conversion process, double-byte characters (Japanese sentences) are converted into vertical writing. Since 1-byte characters (alphanumeric characters) are difficult to read when written vertically, vertical conversion is not performed.

If the extracted character is a two-byte character, it is determined whether or not the character requires code conversion for vertical writing (S203). That is, for example, for punctuation marks, prompting characters, parentheses, and the like, the characters for horizontal writing and the characters for vertical writing are distinguished from each other, and different character codes are assigned to them. In the present embodiment, with reference to the code correspondence table 142c, it is determined whether or not the extracted character requires code conversion.

As a result, if the character requires code conversion, the character code is converted according to the code correspondence table 142c (S204). These characters can be changed from horizontal writing to vertical writing only by performing code conversion. Note that information regarding characters included in the character drawing command, for example, designation of character modification such as font, size, and underline is used as it is even after code conversion.

On the other hand, if the character does not require code conversion, the extracted character is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise (S205).

Next, it is determined whether the processing of the character string data to be printed included in the character drawing command has been completed (S206). As a result, if the processing has not been completed, the next character is extracted (S201), and the above processing is repeated.

On the other hand, when the processing of the character string data is completed, the character size is adjusted (S207). In general,
Since characters have different vertical and horizontal sizes, rotating the characters will change the character pitch. Therefore, a predetermined drawing area or a rearrangement process (S10)
In some cases, characters may not fit in the drawing area set in 4). For this reason, the printer driver 140 calculates the size of the character to be printed, and if it does not fit in the drawing area, changes the character size (points) to a smaller size so that it can fit.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining a printing result when printing is performed using drawing data that has been converted to vertical writing. This figure shows a print result after the vertical writing conversion when the character extraction printing is not specified. As shown in this figure,
Double-byte characters in the text are converted to vertical writing, and alphanumeric characters are not converted.

FIG. 10 is a view for explaining a printing result after the vertical writing conversion process when the character extraction printing is specified and the rearrangement process (S104) is performed. As shown in the figure, 2-byte characters are converted into vertical writing and printed in the drawing area set by the rearrangement process (S104).

When the vertical writing conversion process (S106) is completed, the conversion unit 142 sends the drawing data including the converted drawing command to the print data creation unit 144. After that,
As in the case of conventional printing, the print data creation unit 144 converts the drawing data into print data, transmits the print data to the printer 30, and performs printing. The figures explaining the printing results shown in FIGS. 7 to 10 are the printing results obtained through this processing.

[0047]

As described above, according to the present invention, character information of the horizontal writing specification can be printed in vertical writing.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining a configuration of a printing system to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram for describing a functional configuration realized by a host computer 10.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a print setting screen 500.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining processing of a conversion unit 142 of the printer driver 140.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining vertical writing conversion processing.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining an example of a Web page displayed on a Web browser.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a printing result when printing is performed using drawing data from which a character drawing command is extracted.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a print result when printing is performed using drawing data in which a character drawing command has been extracted and rearranged.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a print result after a vertical writing conversion process when a character extraction print designation is performed;

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a print result after vertical writing conversion processing when character extraction printing is specified and rearrangement processing is performed;

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining a print result of a conventional Web page.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Host computer 11 ... CPU 12 ... RAM 13 ... ROM 14 ... Printer interface 21 ... Display device 22 ... Input device 23 ... Media reading device 24 ... Auxiliary storage device 30 ... Printer

Continued on the front page F term (reference) 2C087 AA17 AB05 AC07 AC08 BA01 BA03 BA05 BD18 CA02 CA04 CA10 CB13 2C187 AC07 AC08 DB31 DB34 5B009 NA06 RC01 VC01 5B021 AA02 BB01 BB04 BB08 CC05

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A program for generating a print command for controlling a printer based on drawing data including a character drawing command having information on a character string to be printed, and receiving an instruction as to whether or not to perform character extraction printing. A program for causing a computer to execute a process and a process of extracting a character drawing command from drawing data when receiving an instruction to perform character extraction printing, and generating a print command based on the extracted character drawing command. . 2. The program according to claim 1, wherein a printing position of the character string specified by the extracted character drawing command is re-established based on a drawable area of the printer and an order of the character string to be printed. A program for causing a computer to further execute a process of arranging. 3. A recording medium on which the program according to claim 1 is recorded. 4. A print control apparatus which generates a print command for controlling a printer based on drawing data including a character drawing command having information on a character string to be printed and sends the print command to the printer, wherein a character extraction printing is performed. And a means for receiving a command to perform character extraction printing, extracting a character drawing command from the drawing data, and generating a print command based on the extracted character drawing command. Printing control device. 5. The printing control device according to claim 4, wherein a printing position of the character string specified by the extracted character drawing command is determined based on a drawable area of the printer and an order of the character string to be printed. A print control device further comprising means for rearranging the print data. 6. The print control device according to claim 4, further comprising a Web browser, wherein the drawing data is data for printing a display screen of the Web browser. A print control device characterized by the above-mentioned.