JP3114793B2 - Printer device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device, and more particularly to a printer device for issuing reservation tickets, cash vouchers, and securities.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Heretofore, as a method of confirming printed contents, there has been a method of performing printing with a thermal transfer type printer and visually observing the thermal transfer film after printing.

[0003]

The first problem is that when the printer is not a thermal transfer system such as a thermal system, a dot impact system, a bubble jet system, or an electrophotographic system, the print content remains on the paper other than the printing target paper. Absent. This is because there is no recording on the ink ribbon as in the dot impact method, even when there is no ink ribbon, and even when the ink ribbon is present.

[0004] The second problem is that although the recording remains on the ink ribbon in the thermal transfer system, it is impossible for the printer itself to confirm the print content immediately after printing. This is because the printed content of the print target paper is not directly read, but the thermal transfer ink ribbon is visually confirmed indirectly.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to improve the disadvantages of the prior art and, in particular, to provide a printer capable of verifying that the print content is what should be printed. .

[0006]

Therefore, in the present invention, the printed contents after printing are read by image input, and compared with print data from a higher order by a microprocessor. For this reason, the print contents can be confirmed.

More specifically, a control unit for developing print data received from a host device into image data, a print head for printing out the image data developed by the control unit, and a reservation ticket up to the position of the print head ,
A transport unit that transports recording paper such as cash vouchers and securities, and prints
Of the recording paper on which the image data is printed by the head
A CCD sensor that images the print surface and a printhead
Cut the recording paper on which the image data is printed
And a cutter unit. In addition, the control unit
Printing that recognizes the content of the printing surface captured by the sensor
Content recognition means and the print content recognition means.
Comparison and collation means for collating the printed content with the print data
And the comparison and collation means have determined that there is no match.
Error comparison means for displaying errors externally.
I have. Further, the comparison error processing means includes
If it is determined that the two do not match, the cutter
The system has a function of stopping the dynamic control . This aims to achieve the above-mentioned object.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a printer according to the present invention. The printer device is a host device 2
0, a control unit 6 for developing the print data received from the control unit 6 into image data, a print head (thermal head) 3 for printing out the image data developed by the control unit 6, and a recording sheet 4 up to the position of the thermal head 3.
And a transport unit 7 for transporting.

[0010] The thermal head 3 and the transport section 7 are connected to a control section 6.
Controls the drive.

In addition, the thermal head 3
And a CCD sensor 1 for imaging the printing surface of the recording paper 4 on which the image data is printed. This CC
The D sensor 1 may be a CCD camera or an image sensor.

Further, the control unit 6 controls the CCD sensor 1
A print content recognizing means 10 for recognizing the content of the print surface imaged by the printer, and a comparing and collating means 11 for collating the print content recognized by the print content recognizing means 10 with the print data.

By adopting such a configuration, it is possible to check whether the content actually printed matches the content of the print data transmitted from the host device.

As shown in FIG. 2, when a roll paper is used as the recording paper and a cutter unit 2 for cutting the printed recording paper at a predetermined position is provided, the control unit 6 is used.
Is provided with a comparison error processing means 12 for stopping the drive control of the cutter when the comparison and collation means 11 determines that they do not match and displaying an error externally. The cutter unit 2 includes a cutter 2A for cutting a sheet, and the cutter 2A.
And a cutter driving unit 2 </ b> B that drives under control of the control unit 6.

In this embodiment, the comparison error processing means 12
Is provided, the handling can be entrusted to the user of the printer apparatus without automatically cutting the recording paper on which the defective printing has been performed. For this reason, it is possible to effectively prevent the issuance of the recording paper on which the defective printing is performed.

Further, as shown in FIG. 3, there are cases where the contents of printing are characters and bar codes. In accordance with the role of the printer device, the print content recognizing means 10 has a character recognition function for recognizing characters printed on the print surface or a bar code reading function for reading bar codes printed on the print surface.

Next, the operation will be described.

As shown in FIG. 2, the roll paper 4
Is conveyed to the printing position by the rollers 5. The thermal head 3 applies heat to the roll paper 4 according to the print content sent from the microprocessor 6. The roll paper 4 is a thermal paper, and the heated dot portion of the thermal head 3 turns black to express the print content.

The roller 5 continues to be conveyed, and the cutter 2
, And the roll paper 4 is fed until the print content comes directly below the CCD camera 1.

The CCD camera 1 reads the print contents and outputs image data to the microprocessor 6. The microprocessor 6 compares and compares the print data transmitted from the host device 20 with the content recognized from the image data input from the CCD camera 1.

After the comparison and collation, if they match, it is regarded as normal and the cutter 2 is operated to complete the printing and ticketing processing. On the other hand, the comparison and collation are performed, and if they do not match, the cutter 2 is not operated to notify the upper apparatus of the comparison and collation error, and the process is completed as abnormal.

The print content recognizing means 10 reads the numerical data by a software OCR function of the microprocessor 6 when the print content is numeric data, and performs bar code recognition by software when the print content is a bar code.

For this reason, a ticket is issued after checking whether or not the print content does not actually function as a bar code.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, since the print data and the image input data of the print content are collated by the microprocessor, abnormal prints such as print defects and print defects can be found.

[0025]

Since the present invention is constructed and functions as described above, according to the present invention, the print content recognizing means recognizes the content of the print surface imaged by the CCD sensor, In order to compare the print content recognized by the recognition means with the print data, it is possible to check whether or not the actually printed content is printed with the required accuracy. It is not necessary to issue a ticket on which the code is printed, and therefore, abnormal printing such as printing failure or missing printing can be found. Therefore, by printing the contents to verify that the contents to be printed body, Ki is possible to improve the reliability of the various sheets were issued by printing and comparison error processing means
Is determined by the comparison / matching
Stops the drive control of the cutter unit, resulting in poor printing.
Ticket is not issued in the state where the
That can be issued by printing
It is possible to provide an unprecedented excellent printer device capable of improving the reliability of various types of paper .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an overall configuration of the printer illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of printing with the configuration shown in FIG. 2;

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 1 CCD sensor (CCD camera or image scanner) 2 Cutter unit 3 Print head (thermal head) 4 Recording paper (roll paper) 5 Roller 6 Control unit (microprocessor) 7 Transport unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI G06T 1/00 G07B 1/06 101A G07B 1/06 101 G07D 9/00 431Z G07D 9/00 431 G06F 15/66 A (56) References JP-A-5-304576 (JP, A) JP-A-3-48754 (JP, A) JP-A-5-318888 (JP, A) JP-A-7-29661 (JP, U) JP-A-63 −104048 (JP, U)

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A control unit for developing print data received from a host device into image data, a print head for printing out the image data developed by the control unit, a reservation ticket, a voucher, and the like up to the position of the print head. A transport unit that transports recording paper such as securities, a CCD sensor that captures an image of a printing surface of the recording paper on which the image data is printed by the print head, and cuts the recording paper on which the image data is printed by the print head A cutter unit, wherein the control unit collates the print data with the print content recognized by the print content recognizing means for recognizing the content of the print surface imaged by the CCD sensor. An error is externally displayed when the comparison / matching means determines that there is no match. In the printer apparatus that includes a comparison error handling means that the comparison error processing means, it is determined that not the matching stops the drive control of the cutter unit when it is determined that not matched by the comparison verification means Printed content is printed
A printer device that does not cut a recording sheet that has been cut . 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the print content recognizing means has a character recognizing function for recognizing a character printed on the printing surface or a bar code reading function for reading a bar code printed on the printing surface. The printer device according to claim 1.