JP4730201B2 - Print control apparatus, print system, print control method and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a print control apparatus and a print system, such as a print server and a print gateway, which perform print processing by transferring a print job from a host system to a printer connected to a network, and a print control method therefor.

  In a conventional printing system, a system in which a host system and a printer are directly connected one-on-one is common. However, in recent years, a print server / printer gateway (Gate Way) (hereinafter referred to as “print server / printer gateway”) for the purpose of reducing the processing load for generating a print job (or simply referred to as a job) in the host system and distributing it to a plurality of printers. A system that improves operational efficiency is used by interposing a printer server between the host system and the printer.

  In such a system, the print server receives a print job created by the host system, distributes it to the printer, prints it out by the printer, and manages and distributes the print status.

  In recent printers, the print data is temporarily spooled in an HDD (Hard Disc Drive) or the like for the purpose of recovery from a failure during the printing process, and then the printing process or the like is performed. Also in the print server, the print job transmitted from the host system is temporarily spooled, and the received print data is distributed and transmitted to a printer capable of printing as appropriate.

  For this reason, in a system using a print server, until a print job created by the host system is actually started to be printed by the printer, the print server and the printer are spooled twice before printing is performed. Therefore, there is a disadvantage that the print start time is delayed as compared with the terminal connection configuration in which the host system and the printer are directly connected.

  When spooling print data to a storage device such as an HDD, the purpose is to reduce FPOT (First Print Out Time), which is the time from when print data is received until the printer starts printing, as much as possible. Such a method is disclosed as the prior art.

  As one of such conventional techniques, when print data from an application such as a host system is spooled, and the spooled print data is read out and transferred to the printer for printing, all print data is spooled. Previously, when a print instruction was received from the host system, a method for shortening the FPOT when printing a large amount of print data by sending only the spooled print data to the printer was proposed. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).

  However, in the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1, it is necessary to instruct intermediate output of print data in the spool from an application such as a host system, which requires practical processing from the host system. is not.

  In addition, in the case of performing print processing via a spool, a conventional technique has been proposed in which print data is quickly read from the spool for each unit in which print processing is performed in parallel with storing print data in the spool (for example, , See Patent Document 2).

  However, the conventional technique disclosed in Patent Document 2 is a technique of a single printer that performs print processing in parallel while spooling received print data. For this reason, when this conventional technique is applied to an environment having a plurality of host systems, the printing process is serialized.

  Furthermore, a print job is generated based on a drawing command input from application software, a plurality of print jobs generated sequentially are spooled in the system spool, and the plurality of print jobs are combined and transferred to the printer as one print job. A conventional technique has also been proposed that allows continuous page printing to be performed while maintaining the maximum printing speed unique to the print engine of the printing apparatus without causing a decrease in printing speed for continuous print jobs (for example, Patent Documents). 3).

  However, in the technique disclosed in Patent Document 3, since a process for collecting a plurality of print jobs into a single print job is performed after a plurality of print jobs are spooled, the FPOT is long as a result. turn into.

As described above, in any of the conventional techniques described above, after receiving print data in a system that causes a plurality of printers to print print jobs from a plurality of host systems via a printer server. The time to start printing cannot be shortened effectively.
JP-A-8-278861 JP-A-9-101867 JP 2004-246570 A

  In the conventional print server described above, when a print job from the host system is transferred to the printer via the printer server, the print server, the printer, Since the printing process is performed after being spooled twice, there is a problem that it takes time to start printing.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to reduce the time from receiving print data to starting printing in a system that causes a plurality of printers to print print jobs from a plurality of host systems via a printer server. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print control apparatus and a print control method thereof.

[Print control device]
In order to achieve the above object, a print control apparatus of the present invention includes a small unit print data generation unit that divides print data transmitted from an information processing apparatus into small unit print data;
Control means for receiving the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus and controlling the transmission of the small unit print data generated by the small unit print data generation means to the printer.

  According to the present invention, the received print jobs are sequentially transferred to the printer in the streaming method without waiting for the spool processing of all the data of the print job to be completed. It is possible to shorten the time until the start of printing as compared with the case where the transfer is performed.

  Preferably, the apparatus further includes job status management means for managing the print results of the print jobs for each small unit transferred to the printer.

  Preferably, the generating unit divides the print job using any one of a page unit, a report unit of a form composed of a plurality of reports, a unit for switching a form of the form, and a unit for switching a paper size.

[Printing system]
The printing system of the present invention includes an information processing apparatus that generates and outputs print data;
Generated by the small unit print data generating means for dividing the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus into small print data, and generated by the small unit print data generating means while receiving the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus. A print control device having control means for controlling to send the small unit of print data to the printer;
A printer that performs print processing based on print data from the print control apparatus.

[Print control method]
The print control method of the present invention divides print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus into small print data,
While receiving the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus, control is performed to transmit the generated small unit of print data to the printer.

[program]
The program of the present invention includes a step of dividing the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus into small units of print data;
And receiving the print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus, and causing the computer to execute a step of controlling the generated small unit of print data to be transmitted to the printer.

  As described above, according to the present invention, the received print job is sequentially transferred to the printer in the streaming method without waiting for the spool processing of all the data of the print job to end. As compared with the case where the print job is transferred after the process is completed, it is possible to shorten the time from the reception of the print data to the start of printing.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system including a print server according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system according to the present embodiment includes an information processing apparatus 1, which is a host system, a print server 2, a terminal device 3, and n printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n. Yes.

  The information processing apparatus 1 includes a main frame / office computer / workstation / PC (personal computer) and the like, and is a transmission apparatus that generates and outputs print data such as basic form data.

The information processing apparatus 1 and the print server 2 are connected by a channel interface. Here, the channel interface is a one-to-one interface by bus connection called so-called Bus & Tag.
Further, it is assumed that the print server 2 and the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n are connected by a network such as a LAN.

  In the present embodiment, the information processing apparatus 1 and the print server 2 are described as being connected by a channel interface. However, the present invention can be similarly applied even when connected by a network. Further, the present invention can be similarly applied to an offline connection in which a print job from the information processing apparatus 1 is temporarily stored in a tape device or the like and then supplied to the print server 2.

The print server 2 receives print data such as basic form data created by the information processing apparatus 1 that is a host computer, and designates the received print data among a plurality of printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n connected to the network. It is transferred and distributed to the device, and the device status of the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n and print monitoring are performed.
A similar system configuration can be realized by using a printer gateway (Gate Way) instead of the print server 2.

The printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n are systems that process print data such as a basic form created by the information processing apparatus 1 and print it on a medium such as printing paper.

The terminal device 3 starts and stops of the print server 2, the received print data manipulation (pending, deletion and reprocessing, etc.) and a printer 4 ₁ to 4 _n equipment status and the printer 4 ₁ such backbone form in to 4 _n of This is a device for viewing the processing status (completion / processing / error) of print data.

  Next, the detailed configuration of the print server 2 will be described with reference to FIG.

  The print server 2 is realized by, for example, a general-purpose computer in which a print control program is installed. This print control program controls the operation of the print server 2 by being read and installed in the print server 2 from a recording medium (not shown) such as a magnetic disk or a semiconductor memory. Note that all or part of the functions realized by the print control program may be realized by hardware such as ASIC (Application Specific IC).

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a functional configuration of the print server 2 in FIG. 1 realized by executing the above-described print control program.
As shown in FIG. 2, the print server 2 includes a data reception unit 21, a reception buffer 22, a page determination unit 23, an attribute extraction storage unit 24, a job division determination unit 25, and a job data storage unit 26. The minimum unit print job generation unit 27, the job data transfer unit 28, the job status management unit 29, the job re-output unit 30, the attribute information storage unit 31, and the job data storage unit 32.

  The data receiving unit 21 receives print data such as basic form data generated by the information processing apparatus 1 via the channel interface. In addition to the channel interface, the data receiving means 21 can also receive data on a network (protocol such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol) / LPR (Line PRinter daemon protocol)).

  The reception buffer 22 is a buffer for storing the data received by the data receiving means 21. Data is stored in the reception buffer 22 in a record format. The reception buffer 22 stores a data record for one page.

  When print data is received by the channel interface, the reception buffer 22 stores the received data in units of received records. When print data is received by the network, the print data is received in file units. However, in the reception buffer 22, the received file unit data is in record units such as <CR> <LF>. It is divided and stored.

  Here, the data structure transmitted from the information processing apparatus 1 to the print server 2 will be described with reference to FIG.

  In the information processing apparatus 1, in order to distinguish each print job, a start separator and an end separator are added before and after the form body data that is actual print data. The start separator stores information indicating which printer the print job is to be printed on, that is, information that can specify the transfer destination printer.

  The form body data of each print job is composed of data units called reports. Each report is composed of a plurality of pages.

  Data transmitted from the information processing apparatus 1 to the print server 2 via the channel interface is transmitted and received in units called records. A unit of this record is a unit smaller than a page, and for example, data for one page is composed of 60 records.

  The page determination unit 23 determines whether or not the record group stored in the reception buffer 22 forms one page. This page determination includes a case where a page break control record (such as channel skip) has been received, a PDL (Page Description Language) command accompanied by a page break operation has been received, etc. .

The attribute extraction storage unit 24 scans the page determined by the page determination unit 23, extracts job attribute information, and stores it in the attribute information storage unit 31.
Here, the attribute information is information indicating print job attributes such as a job name, a job number, a destination printer number, and a user name that created the job.

The job division determination unit 25 determines whether the page determined by the page determination unit 23 is a page (start separator, end separator, etc.) for dividing a separately designated job. A series of stream data is divided into jobs.
The subsequent stream data is processed as a data record of the next job, and the above processing is repeated.

Specific examples of job division conditions in the job division determination unit 25 are shown below.
(1) When the job start separator page is recognized, the previous job is divided and registered as the next job after the start separator.
(2) When the job end separator page is recognized, the job is divided and registered on the page.

  The job data storage unit 26 spools the received data (page data) in the job storage unit 32 as job data associated by the job division determination unit 25.

  The minimum unit print job generation unit 27 is a minimum unit file as a print job to be processed by the printer by dividing the print job being stored in the job data storage unit 32 by the job data storage unit 26. Generate as a minimum unit print job. That is, the minimum unit print job generation unit 27 functions as a small unit print data generation unit that divides print data transmitted from the information processing apparatus 1 serving as a transmission device into small unit print data.

  The minimum unit to divide a print job is a page unit (1 or more), a report unit of a form composed of a plurality of pages, for example, a unit for switching a form form such as vertical writing or horizontal writing, a unit for switching a paper size, etc. A unit that can be identified from the characteristics of PDL (Page Description Language) or the configuration of print data can be used.

  In the basic form, the job format and the resources to be used are specified at the beginning of the job with the PDL command. However, various specifications such as replacing part of the above PDL command at the timing when the form is switched or the format is switched. Is possible. Since the printer performs print processing according to the PDL, even when a job formed of a series of stream data is generated as a minimum unit print job, it has a function of inheriting the PDL information of the previous job and adding it to the generated print job. I have.

The job data transfer unit 28 sequentially transfers the print data generated by the minimum unit print job generation unit 27 to an output device such as the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n via a communication line such as a network.

  The minimum unit print job generation means 27 and the job data transfer means 28 constitute a division transfer means. The divided transfer means can sequentially transfer the print job to a printer designated by the streaming method without waiting for the spooling process of the received print job to end.

The job status management unit 29 monitors the print result of the minimum unit print job transmitted to the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _{n and the} like. It also manages the results of the print jobs obtained from the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n , manages whether the jobs are derived from a plurality of jobs formed by a series of input stream data, Manage the status of the job as a whole from the status.

  Each job managed by the job status management unit 29 is stored / stored or deleted in the printer server 2 in accordance with the post-processing attribute of the job.

Here, an example of the divided job / data management table managed by the job status management unit 29 is shown in FIG.
For example, it is assumed that a certain print job 1 is divided into minimum unit print jobs, and the job 1-1 (Job1-1), job 1-2 (Job1-2),. Then, the job status management unit 29 creates a divided job / data management table as shown in FIG. 4 and starts managing each minimum unit print job.

  In FIG. 4A, the printing of the job 1-1 is completed, the job 1-2 is being transferred to the printer, and the jobs after the job 1-3 are being generated. It has been shown.

  When the transfer of the job 1-2 is completed and the next job is transferred, the job status management unit 20 displays the divided job / data management table in a state as shown in FIG. Update to

  When printing of all the minimum unit print jobs is completed, the divided job / data management table is in a state as shown in FIG. Here, it is shown that an error has occurred in the printing of one minimum unit print job.

The job re-output unit 30 selects a job stored / stored in the printer server 2 by the job state management unit 29 based on an instruction from the user, and re-outputs the entire job. For actual printer transfer, the job data transfer means 28 transfers the entire job as an entire print job to an output device such as the printers 4 ₁ to 4 _n .

  The job status management unit 29 can manage not only the status of the entire job from the derived job but also the entire job.

Next, the operation of the print server 2 of the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
A processing flow in the print server 2 of the present embodiment is shown in FIG. A print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus 1 in record units is first received by the data receiving unit 21 and stored in the reception buffer 22. The print data stored in the reception buffer 22 is divided for each job by the attribute extraction storage unit 24, the job division determination unit 25, and the like, and stored by the job data storage unit 26 in the job data storage unit 32 for each job. The In FIG. 5, three jobs 1, 2, and 3 are stored in the job data storage unit 32.

In parallel with the data of each job being stored in the job data storage unit 32, the minimum unit print job generation unit 27 divides each job into minimum unit print jobs, and passes the job transfer unit 28 via the job transfer unit 28. Then, transfer is started to the destination print systems 4 ₁ to 4 _n .

For example, the job 1 is transferred job 1-1, job 1-2, ..., successively to the printer 4 ₁ as a job 1-n, job 2, job 2-1 job 2-2, ... is sequentially transferred to the printer 4 ₂ as job 2-n.

  In the present embodiment, the minimum unit print job divided by the minimum unit print job generation unit 27 is transferred to each printer in parallel with the job data storage process in the job data storage unit 32 by the job data storage unit 26. .

  Therefore, compared to the case where all the data of the print job is once spooled in the job data storage means 32 and then transferred to the printer, the throughput required to start printing is shortened and FPOT can be shortened. .

Next, the FPTO in the present embodiment and the FPTO in the conventional process will be described in comparison with reference to the timing chart of FIG.
FIG. 6A is a timing chart showing FPOT in the conventional processing, and FIG. 6B is a timing chart showing FPOT in the present embodiment.

  As shown in FIG. 6A, in the conventional processing, after all data reception from the information processing apparatus is completed in the print server, print data is transferred to the designated printer. In the printer, the printing process is started after the time required for the transfer has elapsed since the data transfer was performed in the print server. Therefore, the FPOT in the conventional processing has become longer as the data reception time becomes longer as shown in FIG.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 6B, the print server 2 according to the present embodiment starts receiving data from the information processing apparatus and generates and transfers the minimum unit print job. the print server 2 is the printing process even in the printer 4 ₁ even during data reception starts. Therefore, it can be seen that the FPOT by the print server 2 of the present embodiment is significantly shortened compared to FIG. 6A as shown in FIG.

  In the printing system using the print server 2 according to the present embodiment, a printing throughput almost equal to that of the channel printer environment connected to the host local is possible. For this reason, in a printing environment of a host system having only a channel interface, it is possible to shift the channel printer environment connected to the host local to the network printing environment by interposing the print server 2 having the channel interface. .

  Furthermore, since the print job is eventually spooled on the printer server 2, it is also ensured that the re-output of the print job, the storage of the basic form job, and the like are executed by the printer server 2. Therefore, even if any failure occurs, it is not necessary to re-execute print job processing for re-output on the host computer, and the resources (CPU / disk / communication environment, etc.) of the host computer are wasted. It is possible to suppress this.

  Further, in the system using the conventional print server, if the start of the printing process is delayed, the host system and the printer must be returned to the terminal connection (1: n) by the channel as usual. However, when the host system and the printer are connected by terminal connection in this way, sorting of output destinations (printers) for each form occurs in the host system, and extra processing occurs in the host system. However, when the print server according to the present embodiment is used, the time until the start of printing is hardly delayed even when the print server is connected between the host system and the printer. The time until the start of printing can be shortened without requiring troublesome processing such as sorting processing.

  Further, by using the print server as in the present embodiment, the host system only needs one print output channel, so that a device for connecting a plurality of printers to the channel is also unnecessary.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system including a print server according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed configuration of a print server 2 in FIG. 1. 4 is a diagram for explaining a data configuration transmitted from the information processing apparatus 1 to the print server 2. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a divided job / data management table managed by a job status management unit 29. FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating operation | movement of the print server 2 of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a timing chart for comparing FPTO in conventional processing with FPTO in one embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 the information processing apparatus 2 the print server 3 terminal apparatus 4 ₁ to 4 _n printer 21 data receiving means 22 receive buffer 23 page judgment unit 24 attribute extracting storage means 25 the job division determination unit 26 job data storage unit 27 the minimum unit print job generating unit 28 Job data transfer means 29 Job status management means 30 Job re-output means 31 Attribute information storage means 32 Job data storage means

Claims (14)

The print job transmitted PDL format from the information processing apparatus, a small unit print job generation means for dividing the print job of small units,
An adding unit for adding PDL information to the small unit print job generated by the small unit print job generating unit;
And a control unit configured to receive the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus and control to transmit a small unit print job to which the PDL information is added by the adding unit to the printer. 2. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising job status management means for managing a print result of a small unit print job transferred to the printer. The small unit print job generation unit divides a print job using any one of a page unit, a report unit of a form composed of a plurality of reports, a unit for switching a form of a form, and a unit for switching a paper size. The print control apparatus according to claim 1 or 2. An information processing apparatus that generates and outputs a print job in PDL format ;
Adding a small unit print job generation means for dividing the print job sent to a print job of a small unit, the PDL information for a print job of a small unit generated by the small unit print job generating unit from the information processing apparatus And a control unit that receives the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus and controls to transmit a small unit print job to which the PDL information is added by the addition unit to the printer. And a printing system. A small unit print job generation means for dividing the print job transmitted PDL format from the information processing apparatus to the print job of the small unit, PDL information for a print job of the small units generated by small unit print job generation means And a control unit that controls to transmit a print job in a small unit to which the PDL information is added by the adding unit to the printer while receiving the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus. A control device;
And a printer that performs a printing process based on a print job from the print control apparatus. An information processing apparatus that generates and outputs a print job in PDL format ;
Adding a small unit print job generation means for dividing the print job sent to a print job of a small unit, the PDL information for a print job of a small unit generated by the small unit print job generating unit from the information processing apparatus And a control unit that receives the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus and controls to transmit a small unit print job to which the PDL information is added by the addition unit to the printer. When,
And a printer that performs a printing process based on a print job from the print control apparatus. The printing system according to any one of claims 4 to 6, wherein the print control apparatus further includes job status management means for managing a print result of a small unit print job transferred to a printer. The small unit print job generation unit divides a print job using any one of a page unit, a report unit of a form composed of a plurality of reports, a unit for switching a form of a form, and a unit for switching a paper size. The printing system according to claim 4. The PDL format print job sent from the information processing device is divided into small print jobs ,
Add PDL information to the divided small print jobs,
A print control method for receiving a print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus and controlling a small unit print job to which PDL information is added to a printer. The print control method according to claim 9, wherein the print result of the small unit print job transferred to the printer is managed. When dividing a print job into small print jobs , use one of page units, report units of reports composed of multiple reports, units for switching form forms, or units for switching paper sizes. The print control method according to claim 9 or 10, wherein the print job is divided. Dividing a PDL-format print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus into small print jobs ;
Adding PDL information to the divided small unit print job;
A program for causing a computer to execute a step of receiving a print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus and controlling to transmit a small unit print job with PDL information added thereto to a printer. 13. The program according to claim 12, further causing the computer to execute a step of managing the print result of the small unit print job transferred to the printer. When dividing a print job into small print jobs , use one of page units, report units of reports composed of multiple reports, units for switching form forms, or units for switching paper sizes. 14. The program according to claim 12, wherein the print job is divided.

Images