JPH057192B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a proportional spacing printing method that allows printing with a desired character set with a small memory capacity.

(b) Prior art Characters, numbers, symbols, etc. (hereinafter referred to as “characters, etc.”)
In the past, typewriters were the typical type of printing machine that prints characters, but recently various types of printers have been developed that print characters formed by dots. With typewriters and many printers, the spacing (space) between printed characters is always constant, but in order to improve the visibility of recently printed characters, when the width of the printed character is wide, the spacing between the characters printed is always the same. A printing method has been devised in which a wide space is left between each character, and when the width of a character is narrow, the space between the next character is narrowed, and this printing method is called the proportional spacing printing method. It tends to be used in high-end printers.
Various methods of determining the space between characters in such a proportional spacing printing method have been proposed so far.

On the other hand, there are various types of printers, ranging from those that print by key input, such as word processors used as peripheral devices in recent office automation, to those that print based on character codes from the host computer. However, in printers that employ the proportional spacing printing method, there is a problem in that the right edge of each printed line is uneven and the appearance is not good.

Therefore, in Japanese Patent Application No. 58-213401, the inventor developed a horizontal dot system that stores the number of horizontal dots (the number of dots corresponding to both font and space) for each type of character that can be printed by a printer. A table is provided, character information transmitted from an external host device is deciphered, the number of horizontal dots of each character to be printed is read out from this horizontal dot table, and the character dot data is transferred from the character generator to the number of horizontal dots. The number of dots to be allocated to each space on each line is calculated based on the number and type of characters to be printed on that line and the number of spaces provided along with the line. By doing so, we proposed a printing method that would improve visibility by aligning the terminals of each line of printing.

The above printing method has no problems when the number of character sets is small and character sets are rarely changed, but if you try to print various fonts with one printer, you will have to prepare many types of character sets and have to print all character sets. It is necessary to prepare the horizontal dot count data for all characters in the horizontal dot table, or to implement the character set used in the character generator and read-only memory for the horizontal dot table corresponding to this character set. . According to the former method,
Since it is necessary to always prepare several types of character sets and horizontal dot count data, the memory capacity increases, and the efficiency of using the written data is poor, making it uneconomical. On the other hand, in the latter method, character sets must be exchanged, which makes the exchange work cumbersome, and there is a risk of an exchange error in which a horizontal dot table different from the exchanged character set is implemented.

(c) Purpose and structure of the invention The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object thereof is to propose a proportional spacing printing method that allows printing with a large number of character sets with a small memory capacity and without replacement errors. To achieve this purpose, a character set is selected for printing, and the character dot data of the selected character set is stored in the printer's character generator, and the horizontal dot count data for each character is stored in the horizontal dot table. , these data are read and printed based on the print information.

(d) Examples The present invention will be explained below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram for implementing the proportional spacing printing method according to the present invention, and 1 is a host such as a host computer that holds data and sends out control commands for printing the data and character information of the data. 2 is a transmission line; 3 is a printer that performs proportional spacing printing based on character information and control commands transmitted through the transmission line 2;

In the present invention, a plurality of different character sets are provided for each character set, for example in the form of cassettes, and each cassette is adapted to be installed at a predetermined position in the printer. As shown in FIG. 2, the character set cassette 4 is provided with a ROM-configured memory 4a that stores character dot data of a unique font, and a horizontal dot table 4b that stores data on the number of horizontal dots for each character. ing. An example of the memory map in the cassette 4 is shown in FIG. Prior to the printing operation by the printer,
When a cassette with a character set of the desired font is inserted into the printer, when the printer is turned on, the character dot data in the cassette is written to the memory of the RAM configuration in the character generator (described later) provided in the printer, and the cassette data is The horizontal dot number data stored in the horizontal dot table 4b is also written to a horizontal dot table of a RAM configuration, which will be described later, provided within the printer.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of the main parts of the printer shown in FIG. 1, and the printing method according to the present invention will be explained using this diagram.

When the power of the printer is turned on, the character dot data in the character set cassette attached to the printer is stored in the character generator, and the horizontal dot number data is stored in the horizontal dot table.

When the printing operation is started in this state, the coded (for example, hexadecimal coded) character information and printing control commands sent from the host device (see Figure 1) are temporarily transferred to the input buffer 5. is memorized. The character information and control commands stored in the input buffer 5 are each decoded by a central processing unit (not shown) and stored in the page memory 6. In this case, the character information has the MSB (most significant bit) " The control command is stored as character data represented by one byte of "0", and as control data represented by a total of two bytes, including one byte whose MSB is "1" and the following one byte. The code for each character etc. is determined in advance.

The number of horizontal dots (for example, the number of horizontal dots for "A" in the alphabet is 28), which is one of the attribute information of the character set of the loaded cassette, has already been written in the ROM of the horizontal dot table 7.

The character data stored in the page memory 6 is started by the data converter 8 in order to easily read out the dot data output from the character generator 11 in which the character data read out from the cassette is stored. The data is converted into address data and stored in character line buffer 9 for each digit (column). On the other hand, the number of horizontal dots of a character, which is one of the attribute data of each character stored in the character line buffer 9, is read out from the horizontal dot table 7 and written into the attribute line buffer 10. When it is desired to make the width of a character to be printed wider or narrower than the standard width, the variable space command and space width (number of horizontal dots) included in the control data stored in the page memory 6 are written into the attribute line buffer 10. In the other attribute line buffer 10, data for commanding underlining, character reversal (black and white), and character size is written.

After one line of character data and attribute data are written in the character buffer line 9 and attribute buffer line 10 in this way, both line buffers 9 and 10 are data is read. The first digit character data read from the character buffer line 9 is the start address of the corresponding character generated from the character generator 11, and thereby the character generator 11 outputs the dot data of the corresponding character. It is sent to the parallel-to-serial conversion circuit 12. On the other hand, the number of horizontal dots of the character corresponding to the digit (column) of the character line buffer 9 is read out from the attribute line buffer 10 and counted by the dot counter 13.

The character dot data in the parallel-to-serial conversion circuit 12 is read out in synchronization with the dot clock CLK that prints in the printing unit 16, and is sent as a video signal to the printing unit 1.
Sent to 6. The dot clock CLK serves as a trigger clock for the parallel-to-serial conversion circuit 12, and is also input to the H counter 14 and counted.

The count value of the H counter 14 is compared with the count value of the dot counter 13 by the comparison circuit 15, and when the two match (this means that horizontal dots for one character have been read), the comparison circuit 15 A character end signal CE is output from the line buffer counter 17 and sent to the line buffer counter 17. When the character end signal CE is input to the line buffer counter 17 and the count value increases by 1, the character and attribute line buffers 9 and 10
The address is advanced by one digit so that the start address data of the second character in the memory is read out.

In this way, a video signal is generated based on the character information and control commands transmitted from the host device.

In the above printing method, if the number of dots allocated to each space is calculated from the total number of horizontal dots of the characters in the total number of dots for each line, and spaces are created using the calculated number of dots, the ends of sentences on each line will be aligned. , which allows for good-looking printing. For details, please refer to the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application No. 58-213401.

Next, when you want to print with a different character set, insert the cassette for the desired character set into the printer, and when the power is turned on, the character dot data and horizontal dot count data in the cassette will be transferred to the print side memory, just as in the case described above. , and the equal spacing operation described above is performed to allow for more visually proportional printing with that character set.

In the above embodiment, the character set cassette to be printed is converted each time printing is performed, but character dot data and horizontal dot count data for several types of character sets are stored in advance in a separate ROM-configured memory. It is also possible to select one of them for printing.

(E) Effects of the Invention As explained above, in the present invention, a plurality of character sets are prepared together with data on the number of horizontal dots for each constituent character of the character set, and when used, a desired character set and its horizontal dots can be selected. By automatically writing numeric data into the printer's internal memory, there is no need to always have all types of character sets available, which reduces the printer's memory capacity and eliminates the hassle of inputting horizontal dot data. This eliminates input errors such as inputting horizontal dot number data that does not correspond to the character set, and enables good-looking proportional spacing printing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a system diagram for implementing the proportional spacing printing method according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a character set cassette used in the present invention.
Figure 3 is the memory map of the character set cassette.
FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of essential parts of a printer implementing the proportional spacing printing method according to the present invention. 1...Host device, 2...Transmission line, 3...Printer, 4...Cassette, 4a...Memory, 4
b, 7...horizontal dot table, 5...input buffer, 6...page memory, 8...data converter, 9,
10...Line buffer, 11...Character generator,
12...Parallel-to-serial conversion circuit, 13...Dot counter, 14...H counter, 15...Comparison circuit, 1
6...Printing section, 17...Line buffer counter.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 In a proportional spacing printing method in which character dot data stored in a character generator of a printer and horizontal dot number data stored in a horizontal dot table are read out based on character information to be printed, and printing is performed according to the data. , a proportional spacing characterized in that a character set is selected during printing, and character dot data of the selected character set and horizontal dot number data of each character are stored in the character generator and the horizontal dot table, respectively. Printing method.