JPH11119940A - Printing control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To print a document composed of specified plural document files in a desired state through grouping printing jobs by instruction signals from a terminal and adding printing order data to the grouped respective printing jobs. SOLUTION: A user A downloads file stored in a server 5 and respectively instructs printing to a printer 3. A group is set at the time of transmitting the respective files so as to successively print the files at the time of instructing printing. At this time, a code for indicating a printing order is attached to the respective files. That is, the printing jobs are divided into respective groups by group IDs and a printing order ID set by the user A, and printing is performed corresponding to the printing order ID. Thus, printing is performed in a printing order as desired by the user A. Further, even if a printing job of another user B makes an interrupt, that printing job is excluded to continue the printing.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control system in which a plurality of terminals, a printer, and a server are connected via a network, and more particularly to a print control system for printing a document including a plurality of document files.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a network system in which a plurality of PC clients are connected on a network, a remote user usually creates a document using a personal computer or the like and prints the document using a printer connected via the network. I have. In addition, documents are printed or transmitted by receiving a document created by a person other than the user and transmitting the document to a printer. Further, a document that is already managed by a server or the like may be transmitted to a printer to print a document. In such a case,
Usually, one document is composed of one print file, but may be composed of a plurality of files.

[0003] Examples of print documents stored in a plurality of document files include, for example, documents on a homepage such as WWW and documents created by different applications. Such a document is often divided into a plurality of files and stored in a WWW server. When printing such a document, an instruction for printing is issued from an application or the like to each file, and each file is printed separately, and then collated or the like to form one document.

As a first conventional example having a technical field similar to that of the present invention, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-155028 discloses a "print control method".
There is. This prior art is an invention relating to a scheduling method of a print job, and aims at printing from a higher priority by adding priority information to print request information.

[0005]

However, in a printer shared by a plurality of users, if a plurality of files designated for printing are printed separately, the space between the individual files may be reduced by another user. There has been a problem that printing by an instruction is interrupted.

Therefore, even if the user intends to print the cover, the table of contents, the contents, and the appendix in that order, another user's job enters between the cover and the table of contents, causing a problem that the printed document is disturbed. In addition, when the stapling is performed mechanically, the stapling is performed with the printed matter of another job. Also, finding and removing other printed materials that have been lost has been a very time-consuming task.

Further, the above problem cannot be solved by the print control method of the above-mentioned prior art example 1 or the other proposed methods of scheduling and outputting print jobs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a print control method which can solve a conventional drawback and can print a document including a plurality of designated document files in a desired state.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, a print control method according to the present invention comprises at least one terminal, at least one output device connected to the terminal by a transmission line, and at least one output device. Print job spooling function and print control means having a function of storing print job scheduling data. The print jobs are grouped by an instruction signal from a terminal, and the print order is assigned to each of the grouped print jobs. It is characterized by adding data.

In the above-described print control method, it is preferable that common print instruction data is added to each grouped print job.

In the above-described print control method, it is preferable that the grouped print jobs are collectively suspended and restarted.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment of a print control system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 to 4 show an embodiment of the printing control method according to the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a print control method according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a spooling state in a printer buffer, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are flowcharts for explaining an operation example. .

FIG. 1 shows an example of a system configuration of a printing control system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the present embodiment, a plurality of PC clients including a PC client 1 and a PC client 2 as terminals, a printer 3,
Two printers of the printer 4 and a server 5 are connected on the network 100. The printer 3 and the printer 4 have a print control unit 301 and a print control unit 401 mounted thereon.

A user can create a file using the PC client 1 or PC client 2,
You can send print instructions. Further, the user can transmit the created print data to a printer connected to the network and print it. Further, a file can be transferred from the server 5 (existing on the LAN or another network) connected to the network, and the printer can execute printing.

Here, an operation example of transferring a plurality of files stored in the server 5 to a printer and printing the same will be described. The user A downloads the three files stored in the server 5 and individually instructs the printer 3 to perform printing. A group is set when each file is transmitted so that these files are connected and printed at the time of this print instruction. Settings are group name, group ID
A designation method such as is also possible. At this time, a code indicating the printing order is attached to each file.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a spooling state in the printer buffer of the printer 3 set by the user A. As shown in FIG.
Are included, but the job (report A) of the user B is interrupted on the way. Also, originally File
(Title), File (Body), File (Appendix) should be printed in the order of File (Body), File
(Title) and File (appendix). The reason why the spool is switched between the main text and the table of contents is that this is caused by the job issuer's issuance order, or the network is delayed even though the job issuer issued the job in the original order. There is a possibility that such a result may occur as a result of the above.

If printing is performed in the same order, Fi
le (text), File (title), Report A, File
(Appendix) will be output in the order. In this case, if a process such as stapling is performed, a report A that is completely unrelated will be bound together or will be bound in a different order from the original order of the document. Further, even when the binding is not performed, it is necessary to perform a troublesome operation such as removing a document that is not relevant after the printing is completed or changing the order of the documents.

In order to solve the above problem, the printer according to the present embodiment divides a print job into groups based on a group ID and a print order ID set by the user A, and performs printing in accordance with the print order ID. As a result, printing can be performed in the printing order desired by the user, and even if another user's print job is interrupted,
Printing can be performed while excluding print jobs of other users.

Next, an operation example of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. FIG.
The operation flow of the C client 1 is shown. First,
When confirming the input of the print instruction from the user UserA (step S31), the PC client 1 creates a plurality of designated files, or uses the file to be printed when the file exists on the server 5. Issue a print job.

In issuing a print job, first, a group ID is specified in the header portion of the job (step S3).
2). By acquiring the group ID at this time from the server 5, it can be distinguished from other jobs. It is also possible to use an ID that is assigned in advance by an administrator or the like.

Next, a print order ID is designated in the header of the job (step S33). When the group ID and the printing order ID are set in steps S32 and S33, the set job is sent to the print control unit 301 of the printer 3 (step S34).

Next, it is determined whether all the specified documents have been issued (step S35). If it is determined that all the specified documents have been issued, the operation is terminated. If it is determined in step S35 that all the specified documents have not been issued, the process returns to step S32, and the operations from step S32 to step S35 are repeated.

FIG. 4 shows a print control unit 301 of the printer 3.
Is shown. First, a print job, that is, an instruction signal to print, is received from the PC client 1 (step S41), and then a print job such as a group ID and a print order ID is received (step S4).
2).

Next, it is determined whether or not the print job input in step S42 is a grouped print job (step S43). If it is determined that the print job is a grouped print job, the print job is It is determined whether or not all are completed (step S44).

If it is determined in step S44 that all the print jobs have been prepared, a printing operation is started according to the printing order ID (step S45). The printing operation is started when all the designated documents are input and the printing becomes executable. The print control unit 301 refers to the print order ID for each document, and executes printing from the document with the smallest print order ID. The above operation is repeated until all the documents have been printed. If it is determined in step S44 that all the print jobs have not been prepared, the process proceeds to step S42.
And the operation from step S42 to step S44 is repeated.

If it is determined in step S43 that the print job input in step S42 is not a grouped print job, normal print processing is executed (step S46). In this case, immediate printing is not always executed, and the printing operation is executed according to the scheduling method of the print control unit 301.

As described above, since the grouped jobs are printed as one unit, other jobs are printed.
This eliminates the problem of printing mixed with the print job from r.

Further, by inputting a collective print instruction for a grouped job, it is possible to specify the grouping of documents or the print time of the grouped documents, thereby improving the productivity of each printing process. Can be done.

Further, for the grouped jobs,
By inputting a suspend or resume instruction, printing of the grouped documents can be suspended or resumed collectively, thereby improving the efficiency of the printing operation.

In this embodiment, the print control unit 301
Alternatively, the print control unit 401 is mounted inside the printer 301 or the printer 401, but the print control unit may be independently connected on a network instead of inside the printer.

[0031]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the print control method of the present invention, print jobs are grouped according to an instruction signal from a terminal, and print order data is added to each grouped print job. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent a problem that printing is performed in combination with a print job from another user during printing.

Further, by adding common print instruction data to each of the grouped print jobs, it becomes possible to register all the grouped jobs and to specify a print time.

Further, the grouped print jobs can be suspended and resumed collectively,
Job execution control can be realized by convenient means.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a spooling state of the printer.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation example on the client side.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation example of the printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 PC client of User A 2 PC client of User B 3 Printer 4 Printer 5 Server 100 Network (LAN) 301 Print control unit 401 Print control unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] At least one terminal, at least one output device connected to the terminal via a transmission line, a print job spooling function of the output device, and scheduling data of the print job are stored. A print control unit having a function, wherein the print jobs are grouped by an instruction signal from the terminal, and print order data is added to each of the grouped print jobs. 2. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein common print instruction data is added to each of the grouped print jobs. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the grouped print jobs are interrupted and restarted collectively.
Or the print control method described in 2.