GB2128140A - Printing characters in rows - Google Patents

Abstract

Modern word processing systems are constrained widthwise by conventional computer-controlled printing and are therefore unsatisfactory for including wide multi-columnar tabulations among textual material. The invention discloses methods and apparatus to produce sideways-on printing using the same or similar character encoding as text, e.g. ASCII code. Typically the sequence of codes is transposed a page at a time and printed by apparatus modified to have the characters reorientated by a right angle rotation. Several implementations are described. The invention avoids the disadvantages of a possible last resort to very high resolution computer graphics solely for textual and tabulated material. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Computer-controlled printing This invention relates to apparatus and methods for producing data in the form of discrete alphabetical and numerical characters and other symbols (herein collectively referred to as characters) printed onto paper or other substrate material (herein collectively referred to as paper) by means of a printer controlled by an electronic computer in which the data to be printed is first contained in digitally-encoded form, the printing operation being performed in successive printing rows each comprising sequentially or simultaneously printed characters and the paper being moved relatively to the printer in a direction (referred to as the direction of paper feed) approximately perpendicular to the printing rows after the printing of each row in readiness for printing the next row.Such computer-controlled printing apparatus and methods are referred to hereinafter as being apparatus and methods 'of the type specified'.

Some known types of printer with which the invention is concerned are computer-controlled impact printers which print characters onto the paper, either by printing each preformed and complete character separately as a whole as in the case of a daisywheel or line printer or golfball typewriter or by building up each character as a pattern of dots which are printed sequentially or simultaneously by the activation of selected groups of printing pins as in the case of a multipin matrix printer. However the invention may also be employed in conjunction with multiple ink-jet printers, multiple laser beam printers or multiple electrode thermal printers which project jets, beams or electric discharges onto the paper to print the characters thereon.

The aforesaid known types of computer-controlled printer should not be confused with graph-plotters and like computer-controlled drawing apparatus intended for pictorial printing and capable of drawing graphical representations, line drawings and the like which may comprise characters. Such pictorial printing is a relatively slow operation and those skilled in the computer printing art will have regard to the penalties in respect of speed or quality or complexity that are imposed if such drawing apparatus is used for computer printing of ordinary textual and tabulated matter in lines of print characters.In such apparatus the required pictorial printing is produced by the continuous or intermittent engagement of a single pen or printing pin or laser beam with the paper or printing drum at any one time such pen or pin or beam being steered along a desired path relatively to the paper or drum. The encoding of any characters comprised in pictorial representations is in this case in the form of a programme containing separate and independent data for the smallest of elements such as dots or of increments such as line lengths which may be resolved in the printed image, so that each occurrance of the same character is reconstructed from such elements or increments independently of every other such occurrance, and those skilled in the computer printing art will eschew such encoding for ordinary textual and tabulated matter on account of the gross inefficiency of such encoding and the attendant limitations and penalties. The present invention is concerned with discrete characters which are usually members of a predetermined set and their encoding represents the predetermined characters themselves and contains no data for reconstructing a character from the aforesaid elements or increments, thus on each occurrance of the same character that character either is printed completely preformed or is replicated according to a separately predetermined and pre-encoded pattern, e.g. a multipin matrix pattern, which defines its size, composition and shape.

Examples of such character encoding are the Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) and the American Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). Thus the present invention is in no way concerned with such graph-plotters and other computer apparatus and methods intended for pictorial printing.

An important use for computer-controlled printing apparatus and methods of the type specified is in the printing of documents incorporating both textual matter and tabulated data. Small and relatively inexpensive computer systems are nowadays readily available for the production of printed matter with the facility for electronic editing and error correction.

Such systems are commonly referred to as word processors and their use is tending to replace the more conventional methods of production of typescript which are more labour-intensive as regards the implementation of editing and error correction.

The present-day word processor is generally wellsuited to the production of printed matter with a conventionally-arranged format of text on each page of a document. However difficulties can arise if the document to be printed contains tabulated data whose tabulation comprises so many columns, or such wide columns, that the complete table of data cannot be satisfactorily printed within the width of paper being used. This paper may consist of separate sheets or of a long band of paper in the form of a roll orfolded alternately in the manner of a fan, which band after printing may be dissected into separate sheets which may correspond to the pages of a document.Whether separate sheets or continuous band paper are used, the apparatus includes a paper feed mechanism for advancing the paper in stages in a direction transverse to the printed rows in the intervals between the printing of successive rows or portions of rows.

Where a tabulation to be printed would be wider than the width of paper being used, one or other of the following expedients has been used as a palliative measure.

(a) printing the tabulation on more than one page; (b) laterally compressing the printing fontforthe tabulation; and/or (c) changing to a wider paper.

Expedient (a) is deprecated both by printers'and by readers because the unity of the tabulation is lost and comparison between data on different pages can become tedious. The need for legibility imposes restrictions on the use of (b) even in conjunction with a wider paper. As regards (c) itself, each paper change necessitates an interruption of the computer printing process, and apparatus for a very wide printing format will be under-utilised when printing on conventional narrow-width paper.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for computer-controlled printing in which these difficulties can be overcome or alleviated.

According to the present invention, in a method of computer-controlled printing the data in the form of individual characters is printed in successive rows in similar orientations such that the width of each character extends in the direction of the paper feed transverse to the rows and the height of the character between its top and bottom extends in the direction of the length of the respective row.

Here the references to the top and bottom of a character relate to the portions thereof to which those terms are normally assigned conventionally by printers and readers of printed documents, which are normally read with the lines of printed words extending 'horizontally' and with the tops of the characters 'uppermost' as seen. The reference to similar orientations' means that the tops of all the characters in a printing row lie on the same side of the respective characters as printed in the row. The reference to the width of a character is to a direction transverse to the top-to-bottom axis.

Thus it will be apparent that with the method of printing according to the invention, the characters which will form each reading line of the printed material are printed one at a time as the respective rows of printing containing them are printed extending transversely to the reading lines themselves, and furthermore that each reading line of the printed material will be printed to extend parallel to the direction of feed of the paper and not across the width of the paper as with conventional printing, and in consequence the paper will be turned through a right angle from its conventional orientation in order to read the lines of the printed matter.Thus in the case of tabulated data to be printed in lines (corresponding to the conventional reading lines) and columns perpendicular to those lines, successive rows of simultaneously or sequentially printed data (referred to as the printing rows) produced by the method of the invention will form the columns of the table which will extend widthwise of the paper, these columns being printed in sequence, whilst the lines of characters of the table extend in the direction of the paper feed which is normally the longitudinal direction of the sheet or band of paper.

Thus the invention enables a tabulation comprising a large number of 'vertical' columns, or a number of columns of considerable width, to be printed with the width of the table extending ieng- thwise of the paper, i.e. the constraint of the width of the paper as regards tabulation width is avoided.

As an example, wide tabulations relating to financial and accounting data may involve fifteen or more 'vertical' columns, with each column width occupying several type spaces and possibly having a column heading which itself is of considerable width. Such a tabulation can however readily be accommodated if prlnted to be read 'sideways' on a page of normal length, i.e. with the lines extending along the length of the page and the columns extending across the page width. This is made readily possible by the method of the present invention, employing printing apparatus which has been subjected to a relatively simple modification, either mechanical or in its programming.

Thus in one form of the method of the present invention the printer used has type elements bearing preformed characters arranged for printing in the new orientation referred to, namely 'turned' sideways through a right angle. For this purpose the printer if of the daisywheel or line printer type will be provided with a modified daisywheel or print bar set embodying type characters orientated at right angles to those of a normal daisywheel or bar set; likewise in the case of a computer-controlled golfball typewriter, a correspondingly modified golfball head would be provided. In cases where the total number of characters which can be embodied in a daisywheel or print bar or golfball head will embody both such modified and normally orientated characters as hereinbefore described.

Alternatively however, where for example the printing apparatus used incorporates a multipin matrix printer, the modification of the apparatus may be effected electronically, i.e. by a suitable alteration of the computer or printer software programme which directs the printing sequence, so that the matrix printer will be controlled to print out each character in its modified orientation and to print out the characters not in the sequence of the reading lines, but in successive rows perpendicular thereto, such as the columns of a tabulation. Any necessary transposition of a character or of a group of characters to be printed would be accomplished in the digitally-encoded form in the usual manner appropriate to digital electronic computers.Transposition refers to any complete relocation of a character or group, and also to the disposition and spacing between characters, for example for justification or line-spacing purposes.

The re-orientation of the characters into their 'turned' positions as referred to above, is preferably an independent operation distinct from the transposition just mentioned and will be achieved, in the case of the electronic modification, by separate pre-programming of the data font for reproduction by the printer.

The invention is not confined to printing methods, but extends also to computer-controlled printing apparatus for use in such methods.

Thus from another aspect the invention comprises, for use in the new method of printing referred to above, computer-controlled printing apparatus of the type specified which is constructed and arranged to print out successive rows of complete characters each of which characters is similarly orientated with the width of the character extending in the direction of the paper feed and with the height of the character from top to bottom extending along the length of the respective printing row or rows.

From yet another aspect the invention comprises computer-controlled impact printing apparatus including a digital electronic computer controlling a printer having means for receiving a sheet or band of paper for printing successive rows of characters thereon and means for producing relative feeding movement between the printer and the paper in a direction transverse to the length of the printing rows, in which the printer has printing type elements at least some of which bear preformed characters in an orientation such that when printed the width of the respective character will extend in the direction of the paper feed and the height from top to bottom of the respective character will extend in the direction of the length of the respective printing row containing it.

As indicated above, in such apparatus the printer may be of the daisywheel or line printer kind or of the golfball typewriter kind, with an appropriately modified daisywheel or print bar set, or golfball font head.

In another form of the invention comprising such apparatus, the printing mechanism or parts thereof which collectively move the daisywheel or golfball head along the printing rows and determine the orientation of printing are made to be reversibly redisposable for the purpose effecting mechanically the sideways "turning" of the of the character to be printed in the modified orientation. Such mechanical redisposition will be referred to as an 'orientation shift'. Each embodiment of this form of the invention will comprise electrical and mechanical parts, their design being determined by the particulars of such other parts of the printing mechanism with which they must co-operate to actuate the orientation shift.

From yet another aspect, the present invention comprises computer-controlled printing apparatus comprising a digital electronic computer controlling a printer having means for receiving a sheet or band of paper for printing successive rows of characters thereon and means for producing relative feeding movement between the printer and the paper in a direction transverse to the lengths of the printing rows between the printing of successive rows, in which the printer is for example of the multipin matrix type or of the multiple ink-jet or multiple laser beam type and in which the computer or the printer is programmed to cause the printer to print out successive rows of printing corresponding to the data previously contaned in the computer in digitally encoded form, the computer or printer programme constraining the printer to print out each character in an orientation with its width extending in the direction of the paper feed and its height from top to bottom extending along the length of the respective printing row or rows.

The invention further resides in a printed sheet or band of paper which has been printed with printed characters by the new method and/or by the modified printing apparatus referred to above.

Thus in one form of the invention from that aspect, the printed matter on the sheet or band of paper comprises legible lines of characters forming reading lines extending parallel to the longer edges of the sheet or band.

The invention from yet another aspect comprises a printed sheet or band of paper produced by computer-controlled printing apparatus of the type specified, the sheet or band having formations along two opposite edges which identify the direction of feed of the sheet or band in the printer, and the sheet or band bearing legible lines of printed characters extending parallel to the said two opposite edges, in which lines each character is orientated with its width lengthwise of the respective line and with its height between top and bottom extending trans verselytothe length of the respective line.

The invention may be carried into practice in various ways, but one specific embodiment thereof will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 shows a sheet of computer paper printed with a simple tabulation, and Figures 2 and 3 show the sheet of Figure 1 in two-partially-printed stages, during its production- The paper sheet 10 shown in the drawings is a sheet of computer paper formed along opposite longitudinal edges 11 with rows of spaced holes 12 for the cooperation with the paper feed mechanism of the printer of a computer-controlled word processing apparatus (not shown), by which it can be advanced step-wise in the direction shown by the arrow A, parallel to the edges 11.The sheet 10 may be a separate sheet or it may form part of a roll or of a fan like folded stack, but in any case it has a finite width between its longitudinal edges 11. It may have the usual printed registration grid of 'horizontal' line groups if desired. A tabulation 20 of data is to be printed on the sheet 10, the width of the table 20 measured along the 'horizontal' reading lines being greater than the width of the paper. In accordance with the invention the tabulation is therefore to be printed with its width extending lengthwise of the paper sheet as shown in Figure 1, there being ample space for this purpose between the top and bottom edges 13, 14 of the sheet. For reading, the printed sheet 10 would simply be turned clockwise, as seen in Figure 1,through a right angle to bring the reading lines of the tabulation into a 'horizontal' position.

The tabulation 20 shown in Figure 1 is a purely imaginary one consisting of nine spaced lines extending lengthwise of the sheet, each line consisting of seven groups of three digits each followed by a word, in this case the name of a town or city. At a first stage the data forming the required tabulation 20 is encoded into the computer using the conventional entry keyboard, the entered data being displayed on the screen of a visual display unit (VDU) for editing if necessary, with the table 20 or part thereof displayed in the 'horizontal' format for easy reading. To facilitate the entry of the data, the VDU would be provided with a 'horizontal' scrolling facility, enabling the portion of the display visible within the masking limits of the screen to be changed by transversing the display from left to right and vice versa as seen on the VDU, whereby a tabulation too wide to be displayed as a whole on the VDU screen can none-the-less be monitored by use of this 'horizontal' scrolling facility.

The computer is programmed to drive its printer unit to print out successive rows of printed matter referred to as printing rows and extending across the width of the sheet in the usual way, but to select for each such printing row the encoded characters which form one of the 'vertical' columns of the displayed tabulation, and to print those characters or parts sequentially in a printing row advancing in the direction of the arrow B in Figure 1, so that the tabulation will be printed out on the sheet in an orientation turned anticlockwise through a right angle relatively to the displayed image on the VDU.

The successively-printed rows of printed matter extending across the sheet will ultimately form the 'vertical' columns of the tabulation, each column being one type space wide. Moreover, the printer, which is of the daisywheel kind, has its type elements set up in an orientation such that each type element will print its own alphabetical character or numeral in an orientation turned through a right angle from the conventional, i.e. with the top of the character or numeral to the left and the bottom to the right, and the width of the character extending in the direction of the paper feed as shown by arrow A.

Thus the printing on the sheet will progressively build up, row by row, to form the printed tabulation shown in Figure 1. The first 'printing row' to be printed (indicated at 'a' in Figure 2) will consist simply of the last letter N of the word SOUTH AMPTON, and the next row (indicated at 'b' in Figure 2) will consist of the letters R-M-O from the words MANCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM and SOUTH AMPTON. The third row (indicated at 'c' in Figure 2) to be printed will be E-A-T-T, and so the rows will be successively printed, row 'd' in Figure 2 being shown uncompleted at that intermediate printing stage.

Figure 3 shows the position reached when further printing rows have been printed, with appropriate spacing, under the control of the computer, and the next row indicated at 'e' is only partially printed. The printing continues row by row down the sheet 10 until the complete tabulation has been printed on the sheet in the format shown in Figure 1.

The method of computer printing described may be applied equally to the printing of text alone and tabulation alone, but in the case of textual material any one page of a document may not be satisfactorily readable until the complete page, or at least the words forming the textual part, have been printed.

Figure 2 illustrates this, none of the town and city names being completely printed at that stage.

Other embodiments of the invention can readily be devised, depending upon the detailed design of the computer system and printer apparatus forming a basic word processor. For example as already mentioned the printer may be a multipin matrix character printer, instead of a daisywheel printer, and in that case the re-orientation of the printing characters for printout will be effected as part of the electronic control incorporated in the equipment, rather than mechanically. A complete page of encoded data would be electronically transposed in the encoded stage prior to printout of that page.

Where the matrix printer is of a kind which moves a print head of for example only 7 printing pins along the printing row, the pins being themselves arranged in a 'vertical' row transverse to the printing row, the printing of the descenders of lower case characters and normal underlining is made possible as a result of the new orientation in which the characters are being printed, without the addition of further pins or a second pass along the printing row.

Those printers which allow the user to predetermine a complete set of print characters within the dot matrix may be suitable for use where the modification for printing the characters in their 'turned' orientation according to the invention is effected by such predetermination; however, if the available matrix for one character is not contiguous with the next, such that there are unavoidale gaps, this arrangement will not work.

In any case, no mechanical modification of the usual multipin matrix printer, of whatever kind, should be necessary, since all the modification required for the purposes of the invention can normally be performed on the software. Provided that the design of the selected computer printing apparatus is sufficiently adaptable, it may be convenient to effect all necessary transpositions as an optional part of the software control incorporated in such apparatus. A consideration will be the capacity of the buffer memory available. A likely advantage is that such apparatus could maintain unaltered input requirements irrespective of the method of operation in use, and such method could be selected as appropriate, manually or electronically.

In the example of a daisywheel printer, the new orientation of the characters may be preformed on an alternative print wheel, which is substituted for that originally used before adopting the method of the invention. Alternatively, a single print wheel may contain one set of characters in the conventional orientation and another set in the 'turned' orientation according to the method of the invention. In another form of the invention the orientation of the characters may be changed mechanically as described above.

If the paper for the computer printing consists of a long band of paper then the method of this invention provides an additional advantage: it is convenient to computer print both text and tabulated data with the new orientation of characters, but to allow tabulated data to extend over more than one page length and simply to fold the additional length into the document as opposed to dissecting. This will allow exceptionally wide tabulations to be printed in this manner, especially if the intermediate margins are reduced. Afurther advantage can be obtained with multipin matrix printers; when typically a page of text is so arranged that when read the lines of the text appear parallel with the shorter sides of the smallest imaginary rectangle to circumscribe the text of the page, then the production of such a page of text by the method of this invention requires fewer print lines than heretobefore, which can result in increased output speed for computer printing.

If for so-called proportional spacing the widthwise dimension of the individual characters is varied from character to character, such that for example a greater width applies to the letter M than to the letter I, and the spacing between letters and/or words is also varied, for example for justification purposes, then such variation can be reproduced in the 'turned' orientation of the characters referred to above by advancing the paper in small increments and selec tively printing in each printing row only the complete characters corresponding to such increments, so that the successive printing rows overlap. Move ment of the print head may be accelerated when traversing contiguous spaces in sparsely-filled print ing rows. Such variable spacing is not usually associated with numerical characters as used in tabulations. A similar effect may be achieved by oscillating the printing head parallel with the normal feed movement of the paper while printing a row of characters in the 'turned' orientation.

I hereby specifically disclaim all printing methods and apparatus which employ or comprise a compu ter-controlled graph-plotter or other computer controlled drawing apparatus of a kind in which a single pen or other paper-marking element is steered along a controlled path relatively to the paper to draw or form a graphical device on the paper.

Claims (21)

1. A method of computer-controlled printing which comprises producing on paper a fixed image of data in the form of discrete printed characters in successive rows in similar orientations such that the width of each such character extends in the direction of the paper feed transverse to the rows and the height of the character between its top and bottom extends in the direction of the length of the respec tive row.

2. A method as claimed in Claim 1 in which the characters to be printed are selected from at least one set of characters the shape and/or composition of each of which has been predetermined either by a respective preformed type element or by a respec tive individual encoding to which the printer is responsive so to print that character.

3. A method as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, in which the printer used is of the multiple ink-jet or multiple laser beam or multiple electrode or multipin matrix kind, and in which the computer or the printer is electronically pre-progrnmmed to control the printer to print the characters in the said orienta tions.

4. A method as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, in which the printer used has type elements bearing preformed characters arranged for printing in the said orientations.

5. For use in a method of printing as claimed in any of the preceding Claims, computer-controlled printing apparatus which is constructed and arranged to print out successive rows of characters, each of which is similarly orientated in its row with the width of the character extending in the direction of the paper feed and with the height of the character from top to bottom extending along the length of the respective printing row or rows.

6. Computer-controlled printing apparatus com prising a digital electronic computer controlling a printer having means for receiving a sheet or band of paper for printing successive rows of characters thereon and means for producing relative feeding movement between the printer and the paper in a direction transverse to the lengths of the printing rows, in which the printer has printing type elements bearing preformed characters in an orientation such that when printed the width of a character will extend in the direction of the paper feed and its height from top to bottom will extend in the direction of the length of the respective printing row containing it.

7. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 6 in which the printer is of the daisywheel kind.

8. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 6 in which the printer is of the line printer kind.

9. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 6 in which the printer is of the golfball typewriter kind.

10. Computer-controlled printing apparatus comprising a digital electronic computer controlling a printer having means for receiving a sheet or band of paper for printing successive rows of characters thereon and means for producing relative feeding movement between the printer and the paper in a direction transverse to the lengths of the printing rows, between the printing of successive rows, in which the computer or the printer is electronically programmed to control the printer to print out successive rows of printing corresponding to data previously contained in the computer in digitally encoded form, the respective programme constraining the printer to print out each character in an orientation with its width extending in the direction of the paper feed and its height from top to bottom extending along the length of the respective printing row or rows.

11. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 10, in which the computer or the printer is electronically programmed to select the characters to be printed from at least one set of characters the shape and/or composition of each of which has been predetermined by respective individual encoding.

12. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 10 or Claim 11, in which the printer is of the multipin matrix kind.

13. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 10 or Claim 11, in which the printer is of the multiple ink-jet kind.

14. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 10 or Claim 11, in which the printer is of the multiple laser beam kind.

15. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 10 or Claim 11, in which the printer is of the multiple electrode termal kind.

16. A printed sheet which has been printed with rows of printed characters by the method claimed in any one of Claims 1 to 5 and/or by the apparatus claimed in any one of the Claims 6 to 15.

17. A printed sheet as claimed in Claim 16 in which the printed matter on the sheet comprises legible lines of characters forming reading lines extending parallel to the longer edges of the sheet.

18. A printed sheet produced by computercontrolled printng apparatus as claimed in any one of the Claims 6 to 15, the sheet having formations along two opposite edges which identify the direction of feed of the sheet in the printer, and the sheet bearing legible lines of printed characters extending parallel to the said two opposite edges, in which lines the characters are orientated with the width of each lengthwise of the respective line and with its height between top and bottom extending trans tersely to the length of the respective line.

19. A method of printing data onto paper substantially as specifically described herein by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings.

20. Apparatus for printing data onto paper sub stantially as specifically described herein by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings.

21. A printed sheet or band -bearing a printed tabulation produced by the method and/or the apparatus specifically described herein and with reference to the accompanying drawings.