JP2000298565A - Method and device for controlling printing and storage medium storing program for executing the printing controlling method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prepare and print out a printer control command optimum to an application by changing a printer control command generating method correspondingly to the application. SOLUTION: In the printing controlling method and device for generating a printer control command based on a printing request outputted from an application, control information corresponding to respective applications is previously registered in a table and control information corresponding to an application issuing a printing request is acquired from the table (S31), the capacity of a printer driver is determined based on the control information (S33) and the capacity is declared to a graphic engine. Therefore the graphic engine executes the rasterization of an image in accordance with the capacity.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an information processing method and apparatus applicable to a system including a host computer and a printer connected to the host computer, and a recording medium storing a program readable by the host computer. is there.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a host computer such as a personal computer, a graphics drawing command independent of a printer device output by a graphics engine of an operating system (OS) is input, translated into a printer control command depending on the printer device, and output. Software program (hereinafter referred to as a printer driver) is mounted and used for print processing.

[0003] Such a printer driver supports a printer architecture peculiar to each printer, and this architecture includes a raster device represented by a dot matrix printer, a vector device such as a plotter, or an advanced page description language. Includes supported devices. Among them, a printer driver that supports a raster device generates a printer control command by constructing (hereinafter, rasterizing) a print image from a graphics drawing request in a host computer. Therefore, such a printer driver must temporarily store a print image that has been rasterized as appropriate in a storage area such as a memory.

However, since printers released in recent years have high resolution, the size of image data corresponding to an entire print page tends to be very large.
For this reason, a printer driver that supports a raster device employs a technique of generating a printer control command by sequentially rasterizing a print image while dividing a rectangular area of the entire page into rectangular areas called smaller bands (hereinafter, banding technique). Has adopted.

[0005] A printer driver adopting such a banding technique declares that the graphics engine requires banding control when performing its own initialization processing. When the application program issues a drawing command to the printer driver that has made such a declaration, the graphics engine stores the drawing command in a disk file while applying a predetermined format. When the application program has finished issuing the drawing command for the entire page, the graphics engine requests the printer driver for band position information, and sets the position information as clip information while using the stored drawing command. Reproduce. This series of band control processing is continued until the printer driver notifies the graphics engine that there is no new band position information.

On the other hand, in the case of a printer driver that does not employ the banding technique, when performing the above-described initialization processing,
Declares to the graphics engine that banding control is not required. In such a case, the graphics engine immediately outputs the drawing command to the printer driver without performing the recording / reproducing process of the drawing command as described above.

As described above, in the conventional printer driver supporting the raster device, whether or not to adopt the banding technique is fixedly determined in advance, and the printer control command is generated based on the fixed decision.

[0008]

Most application programs installed and running on the host computer support the printing function. However, the drawing control method of each application program depends on the type of data to be handled and the program design. Different. Therefore, depending on the drawing control method of the application program, the performance of the printing process may greatly change depending on whether or not the printer driver adopts the banding technique. However, in a conventional printer driver that supports a raster device, whether or not to adopt the banding technique is fixedly determined in advance, and therefore, only a printer control command is always generated based on a predetermined technique.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and has as its object to provide a print control method and apparatus for changing a method of generating a printer control command corresponding to an application.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of generating a printer control command corresponding to an application by enabling control information for generating a printer control command stored in correspondence with the application to be changed. An object of the present invention is to provide a print control method and apparatus that can be dynamically changed.

[0011]

To achieve the above object, a print control apparatus according to the present invention has the following arrangement.
That is, a print control device that generates a printer control command in response to a print request from an application, the storage unit storing control information corresponding to the application, and the control information corresponding to the application that issued the print request. Acquiring means for acquiring from the means, a printer command generating means for generating a printer control command based on the image information, and executing drawing processing according to the printer command generating means based on data from the application to obtain image information. And a control unit that determines the capability of the printer command generation unit based on the control information acquired by the acquisition unit and notifies the drawing unit of the capability.

In order to achieve the above object, a printing control method according to the present invention includes the following steps. That is, a print control method for generating a printer control command by a printer driver based on a print request from an application and outputting the command to a printer device, wherein control information corresponding to the application that issued the print request corresponds to the application. An acquisition step of acquiring from a memory storing control information; a step of determining the capability of the printer driver based on the control information acquired in the acquisition step and informing the OS of the capability; and A drawing step of executing drawing processing according to the printer driver and outputting image information to the printer driver.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. If the function according to the present embodiment is executed, it may be a single device, a system including a plurality of devices, or connected via a network such as a LAN or a WAN, It goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to a system in which a printing process is performed.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 3000 denotes a host computer, which is used to store figures, images, and the like based on a document processing program and the like stored in a program ROM 3b of a ROM 3.
The system includes a CPU 1 for executing document processing in which characters, tables (including spreadsheets and the like) are mixed, and the CPU 1 controls the devices connected to the system bus 4 as a whole. Also, this R
An operating system program (hereinafter referred to as OS), which is a control program of the CPU 1, is stored in the program ROM 3b of the OM 3 or the external memory 11.
The font ROM 3a of the ROM 3 or the external memory 11 stores font data and the like used at the time of the document processing, and the data ROM 3c of the ROM 3 or the external memory 11 stores the font data and the like at the time of performing the document processing and the like. Various data to be used (for example, directory information, a printer driver table, etc.) are stored. In this case, the subject of control is a CPU on hardware. On the other hand, the software is mainly controlled by application software called a printer control command generation program (hereinafter, printer driver). In this embodiment, the OS is assumed to be, for example, Windows 95 (manufactured by Microsoft), but is not limited to this.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a RAM, which functions as a main memory of the CPU 1, a work area, and the like. Reference numeral 5 denotes a keyboard controller (KBC) which controls input from a keyboard 9 and a pointing device (mouse or the like) shown in the drawing. 6 is C
An RT controller (CRTC) controls display on a CRT display (CRT) 10. Reference numeral 7 denotes a disk controller (DKC), an external memory including a hard disk (HD) for storing a boot program, various applications, font data, user files, edit files, a printer driver, and the like, a floppy (registered trademark) disk (FD), and the like. 11 is controlled. Reference numeral 8 denotes a printer controller (PRTC), which is connected to the printer 1500 via a predetermined bidirectional interface (including a LAN, a communication line, and the like) 21.
A communication control process with 0 is executed. The CPU 1 executes, for example, an outline font development (rasterization) process based on display information set on the RAM 2 to enable WYSIWYG on the CRT 10. Further, the CPU 1 can open various registered windows based on commands specified by a mouse cursor or the like (not shown) on the CRT 10 and execute various data processing.

Next, the printer 1500 will be described.

Reference numeral 12 denotes a printer CPU which sends a print unit (printer engine) 17 connected to a system bus 15 based on a control program stored in a program ROM 13b of a ROM 13 or a control program stored in an external memory 14. An image signal is output as output information.
The program ROM 13b of the ROM 13 includes
A control program of the CPU 12 and the like are stored. RO
Font data and the like used when generating the output information are stored in the font ROM 13a of the M13, and in the case of a printer in which the external memory 14 such as a hard disk is not connected to the data ROM 13c of the ROM 13, Information used by the host computer 3000 is also stored. The CPU 12 is capable of communicating with the host computer 3000 via the input unit 18 and is configured to be able to notify the host computer 3000 of information on the printer 1500 and the like. 19 is CPU
RAM functioning as 12 main memories, work areas, etc.
The option RA connected to the expansion port (not shown)
The memory capacity can be expanded by M. The RAM 19 is used for an output information development area, an environment data storage area, an NVRAM, and the like. The external memory 14 such as a hard disk (HD) and an IC card described above includes a disk controller (DKC) 2
0 controls access. The external memory 14 is connected as an option, and stores font data, an emulation program, form data, and the like. An operation panel 1501 includes a key switch, an LED display, and the like for a user to operate. The above-mentioned external memory 14 is not limited to one, and at least one or more external memories 14 are provided. In addition to the built-in fonts, an optional font card and a plurality of external memories 14 storing programs for interpreting printer control languages of different language systems can be connected. It may be configured. Furthermore, NVRA (not shown)
M, and the printer mode setting information from the operation panel 1501 may be stored.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing the functional configuration of the host computer 3000 and the printer 1500 according to the present embodiment.

In the host computer 3000, an application 201, a graphic engine 202,
Printer driver 203 and system spooler 204
Is a program module that exists as a file stored in the external memory 11 and is loaded into the RAM 2 and executed by the OS or a module using the module when executed by the CPU 1. The application 201 and the printer driver 203 are connected to the FD of the external memory 11, a CD-ROM (not shown), or the HD of the external disk 11 via a network (not shown).
It is possible to add to.

The application 201 stored in the external memory 11 is loaded into the RAM 2 and executed.
When printing is performed on the graphic engine 20, the graphic engine 20 which is also loaded into the RAM 2 and becomes executable
2 (output) is performed using The graphic engine 202 loads a printer driver 203 prepared for each printer device from the external memory 11 into the RAM 2, and converts the output of the application 201 into a printer control command using the printer driver 203. The printer control command converted in this way is RA
Through the system spooler 204 loaded in M2, O
S through the interface 21 to the printer 150
It is a mechanism to output to 0.

The printing system according to the present embodiment includes, in addition to the printing system having the printer 1500 and the host computer 3000 shown in FIG. 2, print data from the application 201 as intermediate code data as shown in FIG. It has a configuration to spool.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a functional configuration in which the system shown in FIG. 2 is extended. When a print command is sent from the graphic engine 202 to the printer driver 203, a spool file 303 consisting of intermediate codes is once generated. Take.

In the system shown in FIG. 2, the application 201 is released from the printing process when the printer driver 203 has converted all print commands from the graphic engine 202 into printer control commands. On the other hand, in the system shown in FIG. 3, the spooler 302 converts all print commands into intermediate code data and outputs them to the spool file 303. Usually, the latter requires less time. Further, in the system shown in FIG. 3, the contents of the spool file 303 can be processed. This makes publication 2
With respect to the print data from 01, a function not provided by the application, such as printing a plurality of pages reduced to one page, can be realized.

For these purposes, the system shown in FIG. 2 is spooled with intermediate code data as shown in FIG.
The system has been extended. Note that, in order to process print data, usually, the printer driver 203
From the window provided by the printer driver 203, and the printer driver 203 stores the setting contents in the RAM 2 or the external memory 1.
Store on top.

The details of FIG. 3 will be described below.

In this extended processing method, a print command from the graphic engine 202 is transmitted to the dispatcher 30.
1 receives. If the received print command is a print command issued from the application 201 to the graphic engine 202, the dispatcher 301 replaces the spooler 302 stored in the external memory 11 with the RAM 2
, And sends a print command to the spooler 302 instead of the printer driver 203.

The spooler 302 converts the received print command into an intermediate code and outputs it to the spool file 303. Also, the spooler 302 acquires processing settings related to print data set for the printer driver 203 from the printer driver 203,
03. Note that the spool file 303 may be generated as a file in the external memory 11 or may be generated on the RAM 2. Further, the spooler 302 loads the spool file manager 304 stored in the external memory 11 into the RAM 2, and notifies the spool file manager 304 of the status of generation of the spool file 303. Then, the spool file manager 30
No. 4 determines whether or not printing can be performed in accordance with the contents of the processing settings relating to the print data stored in the spool file 303.

When the spool file manager 304 determines that printing can be performed using the graphic engine 202, the despooler 305 stored in the external memory 11 is loaded into the RAM 2, and the spool file 303 is stored in the despooler 305. To print the intermediate code described in.

The despooler 305 stores the spool file 30
3 is processed according to the contents of the processing settings included in the spool file 303, and is output again via the graphic engine 202.

The print command received from the graphic engine 202 by the dispatcher 301 is transmitted to the despooler 30.
In the case of a print command issued to the graphic engine 202 from the printer 5, the dispatcher 301
Instead, a print command is sent to the printer driver 203.
The printer driver 203 generates a printer control command and outputs it to the printer 1500 via the system spooler 204.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a memory map as viewed from the CPU 1 in a state where the printer driver 203 according to the present embodiment is loaded into the RAM 2 of the host computer 3000 and becomes executable.

In FIG. 4, the BIOS 27 is written in the program ROM 3, and the OS 26 is written in the hard disk (hereinafter, HD) which is the external memory 11. When the power of the host computer 3000 is turned on, the IPL (Initial Progr.
am Loading) function allows OS26 to change from HD to RAM2
And the operation by the OS 26 is started. The printer driver 203 is actually operable only when the host computer 300 issues an instruction from a user or the like.
Application 2 operating under the management of OS 26
01 is a case where the printing process is started. At this time, the printer driver 203 is read from a storage medium such as the external memory 11 in which the printer driver 203 is recorded under the control of the OS 26 and the BIOS 27, and is loaded into the RAM 2. At this time, the data 24 related to the printer driver 203 is also loaded into the RAM 2.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a process in which the printer driver 203 according to the embodiment of the present invention receives a print request from the application 201 via the graphics engine (hereinafter, GDI) of the OS 26 and generates a printer control command. It is.

First, in step S1, when print requests from the GDI are sequentially received, the flow advances to step S2 to determine what the print request is, and in the following processing steps, each process corresponding to each request is performed. This series of actions
The process is continued until it is determined in step S2 that the print end request has been received.

If it is determined in step S2 that the request is for an initialization process, the process proceeds to step S3. This initialization processing is the one that the printer driver 203 first receives from the GDI in the normal printing processing. Upon receiving this initialization request, the process proceeds to step S4, where the printer driver 203 declares printer device driver information including the graphics drawing capability and the like to the GDI in accordance with a predetermined rule. Thus, the printer driver 203
GDI is based on the information obtained from
Can be output to the printer driver 203 while developing a complex graphics drawing request issued by the printer driver into a combination of simple drawing requests, and can support banding processing as needed. And step S5
The printer driver 203 performs an initialization process of the printer device information, and ends the process for the initialization request.

Now, for example, in step S4, when the printer driver 203 declares to the GDI that banding is required, the GDI
1 is stored in a disk file in a predetermined format. When the application 201 finishes issuing the print request for the entire page, the GDI sequentially acquires the information of each drawing area (hereinafter, band area) from the printer driver 203 and sends the temporarily stored print request to the printer driver 203. Output repeatedly. Such a series of processing is continued until the end notification is received from the printer driver 203. On the other hand, in step S4, when the printer driver 203 declares that banding is not required,
The GDI operates so as to immediately output the print request issued from the application 201 to the printer driver 203 without performing the above-described processing.

If a print start request is received following the initialization request, the process proceeds from step S2 to step S6,
The printer driver 203 is connected to the RAM of the host computer 3000 so that the rasterized image data can be temporarily stored until it is converted into a printer control command.
2, a memory area (hereinafter, band memory) is secured (step S7). Here, the above-described initialization processing (step S
If the printer driver 203 declares that banding is necessary in 3 to S5), it is only necessary to secure a memory capacity corresponding to an area smaller than one page of the image to be printed, but no banding is necessary. When a certain declaration is made, it is necessary to secure a memory capacity that can completely store the image data of the entire page. Then, the process proceeds to step S8, where the printer driver 203
Requests the system spooler 204 managed by the GDI to generate a print job, and ends the processing for the print start request.

In the period from when the print start request is received to when the print end request is received, the printer driver 2
03 receives a graphics drawing request and a page control request sequentially and in an appropriate order.

When the printer driver 203 receives the graphics drawing request, the process proceeds from step S2 to step S9.
To build an image according to the drawing request (hereinafter,
Rasterization is performed immediately (step S10), and the image data is stored in the band memory secured in step S7 (step S11).

On the other hand, when the printer driver 203 receives the page control request, the process proceeds from step S2 to step S12.
To determine the type of page control request (step S
13). Next, in step S14, the type of the page control request is determined. If the control request is a request for band area information by GDI, the process proceeds to step S15, where the printer driver 203 acquires new band area information. In step S16, the result is notified to the GDI.
Then, in step S17, if there is already rasterized image data, a printer control command corresponding to the image data is generated and the system spooler 20 is executed.
Output to 4.

On the other hand, if the page control request is a page break request, the process proceeds from step S14 to step S18,
Upon inputting the page break request, the process immediately proceeds to step S17 to generate and output a printer control command from the already rasterized image data.

Here, for example, the aforementioned steps S3 to S5
When the printer driver 203 declares that the banding is necessary in the initialization process, the process corresponding to the page control request is usually “step S14 → S15 → S16 →
This is performed according to the flow of “S17”. Conversely, if the printer driver 203 declares that banding is unnecessary in the above-described initialization processing, the process proceeds to step S14 → S18 →
The processing is performed in the flow of “S17”.

Finally, upon receiving the print end request, the printer driver 203 proceeds to steps S19 and S20,
After releasing the memory area secured in step S7, the process advances to step S21 to request the system spooler 204 to close the print job, and end the processing for the print end request.

Next, the processing of the printer driver 203 according to this embodiment will be described in detail. The printer driver 203 performs the processing shown in the flowchart in FIG. 6 between the processing in steps S3 and S4 in FIG. Further, the printer driver 203 of the present embodiment
FIG. 7 shows correspondence information between application names used by the application and application characteristics.

In this embodiment, the processing performance of the GDI and the printing of the printer driver 203 depends on the characteristics of the graphics drawing request issued by the application 201 and the printer device driver information declared when the printer driver 203 is initialized, especially banding. It is assumed that the value greatly changes depending on the control information. For example, considering the case where the application 201 sends a graphics drawing request for drawing a multi-layered bitmap or a large-sized bitmap, the processing performance greatly changes depending on whether or not banding control is performed. If the printer driver 203 declares that the banding control is necessary, the GDI stores all the print requests including the bitmap drawing request in the disk file as described above, and repeats the same to the printer driver 203 later. Output. Since such a bitmap drawing request enlarges the data size of the print request information temporarily stored in the disk file by the GDI, the time required for the writing process and the subsequent reading process becomes relatively long.

On the other hand, as described above, the printer driver 2
03 declares that banding control is unnecessary, such a performance degradation factor can be eliminated. However, when such a declaration is made by the printer driver 203, it is necessary to secure a memory capacity capable of completely storing image data of the entire page, and depending on the situation, memory resources may be depleted. However, the performance may be relatively deteriorated. Normally, when the memory resources are depleted, a swap process for temporarily saving the data stored in the RAM 2 to the external memory 11 is performed under the management of the OS 26, so that the processing performance of the entire system decreases.

In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the processing performance is empirically improved when the printer driver 203 declares that the banding control is necessary in general printing processing. At the same time, in print processing using a specific application, the performance is greatly deteriorated due to the above-mentioned causes. However, even in such a case, if the banding control is declared unnecessary, the performance will be significantly improved. Suppose you can.

In this embodiment, the printer driver 20
At the time of introduction of the host computer 3, the information on the specific application as described above is stored in the external memory 11 of the host computer 3000 in advance, and the information is stored in the OS
It is accessible using a system call provided by 26. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 7, the application information is configured using the name of the application as a search key, and the printer driver 203 declares that the banding control is unnecessary, so that the printing process can be performed at a higher speed as a whole. Some information, including such information, can be specified in a complex manner. Specifically, each application information is composed of 4 bytes, and each bit field indicates individual information. If the least significant bit is set, it is declared that banding control is unnecessary. Shall be.

In this embodiment, the application information is stored in the host computer 300 before the printer is installed.
0 is statically stored in the external memory 11, but is not limited to this. Similar information may be stored in a storage unit detachable from the host computer 3000.

Based on the above assumptions, the processing will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

Upon receiving the initialization request, the printer driver 203 proceeds to step S31, acquires the name of the application that has issued the print request from the additional information of the initialization request, and stores the application-related information shown in FIG. Is read into the RAM 2 using the system call (step S32). Then, the process proceeds to step S33,
The printer driver 203 searches the application information using the name of the application acquired in step S31 as a key, and determines whether it is better to declare that banding control is necessary or not (step S3).
3) Then, the process proceeds to step S4 in FIG. 5 to declare the capability of the printer driver 203.

For example, in this embodiment, the name of the application in which the least significant bit is set is “SINJUK”.
U, "OHSAKI", and "SINAGAWA" declare that banding control is unnecessary only in print processing from an application having the same, and other applications declare that banding control is necessary. . Based on the information determined in this way, the printer driver 203 converts the printer device driver information including the graphics rendering capability of the printer driver into GD.
Declares for I (step S4).

The functions described in the present embodiment may be performed by host computer 3000 by a program installed from the outside. In such a case, the function is performed by a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, a flash memory, or an FD, or from an external storage medium via a network such as e-mail or personal computer communication. The present invention can be applied to a case where the data is loaded into a system including a computer and supplied to a host computer or an output device.

As described in the above embodiments, the printer driver 203 according to the present embodiment acquires specific application-related information at the time of an initialization request, and performs graphics of the operating system based on the acquired information. Since the printer driver capability to be declared to the engine is selected and the printer control command is generated based on the selected printer driver capability, a relatively high-speed printing method can be selected and executed according to the situation.

[Other Embodiments] In the first embodiment described above, information on a specific application is
When the printer driver is installed, the host computer 30
The same information is stored in the external memory 11 of the host computer 3 via the graphics user interface provided by the printer driver.
000 may be dynamically stored in any storage means. In addition, the host computer 3000
Similar information may be stored via a program module other than the printer driver that operates on the above.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, specific information is obtained before starting the printer control command generation process, and the printer driver capability to declare to the operating system is determined from the obtained specific information. Since the printer control command is generated based on the determined printer driver capability, there is an effect that a high-speed printing method can be selected and executed according to the situation.

The present invention can be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.) or a device composed of one device (copier, printer, Facsimile machine, etc.).

An object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments, and a computer (or CPU or MPU) of a system or apparatus storing a program stored in the storage medium. It is also achieved by reading and executing the code.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, and the like can be used. .

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) Performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. The CPU provided in the function expansion board or function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing,
The case where the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing is also included.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, an application that issues a specific API, an application that uses an API with special parameters, and a printer driver that causes performance degradation in a specific mode Can be registered and saved, and a more optimal print mode can be selected based on the registered and saved application name.

As a result, there is an effect that the print throughput can be improved or an appropriate print result can be obtained not only for the previously registered application but also for a specific application.

Further, by obtaining the above-mentioned registration condition from a driver depending on each device, an effect with higher versatility can be obtained.

[0066]

As described above, according to the present invention, the method of generating a printer control command can be changed in accordance with an application.

Further, according to the present invention, the control information for generating the printer control command, which is stored corresponding to the application, can be changed, so that the method of generating the printer control command corresponding to the application is provided. There is an effect that it can be changed dynamically.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a host computer and a printer in a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a functional configuration in a host computer of the printing system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating functions of a host computer according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a memory map of a RAM in a state where a printer driver is loaded on a host computer of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an outline of processing of a printer driver according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating characteristic processing of the printer driver according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating application information used by the printer driver according to the present embodiment.

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A print control apparatus for generating a printer control command in response to a print request from an application, comprising: storage means for storing control information corresponding to the application; and control information corresponding to the application issuing the print request. Acquiring from the storage means, a printer command generating means for generating a printer control command based on image information, and executing a drawing process according to the printer command generating means based on data from the application. And a control unit that determines the capability of the printer command generation unit based on the control information acquired by the acquisition unit and notifies the drawing unit of the capability. Printing control device. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said printer command generation means is printer driver software. 3. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the drawing means is graphics engine software that runs on an OS and performs rasterization based on a drawing request from the application. 4. The control information according to claim 1, wherein the control information includes information on whether or not the printer command generation means generates a printer control command in which a print image is rasterized sequentially. 4. The print control device according to any one of 3. 5. The print control apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the application is an application program that runs on the OS. 6. A print control method for generating a printer control command by a printer driver based on a print request from an application and outputting the command to a printer device, wherein control information corresponding to the application issuing the print request is transmitted to the application. An acquisition step of acquiring from a memory storing control information corresponding to: a step of determining the capability of the printer driver based on the control information acquired in the acquisition step and notifying an OS, and data from the application. A drawing process of executing a drawing process according to the printer driver based on the printer driver and outputting image information to the printer driver. 7. The print control according to claim 6, wherein the drawing step is executed by graphics engine software operating on an OS that performs rasterization based on a drawing request from the application. Method. 8. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the control information includes information on whether or not the printer driver generates a printer control command in which the print image is rasterized sequentially. The print control method described in the above. 9. The print control method according to claim 7, wherein the application is an application program that runs on the OS. 10. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for executing the print control method according to claim 6. Description: