JP2000330736A - Network printer system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a network printer system capable of automatically and efficiently executing a plurality of print request start processings with a simple configuration without giving a user an operational burden. SOLUTION: Computer terminals 1A to 1F are connected with printers 2a to 2d through a network, when a printer that is subjected to print request start from a computer terminal is busy, a transferring means retrieves non-busy occurrence of the printers 2a to 2d, the computer terminal transfers image data to a printer defined as non-busy, in the case a transfer destination is different from the one designated by the computer terminal, a notifying means notifies the computer terminal of a change of printers, the transmitted image data of the computer terminal efficiently undergoes printing processing by another printer being not busy without waiting time, even though all of the printers are busy, the transmitted image data of the computer terminal can efficiently undergo printing processing in a short time due to non-busy occurrence retrieval, and the terminal computer of a transmission source can immediately detect the change of transmission destinations.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a network printer system in which a computer terminal and a printer are connected to a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in a network printer system in which a plurality of computer terminals and a plurality of printers are connected to a network, when a print request is simultaneously activated from a plurality of computer terminals to a certain printer, regardless of the amount of data, Print processing was performed in the order received.
In addition, when a print request is activated from another network-connected terminal to the printer that is currently performing printing, the print processing related to the activation of the print request is performed after the end of the currently performed print processing. Therefore, if the data amount of the printing process currently being performed is large, even if one page is printed, the user has to wait a long time.

In order to solve this problem, when a plurality of print requests are activated for a certain printer, a priority is given to each print request activation. A network printer system that outputs a print job has been proposed.
Also, in this type of network printer system, a user who has the authority to change the priority of print start is specified in advance, and this user changes the priority of print start by monitoring the status of print start. There is also proposed a configuration that enables the configuration.

[0004]

However, in the proposed network printer system, print request processing is basically performed according to a preset priority, and a plurality of print request activation processings are always performed efficiently. There may not be. In this case, even if the user having the authority to change the priority determines the print request activation situation and adopts the method of changing the priority, if the user is not an experienced user, the efficiency of the print request processing can be reduced by the entire system. In some cases, it is difficult to determine a change in the priority order for improvement.

The present invention has been made in view of the current state of print processing by such a network printer system as described above, and has as its object to execute a plurality of print request activation processing with a simple configuration by a user. An object of the present invention is to provide a network printer system which can be automatically and efficiently executed without imposing a burden on the user.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus comprising: a plurality of computer terminals; and an image memory for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals. The plurality of printers is a network printer system connected to a network, and receives image data from any one of the plurality of computer terminals in a busy state. A transfer means for transferring the data to another printer.

[0007] Similarly, in order to achieve the above object, according to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the transfer means determines that all the printers are busy when receiving the image data. Storing the image data in its own image memory, starting a search for the occurrence of a non-busy printer, and transferring the image data to the non-busy printer. It is.

[0008] Similarly, in order to achieve the above object, according to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect of the invention, the plurality of printers, wherein the transfer means transmits the image data. When the image data is transferred to a printer other than the printer specified by the original computer terminal,
A notifying unit for notifying the address of the printer to which the image data has been transferred to the transmitting computer terminal is further provided.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printer server having a plurality of computer terminals and a storage means for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals. A printer connected to the printer server is a network printer system connected to a network, and the server obtains, from header information of the received image data, an address of a computer terminal that has transmitted the image data and an image data amount. Is detected as print start information, and when print start is performed from a plurality of computer terminals, print control means for performing print control based on the print start information is provided.

[0010] Similarly, in order to achieve the above object, according to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the fourth aspect of the present invention, the print control means is configured to output an address of the storage means when a print request is made from a plurality of computer terminals. It has a function of dividing a space into the number of computer terminals that have received a print request, and storing image data from the plurality of computer terminals in the divided address spaces.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS First Embodiment A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present embodiment, and FIG.
Is an explanatory diagram showing the operation of the present embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the present embodiment.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, network terminals 3 are connected to computer terminals 1A to 1F.
And the printers 2a to 2d are connected to a network, and the computer terminals 1A to 1F are configured to be able to select and access any of the printers 2a to 3d. Each of the printers 2a to 2d is provided with a transfer unit. The transfer unit receives a transmission of image data from one of the computer terminals 1A to 1F when the printer in the busy state of the printers 2a to 2d. And a function of transferring the received image data to another printer that is not busy. Further, these transfer units receive the image data when one of the printers 2a to 2d is busy and receives image data from any of the computer terminals 1A to 1F. It has a function of storing the obtained image data in its own image memory, starting a search for occurrence of a non-busy printer, and transferring the received image data to the non-busy printer.

Each of the printers 2a to 2d is provided with a notifying means. The notifying means transmits the image data to a printer other than the printer designated by the terminal computer which has transmitted the image data by the transfer means. When the image data is transferred, it has a function of notifying the terminal computer of the image data source of the address of the printer to which the image data has been transferred.

The operation of the present embodiment having such a configuration is described below.
A description will be given according to the flowchart of FIG. 3 with reference to FIG. As shown by the dotted line in FIG.
To the printer 2b, from the computer terminal 1C to the printer 2a, from the computer terminal 1D to the printer 2c,
It is assumed that a print request has already been activated from the computer terminal 1F to the printer 2d. In this state, in step S1 of the flowchart in FIG. 3, when a print request is activated from the computer terminal 1E to the printer 2c, the process proceeds to step S2, and the transfer means of the printer 2c causes the printer 2c to transmit the data from the computer 1D to the printer 2c. It is detected that the print request has already been started, and it is determined in step S3 that the printer 2c is in a busy state.

If it is determined in step S3 that the printer 2c is busy, the flow advances to step S4 to detect the operating states of other printers in the same network system by the transfer means of the printer 2c.
Is the computer terminal 1C, the printer 2b is the computer terminal 1A, and the printer 2d is the computer terminal 1
Since the print request has already been activated from F, a printer that is not busy is not detected in step S5, and the image data transmitted from the computer terminal 1E is stored in the image memory of the printer 2c. Then, returning to Step S3, Step S5 is repeated until a printer in a non-busy state is detected in Step S5.
3. The processing of steps S4 and S5 is repeatedly executed to search for a printer in a non-busy state.

Then, for example, when the printing operation of the printer 2d ends first and it is detected in step S5 that the printer 2d is in the non-busy state, step S6 is performed.
To the computer terminal 1 stored in the image memory of the printer 2c by the transfer means of the printer 2c.
The transmission image data from E is transferred to the printer 2d. Then, the process proceeds to step S7, in which the notification means of the printer 2c informs the computer terminal 1E that the image data activated by the computer 1E to make a print request to the printer 2c is transferred to the printer 2d and printed. Is notified, the process proceeds to step S8, and the printing process of the image data is performed by the printer 2d. If it is determined in step S3 that the printer 2c is not busy, the process directly proceeds to step S8, where the image data from the computer terminal 1E is transmitted to the printer 2c.
Is printed.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, a plurality of computer terminals 1A to 1F and a plurality of printers 2
a to 2d are connected to each other via a network cable 3, and each of the printers 2a to 2d is provided with a transfer unit and a notifying unit. In the busy state, the printers 2a to 2d
The search for the occurrence of the non-busy state of the printer is started, and the image data from the computer terminal is transferred to the printer in the non-busy state. The change of the address is reported to the computer terminal.

For this reason, according to the present embodiment, the image data transmitted from the computer terminal is immediately transferred to another non-busy printer without waiting time without waiting for the end of the printing operation of the busy printer. It is possible to print efficiently, and even if all printers are busy, by searching for printers that are not busy, the image data transmitted from the computer terminal can be efficiently processed with a short waiting time. It is possible to perform the printing process in a specific manner, and the user can immediately recognize the occurrence of the change of the transmission destination by the transmission source terminal computer.

[Second Embodiment] A second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the present embodiment, FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a data array on a network of the present embodiment, and FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a first memory division of a printer server of the present embodiment. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a second memory division of the printer server according to the present embodiment.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 4, the network cables 3 are connected to the computer terminals 1A to 1D.
And the printer server 5 are connected to a network, the printer 2 is connected to the printer server 5, and the computer terminals 1A to 1D are configured to be able to access the printer 2 via the printer server 5. Further, the server 5 is provided with print control means. The print control means detects, from the header information of the received image data, the address of the computer terminal that has transmitted the image data and the amount of image data as print activation information. At the time of starting printing from a plurality of computer terminals, the address space of the image memory of the printer server is divided into the number of computer terminals that have started the printing request, and the image data from the plurality of computer terminals is decomposed into address space. And has a function of performing print control based on print activation information.

In the present embodiment, the data arrangement of the image data transferred from the computer terminals 1A to 1D to the printer server 5 is as shown in FIG. 5, and is arranged at the top of the image data D1A of the computer terminal 1A. Is a header H1, a header H2 is at the head of the image data D1B of the computer terminal 1B, a header H3 is at the head of the image data D1C of the computer terminal 1C, and a header H4 is at the head of the image data D1D of the computer terminal 1D. In addition, the headers H1 to H4 include the addresses of the computer terminals 1A to 1D and the amount of data to be transferred as print start information.

The operation of the present embodiment having such a configuration is described below.
This will be described with reference to FIGS. Computer terminal 1
When a print request is activated from any one of A to 1D, the printer server 5 detects the computer terminal that is the source of the print request activation, and at the same time determines whether there is a print request activation from another computer terminal. If there is no activation of the print request from the computer terminal, the printer server 5 executes the printing process for the first received print request by driving the printer 2 using the entire memory space of the image memory.

On the other hand, if the printer server 5 determines that the print request activation has been transmitted from, for example, the computer terminals 1A and 1B, the header of the image data transferred from each terminal is detected. Based on the address of the corresponding terminal and the amount of data to be transferred, as shown in FIG. 6, the memory space of the image memory of the printer server 5 is set to 2 in a state where a terminal having a large amount of data is allocated to a wide memory space. Divided. That is, the memory space is divided by the address of the address boundary 10 based on the amount of data transferred from each of the computer terminal 1A and the computer terminal 1B.
The address of the boundary address of the memory space is set in the head address of the computer terminal 1B in the head address of the computer terminal 1A, respectively.

The printer server 5 accumulates image data from the computer terminals 1A and 1B in a memory space allocated to the computer terminals 1A and 1B based on the addresses and data amounts of the computer terminals 1A and 1B. Data is received and stored, and the received and stored image data is read from the image memory of the printer server 5.
The print operation is transferred to the image memory of the printer 2, and in response to a print request activation from each computer terminal, an efficient print operation with a reduced waiting time is executed according to a command from the printer server 5.

FIG. 4 shows a case where there are four computer terminals, but this embodiment can generally respond to a print request activation from a plurality of computer terminals, for example, a print request activation from eight computer terminals. When the error occurs, the header of the image data transferred from each terminal is detected by the print server 5, the address of each terminal and the amount of image data are determined, and as shown in FIG. The space is divided into eight by the number of computer terminals that have activated the print request. That is, the memory space is first divided into four banks 15a to 15d, each bank is divided into two corresponding to the data amount of the terminal, and a computer terminal corresponding to the data amount is allocated to each divided region. In this case, if the number of computer terminals that have activated the print request is an odd number, one bank is not divided, and the undivided bank is allocated to the terminal having the maximum data amount in the computer terminal that has activated the print request.

The printer server 5 stores the image data in the memory space allocated to each computer terminal based on the address and the data amount of the computer terminal, and stores and receives the image data. The obtained image data is transferred from the image memory of the printer server 5 to the image memory of the printer 2, and the waiting time is reduced according to the instruction of the printer server 5 in response to the activation of the print request from each computer terminal. An efficient printing operation is performed.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the memory space of the image memory of the printer server 5 corresponds to the number of computer terminals that have activated the print request and the address space corresponding to the data amount of each terminal. Image data from a computer terminal corresponding to each divided space is stored at a position,
The image data read from the image memory of the printer server 5 is transferred to the printer 2, and in response to activation of a print request from each computer terminal, an efficient printing operation with reduced waiting time can be executed. Will be possible.

[0028]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of computer terminals and a plurality of printers having an image memory for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals are connected to a network. In a network printer system, a plurality of printers are provided with transfer means, respectively. When image data is transmitted from any of the plurality of computer terminals when the printer is in a busy state, the image data received by the printer is received. Is transferred to another printer that is not in the busy state by the transfer means, so that the image data transmitted from the computer terminal can be immediately transferred to the other printer without waiting time without waiting for the printing operation of the busy printer to end. Printing can be performed efficiently.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effects obtained by the first aspect of the present invention, when image data is transmitted from any of a plurality of computer terminals when the printer is in a busy state, When all the printers are busy, the transfer means of the printer stores the received image data in its own image memory, starts searching for the occurrence of a non-busy printer, and enters the non-busy state. When the printer is searched, the image data read from the image memory is immediately transferred to the printer. Therefore, even if all the printers are busy, the image data transmitted from the computer terminal can be transferred with a short waiting time. Printing can be performed efficiently.

According to the third aspect of the invention, in addition to the effects obtained by the first aspect of the invention or the second aspect of the invention, the plurality of printers are further provided with a notification unit, and the transfer unit is provided. However, when the image data is transferred to a printer other than the printer designated by the computer terminal of the image data transmission source, the notification means sends the address of the printer to which the image data has been transmitted to the transmission source computer terminal. Therefore, the user can immediately recognize the change of the transmission destination by using the transmission source computer terminal.

According to the present invention, a plurality of computer terminals, a printer server having storage means for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals, a printer connected to the printer server, However, in a network printer system connected to a network, the server is provided with print control means. When printing is started from the computer terminal, the print control means uses the header information of the received image data to determine the source of the image data. Since the address of the computer terminal and the amount of image data are detected as the print activation information, the source of the image data and the amount of data can be accurately grasped, and the print activation is performed simultaneously from a plurality of computer terminals. Specific terminal occupies the printer based on the print activation information No way, it is possible to efficiently print activates the printer.

According to the present invention, a plurality of computer terminals, a printer server having storage means for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals, and a printer connected to the printer server are provided. However, in a network printer system connected to a network, the server is provided with print control means. When printing is started from the computer terminal, the print control means uses the header information of the received image data to determine the source of the image data. Since the address of the computer terminal and the image data amount are detected as the print start information, it is possible to accurately grasp the source and the data amount of the image data, and the print start is simultaneously performed from a plurality of computer terminals. In the case, the address space of the storage means is the computer receiving the print request. Since the image data from a plurality of computer terminals are respectively stored in the divided address spaces, the storage means is effectively used so that a specific terminal does not occupy the printer. Can be started efficiently.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a data array on the network according to the embodiment;

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a first memory division of the printer server according to the embodiment;

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a second memory division of the printer server according to the embodiment;

[Explanation of symbols]

 1A-1F Computer terminal 2, 2a-2d Printer 3 Network cable 5 Printer server 10 Address boundary 15a-15d Bank

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A network printer system, comprising: a plurality of computer terminals; and a plurality of printers each having an image memory for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals. A network, wherein the printer is provided with transfer means for transferring the image data to another printer which is not in a busy state when the image data is transmitted from any of the plurality of computer terminals in a busy state. Printer system. 2. When all the printers are busy at the time of receiving the image data, the transfer means stores the image data in its own image memory and starts searching for the occurrence of a non-busy printer. 2. The network printer system according to claim 1, further comprising a function of transferring the image data to a printer in a non-busy state. 3. When the transfer means transfers the image data to a printer other than the printer designated by the computer terminal which has transmitted the image data, the transfer means of the printer to which the image data has been transferred. 3. The network printer system according to claim 1, further comprising a reporting unit that reports an address to the transmission source computer terminal. 4. A plurality of computer terminals, a printer server having storage means for receiving and storing image data transmitted from the plurality of computer terminals, and a printer connected to the printer server are connected to a network. A network printer system, wherein the server detects, from the header information of the received image data, an address of a computer terminal that has transmitted the image data and an image data amount as print start information, and starts print start from a plurality of computer terminals. And a print control unit for performing print control based on the print start information. 5. The print control unit, when a print request is issued from a plurality of computer terminals, divides the address space of the storage unit into the number of computer terminals that have received the print request, and divides the image space from the plurality of computer terminals. Data
5. The network printer system according to claim 4, wherein the network printer system has a function of storing data in each of the divided address spaces.