JP2001277645A - Method for controlling printing for ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem wherein in the case where printing on the end of a page in the present printing and on the top of the next page by crossing the pages is started in an ink jet printer for a continuous paper, when data for the next printing page is received and is developed, the printing only for the end of page in the present printing is performed and after the paper is fed for the printing of the top of the next page, the printing on the next page is started even though the developing time period for one scanning is very short compared to a time period for one scanning by a print head, thereby lowering the efficiency (because of the printing by two times of scanning). SOLUTION: In the case where printing on the end of the page in the present printing and on the top of the next page by crossing the pages is started, when the data for the next printing page is received and is developed, the printing is started by waiting for completion of the development. As a result, it is possible to reduce a time period for one time of scanning of the print head and for conveyance of the paper, thereby improving the printing efficiency.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention has a host computer for transmitting print data, a control device for analyzing and expanding data received from the host computer, for controlling printing, and a printing mechanism for performing a printing operation. The present invention relates to a print control method for an ink jet printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The structure of a mechanism of a conventional ink jet printer will be described with reference to FIG.

An ink-jet printer includes a paper 19 as a printing material, paper transport tractors 20 and 24, a print head 22 having nozzles for ejecting ink,
A carriage mechanism 21 for moving the print head in a direction orthogonal to the paper transport direction (hereinafter, referred to as a main scanning direction), a drying mechanism 23 for drying printed paper, and a printed paper Is stored in the stacker mechanism 25 for storing

Next, the operation of the ink jet mechanism during printing will be described.

When the data to be printed is received and developed, the carriage mechanism 21 prints on the paper 19 by ejecting ink while moving the print head 22 in the main scanning direction. The carriage mechanism 21 stops after moving by the printing width, and ends printing for one scan. After that, the paper 19 is transported by the paper transport tractors 20 and 24 for one scan. At the same time drying mechanism 2
The ink is dried in 3 and the printing operation for one scan is completed.

Next, an outline of print control of a conventional ink jet printer will be described with reference to FIG.

The host computer 11 has a function of transmitting print data to the ink jet controller 12 with a command added as necessary. The inkjet controller 12 receives the print data from the host computer 11 in the receiving process 13 and stores the data in the reception buffer 15. In parallel with the data reception in the reception processing 13, the expansion processing 14 sequentially reads out the data in the reception buffer 15, analyzes the data, restores the data into raster data, and writes the raster data into the frame memory 16. Then, when the development process for one scan is completed, a scan operation command is issued to the engine control process 17. In the engine control process 17, when the scan operation command is received, the engine mechanism control unit 18
, The printing operation is executed.

Next, the expansion processing 14 will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the expansion processing 14, first, the reception buffer 1
5 is read, and the received data is analyzed to generate raster data. In the determination processing of Step 1, if the raster data developed first is not the page end, Step 2
Is determined whether rasterization for one scan has been completed. If the development for one scan has not been completed, the process proceeds to the determination processing of Step 4. If the development for one scan has been completed, the scan operation is possible.
A scan operation command is issued to the engine control process 17, the scan enable flag is set to 0, and the routine proceeds to the determination process of Step 4.

On the other hand, in the case where the page end is determined in the determination processing of Step 1, it is determined in the determination processing of Step 3 whether or not the print head is scanning. This is because the engine control process 17 cannot execute the scan operation even if the scan operation instruction is issued during the scan of the print head. If the scan is not being performed, a scan operation command is issued to the engine control process 17, the scan enable flag is set to 0, and the process proceeds to the determination process of Step 4. If scanning is in progress, set the scan enable flag to 1
The process proceeds to the determination process of No. 4.

In the determination process of Step 4, when the scan enable flag is 0, that is, when the scan operation cannot be performed, the process returns to the beginning of the rasterization process to continue reading data from the reception buffer 15 and raster data rasterization.
If the scan enable flag is not 0, that is, if the scan operation can be performed, the process proceeds to the determination processing of Step 5. Step
In the determination process 5, it is determined whether the print head is scanning or not. If the print head is scanning, the process returns to the beginning of the rasterization process and data reading from the reception buffer 15 and raster data rasterization are continued. If it is determined in step 5 that the scan is not being performed, a scan operation instruction is issued to the engine control process 17, the scan enable flag is set to 0, and the process returns to the beginning of the expansion process to perform the same process as described above.

[0012]

In the above-described print control of the continuous paper ink jet printer, when data sent from an upper host is intermittently transmitted at a break between jobs, or when print data at the head of a job is transmitted. When a lot of time is required for developing the image, the printing operation is performed as described above. In other words, when starting printing across the end of the page being printed and the leading end of the next page, the expansion processing of the top of the next page has not been completed even if the data of the next page has been received. At this time, the data at the head of the next page is left blank, only the end of the current page is printed, and the head of the next page is printed in the next scanning operation. For this reason, when the scanning operation crosses a page boundary, two scanning operations may be required, which is inefficient.

[0013]

The present invention focuses on the fact that the development time for one scan is generally much shorter than the time for the scan operation of the print head, and the scan operation of the print head is completed. However, if the next scan operation extends over a page boundary, if the data of the next page has been received, the scan operation of the print head is suppressed, and after the start of the next page has been expanded, By starting the scanning operation, the efficiency of printing can be improved.

That is, according to the configuration of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problem, one or a plurality of print heads each including a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink, and a print head perpendicular to the scanning direction of the print heads are provided. A mechanism for moving a substrate to be printed in a continuous direction, a control unit for ejecting and printing ink in synchronization with the horizontal movement of the print head, and receiving print data from a host computer; In a continuous paper inkjet printer having a development processing unit that develops the print data and converts the raster data into raster data, at a boundary between pages of the continuous print medium, at an end portion of a page and a front end portion of a next page. If the print data for the next page has not been expanded before starting the crossover printing, wait for the expansion It is to control so as to execute printing that spans the end portion and the tip portion of the next page.

[0015] Alternatively, one or more print heads composed of a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink,
A mechanism for moving a printing object continuous in a direction perpendicular to the scanning direction of the print head, and a control unit for ejecting and printing ink in synchronization with the horizontal movement of the print head, In an ink jet printer that receives raster data from a host computer, at the boundary between the pages of the continuous printing material, when printing over the end of the page and the leading end of the next page is started, the raster of the next page is started. If the data has not been received, the control is to wait for the end of the reception and then to execute the printing over the end of the page and the top of the next page.

At the boundary between the pages of the continuous printing medium, when printing is started at the boundary between the pages and extends over the end portion of the page and the leading end of the next page, the print data of the next page is started. If the development is not completed, and if the development is not completed even after the elapse of a predetermined time, only the end portion of the page may be printed. here,
It is preferable that the predetermined time is variable depending on printing conditions or the progress of the next page expanding process.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment of the present invention.
This will be described below.

In FIG. 1, the conventional processing is compared with Step
6 is added.

In a specific developing process, first, data in a receiving buffer is sequentially read out, analyzed and generated as raster data in the same manner as in the conventional control. Then, after rasterization of the page end raster data is completed, the determination process of Step 3
It is determined whether the print head is scanning. If the scanning is not being performed, the same processing as the conventional processing is performed. If the scanning is being performed, the presence / absence of the reception data of the next page is searched by the determination processing of Step 6. If it is determined in step 6 that there is no received data,
The scan enable flag is set to 1, and the process proceeds to the determination processing of Step 4. If it is determined in step 6 that there is received data, the process returns to the beginning of the expansion process and performs the same process as described above.

According to the control method of the present embodiment, when the scanning operation extends over a page boundary, the scanning operation is performed after the start of the development of the head of the next page has been completed for a set time. Is printed by one scanning operation.

In the present control method, the effect is greater as the print length of one page is shorter and as the frequency of waiting for development at a page boundary is higher.

That is, assuming that the time for one scan is T, the number of scans is N, the number of times to wait for development completion is M, and the average time to wait for development completion is Z, the printing time in the conventional processing is T × N + T × M. Become. On the other hand, in the case of this example, T ×
N + Z × M. That is, the effect of this example is (T−
Z) × M. Generally, since Z is sufficiently smaller than T, an effect of almost T × M can be obtained.

Further, when a plurality of print heads are mounted, the same effect can be obtained only by reducing the number of scans N.

Next, a second example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

In the second example, in addition to the determination processing in Step 6 of the first example, the determination processing in Step 7 and the timer setting processing in Step 8 are performed.
A timer reset process of Step 9 and a timer reset process of Step 10 are added.

If it is determined in step 6 that there is received data, a timer for a certain period of time is set by the timer setting process in step 8 unless the timer is operating. This timer detects a time-out when the page cannot be completed in a state of waiting for the completion of development because only a part of the data is transmitted from the host computer. When the development for one scan is completed before the timer set in the timer setting process in Step 8 times out, or in the determination process in Step 7, which is a process for determining whether the timer has elapsed for a predetermined time, If it is determined that the time has elapsed, a scan operation command is issued to the engine control process and the scan enable flag is set to 0 in order to print the page that has been developed. After issuing a scan instruction,
Since the timer set in the timer setting process of ep8 becomes unnecessary, the timer is reset by the timer reset process of Step 9 and the timer reset process of Step 10.

According to the present embodiment, it is possible to cope with a situation where a situation occurs in which the page cannot be completed in the state of waiting for the development to be completed and the page is not completed.

In the above-described example, the end of the development of the next page is waited for a certain period of time. However, this time is determined by the printing conditions such as paper width, print head moving speed, one-way printing, and two-way printing. By making it variable in accordance with the progress of the development processing of the next page, the development waiting time can be optimized, so that the printing efficiency can be further improved.

In the application of this embodiment, even in the case of an ink jet printer which does not require rasterization processing for transmitting unprocessed raster data from a host computer, control is performed so as to wait for completion of data reception. Thereby, a similar effect can be obtained.

In the present invention, the case of an ink jet printer having a mechanism for moving the print head horizontally has been described. There is no horizontal scanning operation. However, even in this case, by applying the present embodiment, it is possible to obtain an effect that the number of times of the control process for ejecting ink is repeated only once.

[0031]

According to the present invention, in a continuous paper ink-jet printer, a decrease in printing efficiency which occurs when starting printing across the end of the currently printed page and the leading edge of the next page is prevented, and the printing efficiency is reduced. Can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating raster data expansion processing according to an example of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing another example of raster data development processing of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a conventional raster data development process.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of print control of the inkjet printer.

FIG. 5 is a schematic explanatory view of an ink jet printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

In the figure, 11 is a host computer, 12 is a controller, 13 is reception processing, 14 is expansion processing, 15 is a reception buffer, 16 is a frame memory, 17 is an engine control processing, and 18 is an engine mechanism control unit.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A printhead comprising one or more printheads comprising a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink, and a mechanism for moving a printing material continuous in a direction perpendicular to a scanning direction of the printhead. And a control unit for ejecting and printing ink in synchronization with the horizontal movement of the print head, receiving print data from a host computer, expanding the print data and converting the raster data into raster data. In a continuous paper inkjet printer having a development processing unit, at the boundary between the pages of the continuous printing material, when printing over the end of the page and the leading end of the next page is started, printing of the next page is started. If the expansion of the data has not been completed, wait for the expansion process to complete before printing over the end of the page and the top of the next page. A print control method for an ink jet printer, characterized in that the control is executed. 2. A printing apparatus comprising: one or a plurality of print heads each including a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink; and a mechanism for moving a print object that is continuous in a direction perpendicular to a scanning direction of the print head. A control unit for ejecting and printing ink in synchronization with the horizontal movement of the print head, and an ink jet printer that receives raster data from a host computer. When starting the printing across the end of the page and the top of the next page, if the raster data of the next page has not been received, wait for the end of the reception and wait for the end of the page. A print control method for an ink jet printer, characterized in that control is performed so as to execute printing over a leading edge of a page. 3. The printing control method for an ink jet printer according to claim 1, wherein at a boundary between the pages of the continuous printing medium, the boundary between the pages straddles an end portion of the page and a leading edge of the next page. When printing is started, if the development of the print data for the next page is not completed, and if the development is not completed even after a predetermined time has elapsed, only the end of the page is printed. Printer print control method. 4. A print control method for an ink jet printer according to claim 3, wherein said predetermined time is variable according to printing conditions. 5. A print control method for an ink-jet printer according to claim 3, wherein said predetermined time is variable according to the progress of the next page development processing.