JP2001334731A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing device wherein an order to shift to analysis of data and processing of printing and which takes precedence over it is decided as properly and reduces useless waiting time and to work for improvement in efficiency when plural printing data are input in parallel. SOLUTION: The printing device comprises receiving means (14, 104) having a plurality of ports in which print data are to be inputted and capable of receiving a plurality of print data in parallel, a spool device for accumulating the print data once before the data is transported for print processing, and a main control section (101) which decides priority order of the ports and transports the print date beginning from one having high priority order for print processing when respective print data are received in parallel with the port means. The main control section (101) determines the data size of the print data inputted in each port and decides the priority order of each port based on the data size.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique useful when applied to a printing apparatus such as a network printer capable of receiving a plurality of print data in parallel from a plurality of host computers.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Print data is received in parallel from a plurality of host computers such as a printer (called a network printer) connected to a LAN (local area network), and the print data is temporarily stored in a reception buffer or the like. Printing apparatuses that subsequently shift to the printing process one by one are known.

Conventionally, in such a printing apparatus as described above,
When a plurality of print data are received in parallel, these print data are generally transferred to print processing in the order of reception.

[0004]

However, according to the conventional print processing method in which the printing process is shifted to the receiving order as described above, as shown in FIG. 10, for example, as shown in FIG. When the print data of the size is received, the print data of the small size is transferred to the data analysis and the print process after waiting for the reception of the large size print data and the completion of the data analysis and the print process. You.

With print data of a small size, data analysis to print processing can be performed during reception of print data of a large size. However, in the conventional method, print data of a large size is received even slightly earlier. In such a case, since the processing is performed later, a wasteful waiting time occurs and the work efficiency of the entire office is reduced.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to reduce a wasteful waiting time and to improve work efficiency by appropriately determining a priority order for shifting to data analysis and print processing when a plurality of print data are input in parallel. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus that can improve the performance.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a printing apparatus according to the present invention has a plurality of port means for inputting print data and a receiving means capable of receiving a plurality of print data in parallel. A storage device for temporarily storing print data before shifting to print processing, and determining a priority order of the plurality of port means, and determining a priority order when print data is received in parallel with the plurality of port means. Print control means for preferentially shifting to print processing from print data of a high port means, the print control means determines the data size of the print data input to each port means, and based on the data size The priority order of the port means is determined.

According to such means, when a plurality of print data are received in parallel, the priority order for applying the print data to the print processing is not the order of reception as in the prior art, but the data size of the print data. Therefore, for example, when the small-size print data and the large-size print data are received in parallel, the small-size print data is prioritized while the large-size print data is being received. It is possible to improve work efficiency, for example, by performing a printing process.

Preferably, storage means for storing size information relating to the data size of the input print data is provided for each port means, and the print control means performs the priority ordering based on the size information stored in the storage means. Is determined. Note that the size information may be data indicating an actual data size, or 100 Kbytes.
Data indicating an approximate data size, such as e or more or 200 Kbytes or more, may be used.

More specifically, the storage means stores the latest print data size information that can be recognized including print data input in the past for each port means, and The control unit compares the size information of the port unit with the size information of another port unit whose priority order is consecutive to the priority order of the port unit when new print data is input to an arbitrary port unit. Then, it is preferable to perform a priority update process in which the priorities of the compared port means are exchanged in ascending order of the data size indicated in the size information.

The timing at which the data size of the input print data can be recognized depends on the language format.
Immediately after the start of reception, in the middle of reception, just before the end of reception, it is not constant,
In addition, since the timing at which print data is sent to each port means is also different, comparing the data sizes of print data being received may result in, for example, small-size print data and large-size print data. Even when the reception starts at almost the same time, the reception of the small-size print data is completed and the data size comparison is performed until the reception of the large-size print data is completed. It may be difficult to set the timing to shift each print data to the print processing, and it may be possible to achieve the object of the present invention.

Therefore, as described above, the port means to which the print data is newly input is based on the data size of the print data, and the other port means is based on the data size of the latest print data. Since the priority of the port means is updated by comparing these, the timing for comparing the data size and the timing for shifting to the printing process can be easily set. Even if the priority is updated by comparing with the past print data, only the priority of the port unit to which the print data is currently input is relevant when determining the print data to be shifted to the print processing. Therefore, the input print data can be shifted to the print processing in an appropriate order.

Further, when there is a certain tendency in the size of the print data received by each port means, it is possible to switch the priorities appropriately according to the past tendency by comparing the size of the print data inputted in the past. It is.

Further, in the above-mentioned priority update process, the priority order can be set only between other port means having a continuous priority order (the number is not limited to one but may be plural). Since the priority order is not changed, the priority order can be appropriately changed. Excessive change of the priority may be caused, for example, by inputting large-size print data and improperly inputting large-size print data when print data of a slightly smaller size is successively input from various port means. There is a possibility that a problem such as waiting may occur, but such a problem can be avoided by the appropriate change.

More specifically, the priority order updating process compares the size information of the newly input port means with the size information of the port means having a priority lower by one than the port means, and compares these size information. Replacing the priority order of the port means in ascending order of the data size, and, if the priority order is not replaced in the step, the size information of the newly input port means and the port means having a priority one higher than the port means And switching the priority order of these port means in ascending order of the data size.

When the number of port means is large, or when it is desired to increase the influence of a data size closer to the present than a past data size, a large number of ports, such as 2 to 5 which have a higher priority in one update process. By comparing the port means, the priority order may be exchanged between these port means.

The present invention further comprises an analyzing means for analyzing print data created in each format language corresponding to a plurality of types of format languages and converting the print data into printable data. Is particularly effective for a printing apparatus which is adapted to input print data in a predetermined format language.

That is, since there is a certain correlation between the format language and the size of the print data, a certain tendency also occurs in the size of the print data input to each port means. By comparing with the size, the appropriate priority can be updated.

[0019]

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

FIG. 1 shows a printing apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a functional configuration of the printing apparatus 1. As shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 1, a printing apparatus 1 of this embodiment includes a CPU 10 for overall control of the apparatus, a hard disk device for temporarily storing print data sent from a host computer 2, A spool storage device 11 composed of a semiconductor memory or the like, an operation panel 12 provided with input keys operable by a user and a display unit for displaying operation contents, a control program and control data executed by the CPU 10 A stored program ROM 13, a host interface 14 for transmitting and receiving data to and from a plurality of host computers 2 connected via a network 4, and a printer engine as a printing means for performing a printing process in accordance with the supplied print data 16 and an error for transferring print data to the printer engine 16. And the like gin interface 15.

The host interface 14 is capable of performing data communication in parallel with a plurality of host computers 2 by, for example, packet communication.

The CPU 10 is a processor having a RAM therein, and implements a plurality of functional modules in accordance with a control program and control data stored in the program ROM 13 using the RAM as a work space.
As shown in FIG. 2, such a functional module includes an interface unit 1 as a receiving unit that takes in data received via the host interface 14 therein.
02, printer engine 1 performs language analysis of print data
A language analysis block 103 as analysis means for converting the data into processable data (for example, raster data) and outputting the data to the engine interface 15;
The spool unit 104 stores print data sent from the storage unit 11 in the storage device 11 and manages the stored print data, the main control unit 101 as a print control unit that comprehensively controls each of the above functional modules, and the like. There is. These plurality of functional modules can be operated simultaneously in parallel by the parallel processing of the control program by the CPU 10, and data can be further exchanged between the functional modules via the RAM.

The language analysis block 103 includes, for example, a language format such as vector data composed of predetermined drawing commands and drawing parameters, a language format such as raster data indicating a color and a gradation for each print dot, and It is configured to be compatible with a plurality of language formats, such as a language format in which vector data and raster data are mixed.

The interface unit 102 includes a plurality of logical ports (for example, ports to ports) as port means.
, So that these logical ports can receive data independently of each other. That is, the host computer 2 connected to the network 4 can input print data in parallel via each of these logical ports.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of the first embodiment for explaining a method of allocating input print data to each logical port of the interface unit 102.

In the first embodiment, print data is allocated to each logical port in the order of input of print data, that is, in order of earliest reception start time of print data, from the smallest logical port among the free logical ports. This is performed by a method of allocating print data. For example, if print data DATA1 (FIG. 3) is transmitted from a certain host computer 2 and another print data DATA2 is transmitted from another host computer 2 during this transmission, the first input print data DATA1 Received by
The second input print data DATA2 is received by the port.

When all the logical ports are occupied by data reception, no new print data is received and the host computer waits for transmission until data reception of any of the logical ports is completed.

In the method of the first embodiment, the data size of the print data input to each logical port does not tend to be constant, and the data size varies for each input print data. Become.

In this embodiment, at the start of print data reception, information indicating the start of reception and the number of the received logical port is passed from the interface unit 102 to the main control unit 101. During reception, when the data size of the print data is known, size information indicating the data size is passed to the main control unit 101. The timing at which the data size of the print data is known differs depending on the language format.For example, in the language format in which the data size is recorded in the header part of the print data, the timing is known immediately after reception. If so, it is known in the middle of reception or immediately before reception is completed.

When print data reception is completed, information indicating the completion of reception and the number of the logical port for which reception has been completed is transmitted from the interface unit 102 to the main control unit 10.
Passed to 1. The received print data is stored in the storage device 11 by the spool unit 104 according to an instruction from the main control unit.

When storing the received print data in the storage device 11, the main control unit 101 sets a print order indicating the order of the print processing for each print data and stores the print data as spool management information. Spool unit 104
Pass to. When a plurality of print data are received in parallel by the interface unit 102, each print data is processed in descending order of the priority set for each logical port, not in the order of reception. And sets the print order information and passes it to the spool unit. The priority set for each of these logical ports is determined by the main control unit 10
1 is determined based on the data size of the received print data, and is updated each time the print data is received.

When print data is stored in the spool unit 104 and the language analysis block 103 is ready for analysis processing, the main control unit 101 supplies the next print data to the spool unit 104 to the language analysis block. Instructions are given. Then, spool part 1
04 searches the print data stored in the storage device 11 for the earliest print order based on the print order information, reads out the relevant print data, and supplies it to the language analysis block 103. Then, the language analysis block 10
The print data supplied to the printer engine 16 is converted into print-processable data (for example, raster data).
And the printing process is performed.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of a second embodiment for explaining a method of allocating input print data to each logical port of the interface unit 102.

In the second embodiment, the CPU 10 is provided with a non-volatile memory such as a flash ROM. The non-volatile memory includes a data table 101b of the second embodiment which indicates the priority order of the logical ports described later. (FIGS. 6 and 7) are configured.

In the method of the second embodiment, each logical port is associated in advance with one of the language formats of the print data, and when print data of a certain language format is input, the logical port is adapted to the language format. The print data is received by a logical port. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, port ~ is language format a, port ~ is language format b, port,
Is set in advance as the language format c. And
If print data DATA1 of language format b is transmitted from a certain host computer 2 and print data DATA2 of language format a is transmitted from another host computer 2 during this transmission, the first print data D
ATA1 is received at the port corresponding to the language format b, and the second print data DATA2 is received at the port corresponding to the language format a.

When the print data of the same language format is successively input, the print data is allocated from the smaller logical port number among the plurality of logical ports associated with the language format. When all the logical ports are blocked, the host computer that has issued the print request is put into a transmission standby state.

In the method of the second embodiment, since the language format of the print data input to each logical port is fixed, the data size tends to be constant for each logical port. .

The printing process in the second embodiment is the first
It is executed under the same control as in the embodiment.

Next, in the case of the first embodiment shown in FIG. 3 and the second embodiment shown in FIG.
The processing procedure for determining and updating the priority order of each logical port and the processing procedure for setting the printing order for each print data will be described in detail. [First Embodiment] In the first embodiment, as described above, the print data is allocated to the logical port having the smallest port number from the available logical ports and received.

In the first embodiment, since the data size of the print data received by each logical port does not have a certain tendency, the data size of the logical port is determined based only on the data size of the print data currently received. Determine priorities.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a data table used for determining the priority of each port in this embodiment. FIG. 5 shows an update process of the data table executed by the main control unit 101. The flowchart of FIG.

To determine the priority order of the logical ports, the RAM
Data table 101a as storage means provided in
Is used. This data table 101a includes FIG.
As shown in (1), the port number and the size information indicating the data size of the print data currently being received by the logical port are stored in association with each other in the order of priority. The data of the logical port that is not currently received is deleted from the data table 101a, for example.

The update processing of the data table 101a is performed by the main control unit 101 according to the procedure of the flowchart shown in FIG. That is, in step S1, it is determined whether or not the size information of the newly input print data has been notified from the interface unit 102. If the size information has been notified, the process proceeds to steps S2 and S3, but if not, the process proceeds to step S4. Jump.

In step S4, it is determined whether or not a notification of the completion of the reception of the print data being received has been received from the interface unit 102. If there is a notification, the process proceeds to steps S5 and S6. Returning, these determination processes are repeated.

As a result, when the size information of the new print data is notified and the process proceeds to step S2, the port number at which the new print data was received and the size information of the print data are stored in an empty line of the data table 101a. Write. Then, in step S3, this data table 101
A sort process is performed on all the rows a to rearrange the rows so that the size information is in ascending order. Lines in which no port number or size information has been input are moved down.

That is, by the data processing in steps S2 and S3, when there are a plurality of print data receptions, the priorities of the logical ports receiving these are set in ascending order of the print data size.

On the other hand, when there is a notification of the completion of the reception of the print data and the process proceeds to step S5, the port number and size information of the logical port for which the reception has been completed are stored in the data table 101a.
, And then, in step S6, a process of packing the line is performed. Then, the process returns to the determination processing of step S1.

Thus, the port numbers of the receiving ports currently being received are arranged in the data table 101a in order of priority.

Next, the process of setting the print order of the print data performed by the main control unit 101 will be described.

When the reception of the print data is completed, the main control unit 101 determines the print order of the print data according to the priority order of the data table 101a, and passes the print order information to the spool unit 104 as spool management information.

More specifically, as shown in FIG. 6, if three print data are received in parallel, and the reception of the ports among them is completed, the three print data are received by each logical port. The printing order is set by the serial number according to the priority. This serial number is continuous from, for example, power-on or reset. If the current print data is the 100th print data at this time, the print data of the port is 100, the print data that has been completely received is 101, and the print data of the port is 101. The print order of No. 102 is set in the print data.

Of these print orders, the number 101 of the print data of the port for which reception has been completed is determined, but the number of the print data of the port and the port which is still being received.
No. 00 and 102 are not determined. Then, if the reception of the port is completed without receiving the new print data as it is, the above-described printing order is determined as it is.

On the other hand, when reception of new print data is started during reception of a port or a port, and this size information is notified to the main control unit 101, the data table 101a is updated based on this size information. Will be For example, after the reception of the print data on the second line in the data table of FIG.
Assuming that the print data of te is received, the priority is updated to “order 1” for the port, “order 2” for the port, and “order 3” for the port.

When the reception of any print data is completed in this state, the print order of these print data is set by a serial number that has not been used. For example, when the reception of the print data of the port is completed, since the print data of No. 101 is used, the serial numbers 100, 1
Using the numbers 02 and 103, the port print data is set to 100 and the port print data is set to 102
The print order of No. 103 is set to the print data of No. and the port, respectively. Then, the print data No. 102 of the port whose reception has been completed is determined. Thereafter, the same processing is repeated to set the print order of the print data of the reception completion.

Thereafter, the spool unit 104 reads out the print data one by one in accordance with the above printing order and supplies it to the language analysis block 103, whereby each print data is shifted to the printing process in order. [Second Embodiment] In a second embodiment, each logical port is associated with a predetermined language format, and input print data is assigned to a logical port corresponding to the language format and received. It is.

In the second embodiment, the print data size received by each logical port has a certain tendency. Therefore, not only the print data currently received but also the data size information of the print data received in the past is displayed. It is used to determine the priority of the logical port.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a data table used to determine the priority of each port in this embodiment, and FIG. 8 shows the data as priority update processing executed by the main control unit 101. 4 shows a flowchart of a data table update process.

Also in this embodiment, the data table 101b as storage means is used for determining the priority of the logical port.
Use Since the data table 101b also stores information on the latest print data received in the past, the data table 101b is provided in a nonvolatile memory so that the data is not erased even when the power is turned off.

As shown in FIG. 7, the data table 101b stores, in order of priority, port numbers and size information indicating the data size of the print data received at the logical port closest to the present time. They are stored in association with each other.

The process of updating the data table 101b of this embodiment is performed according to the procedure shown in the flowchart of FIG. That is, in step S11, the size information of the newly input print data is
It is determined whether the notification has been made from step 1 and if so, step S
The process shifts to the update process of shift 12, but if there is no notification, the process of step S101 is repeated.

As a result, after shifting to step S12,
In this step, the size information of the corresponding port number is rewritten to the newly notified size information. As a result, the size information of the data table 101a is updated to that of the print data closest to the present time.

Next, in step S13, the line of the port number from which the print data has been newly received and the line having the next lower rank are rearranged so that the data size becomes smaller.

Next, in step S13, it is determined whether or not the rows have been rearranged.
After one update process, the process returns to the determination process in step S11. If the rearrangement has not been performed, step S15
Then, the line of the port number from which the print data has been newly received and the line with the next higher rank are rearranged so that the data size becomes smaller. Then, after one update process, the process returns to the determination process of step S11.

Thus, the logical ports are arranged in the data table 101b in order of priority. According to the above priority setting method, not all the logical ports are always arranged in ascending order of the size information.If the data size of the print data received from the past to the present is small, the logical port has a high priority. If the data size is large, the priority of the logical port is lowered so that the tendency of the data size from the past to the present is reflected in the priority of each logical port.

The influence of the past data size can be reduced and the influence of the current data size can be increased by increasing the number of rows in the sorting process performed in step S13 or S15.

Thereafter, the method of setting the printing order performed by the main control unit 101 is substantially the same as that of the first embodiment. In the second embodiment, the priority order of the logical ports that are not currently receiving print data is also shown in the data table 101b, so these logical ports are excluded and only the logical ports that are receiving print data are targeted. The priority order is compared, and the print order is set for these print data.

In this embodiment, since the priority order based on the past data is set for each logical port from the start of the reception of the print data to the recognition of the data size, It is also possible to set the printing order of each print data by using the priorities based on these past data. That is, instead of setting the print order when the print data reception is completed, the print order of the print data is set at a timing when the data size of the print data cannot be recognized, such as at the start of reception of the print data or in the middle of the reception. It can also be configured to do so.

As described above, according to the printing apparatuses 1 of the first and second embodiments, when a plurality of print data are received in parallel, the priorities for applying these print data to the print processing are the same as those of the prior art. As described above, since the data size is appropriately determined based on the data size of the print data instead of the reception order, the work efficiency of the printing process can be improved.

That is, as shown in FIG. 9 showing an example of a time chart of the printing process of the embodiment, when large-size and small-size print data are input in parallel, the small-size print data is enlarged. The printing process (language analysis and actual printing process) can be shifted to the printing process prior to the printing data of the large size.
It is possible to improve work efficiency such as printing small-size print data.

According to the printing apparatus 1 of the second embodiment,
Utilizing the fact that the received data size has a certain tendency for each logical port, the data size of the print data received in the past is reflected in the priority, and the priority of each logical port is gradually replaced Printing can be performed at an appropriate priority while improving work efficiency, such as avoiding the inconvenience of printing data with a low priority being inappropriately waited for a long time due to an excessive change in priority. Data can be transferred to print processing.

Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the embodiments, it is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and can be variously modified without departing from the gist thereof. .

For example, although a plurality of logical ports of the interface unit 102 capable of receiving a plurality of print data by parallel processing have been illustrated as a plurality of port means, a plurality of hardware ports may be provided, or a plurality of hardware ports may be provided. A configuration in which a plurality of ports and the logical ports of the embodiment are mixed may be employed.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the system configuration has been described in which when print data is input, the print data is allocated to any of a plurality of ports and received.
The present invention is also applicable to a printing apparatus having a configuration in which each port is associated with each host computer in advance, and transmitted print data is input to a port corresponding to the host computer.

In the embodiment, when the print data is stored in the spool unit 104 from the interface unit 102, the print order is determined in accordance with the priority order of each logical port. When sending the print data to the language analysis block 103 in accordance with the priority order of the logical ports, the print data can be configured to be sent to the language analysis block 103 when the print data is sent to the print processing.

Further, when comparing the print data sizes, it is possible to change the order of priority only when there is a difference of a certain amount or more, and to arrange the reception order when there is no significant difference.

[0077]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When a plurality of print data are received in parallel, the priority order for applying the print data to the print processing is determined not in the order of reception as in the past but in the order of smaller data size appropriately based on the data size of the print data. Therefore, if large-size and small-size print data are input in parallel, wait until the reception of the large-size print data and the printing process are completed before processing the small-size print data. This avoids waste and improves the work efficiency of printing small-size print data while receiving large-size print data.

Furthermore, the size information of the past print data is set as a comparison target, and only a predetermined number of port means having consecutive priorities are replaced in one update process of the priority order, whereby the priority order is changed. The update is not abrupt but changes gradually, so it is possible to avoid the inconvenience of excessively changing the priority, such as inappropriately waiting for low-priority print data, and improve work efficiency. The print data can be transferred to the print processing with a high priority.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a first embodiment of a correspondence relationship between each port of the printing apparatus and a host computer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a data table for determining the priority of each port in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a data table update process in the embodiment of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a second embodiment of the correspondence between each port of the printing apparatus and the host computer.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a data table for determining the priority of each port in the embodiment of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a procedure of a data table update process in the embodiment of FIG. 6;

FIG. 9 is a time chart illustrating an example of processing when large-size and small-size print data are input in parallel in the printing apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a time chart illustrating an example of processing when large-size and small-size print data are input in parallel in a conventional printing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printing device 2 ... Host computer 10 CPU 11 Spool storage device 14 Host interface 16 Printer engine 101 Main control part (print control means) 101a Data table (storage means) 101b Data table (storage means) 102 Interface part (receiving means) 103 language analysis block (analysis means) 104 spool unit

Claims (5)

[Claims] A receiving unit having a plurality of port means for receiving print data and capable of receiving a plurality of print data in parallel; a storage device for temporarily storing print data before shifting to print processing; While determining the priority order of the plurality of port means,
Print control means for, when print data is received in parallel to the plurality of port means, shifting preferentially to print processing from the print data of the port means having a higher priority, wherein the print control means A printing apparatus configured to determine a data size of the print data input to the means, and determine a priority order of the port means based on the data size. 2. A storage unit for storing size information relating to the data size of input print data is provided for each port unit, and the print control unit sets the priority based on the size information stored in the storage unit. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination is made. 3. The storage means stores, for each port means, size information of the latest print data that can be recognized including print data input in the past, and the print control means stores new print data. Is input to an arbitrary port means, the size information of the port means is compared with the size information of other port means whose priority order is consecutive to the priority order of the port means. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein priority order updating processing is performed in which the priority order is changed in ascending order of the data size indicated by the size information. 4. The priority order updating process compares the size information of a newly input port means with the size information of a port means having a priority lower by one than the port means, and compares the size information of the port means with a smaller data size in the order of smaller data size. Replacing the priority order, and comparing the size information of the newly input port means and the size information of the port means which is one priority higher than the port means when the priority order is not replaced in the step. 4. The printing apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising the step of changing the priority order in ascending order of the data size. 5. An analysis means for analyzing print data created in each of these format languages corresponding to a plurality of format languages and converting the data into printable data, wherein each of said plurality of port means is a predetermined one. The printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the printing apparatus is adapted to input print data in a format language of (b).