JP2002356015A - Printer controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To readily realize spot color printing in a color desired by a user without having the user prepare a color ink and spot multicolor printing without having the user replace an ink bottle in an identical job in terms of a printing controller having a function of spot color printing. SOLUTION: This printer controller uses a colored paper as a printing medium and black and white inks. The printer controller comprises a means wherein a portion designated in black in printing data is printed in the black ink, a background portion in the printing face is printed in the white ink, and a portion designated in a color is not printed. The color of the colored paper is used as a color of the spot color, thereby solving the problem.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention receives and analyzes print data transmitted from a host device, develops the print data into an electronic bit map for each page, and converts on / off bit patterns of the bits. In a spot color printer that can transmit the bit pattern to a transfer device and print the bit pattern using two color ink bottles other than black and black, using colored paper as the print medium and printing the print data using black and white ink The black part is printed with black ink, the background part of the printing surface is printed with white ink, and the color specified part is not printed at all, so the color of the colored paper becomes the spot color, And a printer control device capable of performing spot color printing without preparing a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, spot color printers are equipped with two colors of ink other than black and black, and a user can use only the colors installed in the printer. Had to be printed. In addition, replacement of ink bottles is not easy, and it is impossible to replace these bottles during printing, and only one spot color can be used in the same job.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to easily realize spot color printing in a color desired by a user without preparing color ink.

Another object of the present invention is to realize spot color printing of a plurality of colors without replacing the ink bottles by a user in the same job.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, a printer control apparatus according to the present invention uses color paper as a print medium and print data transmitted from a host apparatus using black and white ink. Means for receiving and analyzing the received data, means for reading the spot color print designation included in the print data, and determining whether or not to perform spot color printing.The black designated portion of the print data is black when spot color printing is performed on the received print data. A means to develop into an electronic bitmap that prints the background part of the printing surface with white ink and prints nothing in the color specification part, and removes the paper from the specified paper tray Providing printing means enables spot colors of multiple colors in the same job without replacing ink bottles other than black in accordance with print data. Wherein the easily print.

[0006]

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

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the configuration of the present invention. The print data transmitted from the host device 1 is received and analyzed by the main control unit 3 of the printer control device 2, and transmitted to the developing unit 4. The developing unit 4 synthesizes characters and images of the received data and develops them into a bit map for each page in the storage memory 5. The bitmap data is converted into a video signal by the transfer control unit 6 and transmitted to the transfer device 9 of the engine 8 for printing. The main control unit 3 and the engine 8 exchange information with each other via the engine I / F unit 7. Engine 8
Takes out the paper from the paper feed tray 10 specified by the print data, the engine 8 receiving the print command prints the bitmap data transmitted to the transfer device 9, and the printed paper is discharged to the paper discharge tray 11. You.

FIG. 2 is an operation flow in the printer control device. The print data transmitted from the host device 1 is received by the main control unit 3 of the printer control device 2, and the characters, image data, and spot color print designation included in the print data are read. When spot color printing is not specified, the black part of the print data is printed with black ink, the background part of the print surface is printed with nothing, and the color specified part is printed in gray scale with black ink. Is transmitted to the developing unit 4 as described above. When spot color printing is specified, the color specified portion is not printed so that the black specified portion of the print data is printed with black ink, the background portion of the printing surface is printed with white ink. Is transmitted to the developing unit 4 as described above. Deployment part 4
Then, characters and images of the received data are synthesized and developed as a bit pattern for each page in a storage memory. The transfer control unit 6 converts the bitmap data in the storage memory 5 into a video signal, transmits the video signal to the transfer device 9 of the engine 8,
The paper is taken out from the designated paper feed tray 10 and printing is performed. If colored paper is placed in the paper feed tray 10, the color of the paper will be used for spot color printing. If multiple colored papers are placed, it is possible to change the color of the spot color for each page and print It is. FIG. 3 shows an example of a printing result when spot color printing is not specified, and FIG. 4 shows an example of a printing result when spot color printing is specified.

[0009]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to perform spot color printing with the color of the color paper as a print medium, and to prepare the same job in the same job with the color that the user wants to print without preparing color ink. Enables spot color printing of a plurality of colors.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a printer control device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart of the printer control device.

FIG. 3 is an example of a print result without spot color print designation.

FIG. 4 is an example of a print result with a spot color print designation.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Upper apparatus, 2 ... Printer control apparatus, 3 ... Main control part, 4 ... Development part, 5 ... Storage memory, 6 ... Transfer control part, 7
... Engine I / F, 8 ... Engine, 9 ... Transfer device, 10
... Paper feed tray, 11 ... paper discharge tray.

Claims (2)

[Claims] A print data transmitted from a higher-level device is received and analyzed, the print data is developed into an electronic bit map for each page, and a bit pattern of the bit on / off is transmitted to a transfer device. In a spot color printer that prints a bit pattern using two color ink bottles other than black and black, using colored paper as the print medium, printing black ink on the same print surface in black designated areas and white on the print surface background A printer control device comprising: a main control unit that does not perform printing in a portion designated by ink printing or color printing. 2. A spot color print designation included in print data transmitted from a host device is read, and it is determined whether or not to perform spot color print. In non-spot color print, a color designated portion is black ink and gray. 2. The printer control device according to claim 1, further comprising a main control unit for performing scale printing.