JP2003158603A - Printer, print control method and print system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a print system that takes the security and the privacy of the data into account at a low cost. SOLUTION: Users of terminals 2000, 3000 store a document being a print object to a document server 4000 and transmit electronic mail describing a storage destination of a document or an identifier or the like of the user to the print system 9000. A printer 1000 extracts the document storage destination and the identifier of the user from the electronic mail and stores them. The user enters the identifier of the user itself by using an operation panel 1012 of the printer 1000, also enters a password as required, and instructs the printer 1000 to make a print. When the user is authenticated, the printer downloads a designated document from the server and prints out the document.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a printing control method and a printing system for printing out an electronic document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The rapid spread of personal computers and the Internet has promoted the digitization of documents in all industries. The demand for print output is increasing more and more with this, but when a large amount of print or high quality print is to be obtained, it is general to ask a copy shop. For a print order, a general method is to send document data to a copy shop by communication means such as electronic mail via the Internet.

[0003]

However, when a request is made to print the document data to an output agent store, such as a kiosk or a convenience store, which also sells over the counter, the output product comes into contact with the visitor's eyes. The problem arises that privacy cannot be protected.

Further, along with an increase in demand for print output, it is expected that print services will spread in stores such as kiosks and convenience stores that do not have a large-scale printing system in the near future. Here, when a large number of print orders are flooded into a store that does not have a large-scale printing system, it is possible that the transmitted document data exceeds the capacity of the order receiving server in the store and the system goes down. In order to avoid this, a method of preparing a large-capacity server capable of accepting the expected maximum quantity of orders can be considered, but the large-capacity server has a problem of high cost.

Further, by accumulating the document data for which an output has been ordered in the server, there is a risk that the entire document data for which the order has been received may be damaged or lost when the server fails. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to make a server system with high fault tolerance performance by duplicating servers, etc., which will further increase costs. Moreover, the management becomes more complicated and sophisticated if an advanced system is used, so that its introduction becomes difficult.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and manages the location and the authentication information of the document data to be output, and the document is managed from the location where it is managed according to the request from the authenticated user. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus, a printing control method, and a printing system that are low in cost, have high data safety by printing data, and consider the client's privacy.

[0007]

In order to achieve such an object, the present invention has the following constitution.

Receiving means for receiving the location information indicating the location of the data and the authentication information, and storage means for storing the location information and the authentication information received by the receiving means in association with each other.
An authentication unit that determines whether to accept a print instruction based on the authentication information, and when the print instruction is recognized by the authentication unit, obtains data from the location indicated by the location information associated with the authentication information. And an printing unit that prints the data acquired by the acquisition unit.

Further preferably, the authentication means further includes an input means, and the authentication means recognizes the print instruction when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. To be

More preferably, the input means is further provided, and the authentication means further includes a password if the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. If an input is prompted and the entered password matches the password included in the authentication information together with the identifier that matches the entered identifier, the print instruction is accepted.

More preferably, the second receiving means for receiving the data and the authentication information, the storing means for storing the data received by the second receiving means, and the storage destination of the data stored by the storing means are shown. It is possible to communicate with an external device provided with a transmitting unit that transmits the information as the location information of the data to the printing device together with the authentication information received by the second receiving unit.

More preferably, the receiving means receives the data location information and the authentication information via an electric communication line.

More preferably, the second receiving means receives the data and the authentication information via an electric communication line, and the transmitting means receives the location information and the authentication information of the data via the electric communication line. To send.

More preferably, the data is data described in a structured description language.

Alternatively, it has the following configuration.

In a printing system for printing out a document in response to a print order from an external device, an instruction means for instructing the storage location of the document, a storage means for storing the identifier of the orderer, and a document indicated by the instruction means. The document data is not retained in the printing device in the print order by the acquisition unit that acquires the data.

Alternatively, in the above printing system, a storage means for storing a password corresponding to the identifier, an input means for prompting the input of the password, and a collation between the input password and the password stored in the storage means. And a printout is performed only when the password check results match.

Alternatively, in the above printing system, a storage means for temporarily storing document data separately from the printing device, a transmission means for transmitting an instruction means for instructing a storage destination of the stored document data to the printing device, and an orderer. And a conversion unit that converts the document data transmitted from the document data into an instruction unit for the document data, and does not hold the transmitted document data in the printing apparatus.

Alternatively, in the above printing system, the external device and the system are connected via the Internet.

Alternatively, in the above printing system, the structured description language is used as the description format of the document data.

[0021]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [First Embodiment] First, the structure of a laser beam printer (hereinafter referred to as "LBP") suitable for applying the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Needless to say, the printer to which the present embodiment is applied is not limited to the laser beam printer, and may be a printer of another printing method. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the internal structure of a laser beam printer applied to this embodiment. This LBP is used for registering character patterns and fixed forms (form data) from a data source (not shown). You can do it. In the figure, L
The BP 1000 inputs and stores character information (character code) supplied from an externally connected host computer, form information, or a macro command, and creates a corresponding character pattern or form pattern according to the information. Then, an image is formed on a recording paper which is a recording medium. The operation panel 1012 is provided with switches for operation and an LED display. The printer control unit 1001 controls the entire LBP 1000 and analyzes character information and the like supplied from the host computer. The control unit 1001 mainly converts character information into a video signal of a corresponding character pattern and outputs the video signal to the laser driver 1002.

The laser driver 1002 is the semiconductor laser 1
This is a circuit for driving 003, and switches on and off the laser light 1004 emitted from the semiconductor laser 1003 according to the input video signal. Laser 1004
Is horizontally swung by the rotary polygon mirror 1005 and the electrostatic drum 1
Scan over 006. As a result, the electrostatic drum 1006
An electrostatic latent image of a character pattern is formed on the surface. The latent image is developed by the developing unit 1007 around the electrostatic drum 1006 and then transferred to the recording paper. A cut sheet is used as the recording sheet, and the cut sheet recording sheet is LBP1.
Stored in a paper cassette 1008 attached to a paper feeding roller 1009 and a paper feeding roller 1009 and conveyance rollers 1010 and 1011.
Is taken into the apparatus by and and supplied to the electrostatic drum 1006.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the printing system of this embodiment. In FIG. 2, host computers 2000 and 3000 are general computers connected to the Internet, and are equipped with a keyboard and a pointing device as input means, a display such as a CRT as a display device, and stored in a file device such as a hard disk. By executing the program by the processor, the function according to the program can be realized. Further, the Internet connection is realized by providing a network interface such as a modem. Computers 2000 and 3000 are printing systems 9
000 is a terminal that is a client that makes a print order to 000. Here, computers 2000 and 300
0 is used by the users suzuki and sato, respectively.

Since the document server 4000 is a Web server generally used on the Internet, HTTP (Hype
The content stored in the storage device of the server 4000 itself can be provided by using the r Text Transfer Protocol). Printing system 90
Reference numeral 00 denotes a printing system embodying the present invention, and an operation panel 1012 is connected to the printing apparatus 1000. The operation panel 1012 is a touch panel or the like, and can be directly operated by the user suzuki or sato in order to take out the output product ordered by the user. Although the operation panel 1012 is connected to the printing apparatus 1000 here, it may be formed inside the printing apparatus 1000. In the above configuration, for example, the computer 200
0 and 3000, the document server 4000 are installed in the user's home or office, and the printing system 9000 is installed in a store that provides an output service, such as a convenience store.

<Arrangement of Printer> The printer 100 shown in FIG.
The internal structure of 0 is shown. In FIG. 3, the printing apparatus 1000
Are the formatter control unit 1100 and the panel input / output unit 10.
20, a job storage unit 1030, a printer interface 1200, an output control unit 1300, and a printer engine unit 1400.

The formatter control unit 1100 includes a protocol control unit 1101, a print instruction processing unit 1102, a document data analysis unit 1103, a data drawing unit 1104, and a page memory 1105. The protocol control unit 1101 is a means for communicating with the outside by analyzing and transmitting a network protocol, and uses the HTTP protocol to send a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to the document server 400.
A document is acquired by sending it to an http server such as 0. The method of acquiring the document described by the URL using the HTTP protocol is a process that is widely used in general browsers, and thus the description is omitted.

The print instruction processing unit 1102 analyzes the contents of the print job in which the URL indicating the location of the document data and the output form of the document are described, and the document data and the output form information are respectively stored in subsequent processing blocks. It is something to hand over.
The print instruction processing unit 1102 further includes a panel control unit 102.
It is also a means for receiving input / output information from 0 and performing processing. The print instruction processing unit 1102 also has a function of authenticating a password, which will be described later, and a function of decrypting the received encrypted password.

The document data analysis unit 1103 is means for analyzing document data and converting it into an intermediate code in a format that is easier to process. The intermediate code generated by the document data analysis unit 1103 is passed to the data drawing unit 1104 and processed. The data drawing unit 1104 expands the intermediate code into bitmap data, and the expanded bitmap data is sequentially drawn in the page memory 1105.

The panel input / output control section 1020 controls input / output from the operation panel 1012 of FIG.
The information input / output by the panel input / output control unit 1020 is processed by the print instruction processing unit 1102. The job storage unit 1030 is a unit that stores the print job extracted from the print order, and is realized by a secondary storage device such as a hard disk.

The printer interface 1200 is a means for input / output with the outside. In this embodiment, it is connected to the network. The output control unit 1300 converts the content of the page memory 1105 into a video signal and transfers the image to the printer engine unit 1400. The printer engine unit 1400 is a printing mechanism unit for forming a permanent visible image on the recording paper by using the received video signal.

In general, the formatter control unit 11
00 is configured by a computer system using a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, and the like. Therefore, in this case, the functions of the protocol control unit 1101, the print instruction processing unit 1102, the document data analysis unit 1103, and the data drawing unit 1104 described above are controlled by the CPU.
This is performed by executing a program stored in M or RAM. The page memory 1105 is realized by RAM. FIG. 12 shows the configuration of the printing apparatus 1000 when the formatter control unit 1100 is realized by the CPU. 12, the same components as those in FIG. 3 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof will be omitted. The job storage unit 1030 is realized by a hard disk,
The hard disk 1030 is connected to the bus 15 via the disk control unit 1029. Formatter control unit 110
0 has CPU12, RAM19, ROM13, R
The program stored in the OM 13 is executed by the CPU 12, and the procedure of FIGS. 6 to 9 is executed. The program may be stored in the RAM 19. In this case, this program is executed by the hard disk 103 as a file device.
It is loaded from 0 to the RAM 19 and executed.

<Structure of Print Job> Next, FIG. 4 shows an example of the structure of a print job stored in the job storage unit 1030. In Figure 4, the print job is username, URL, passw
It consists of four items, ord and option. use
The rname is a user identifier for identifying the orderer who has ordered printing, and for example, in the case of an electronic mail order, a mail address corresponds to this. The URL is the URL of the document data to be printed, and describes the address of the document server, the directory, and the file name. One user if one user orders multiple document outputs
Multiple items are stored for name. The password is a password set by the orderer by himself / herself, and in this embodiment, it is attached to the e-mail at the time of ordering by e-mail. Alternatively, it may be set using the operation panel 1012. The option is information other than these, and is an area for storing such information when the paper size and the number of output copies are specified. The user identifier and password are that the operator is the same as the orderer when the ordered document data is printed by the printing system 9000, or the authorized recipient of the output product requested by the orderer. It is the authentication information that is referred to for verifying that.

FIG. 5 shows a specific example of a print order by electronic mail. In this example, “suzuki @ myd” described in the column 502
A user having a user identifier “omain.mycompany.com” issues a print order to the electronic mail address “prn01@somedomain.someshop.com” of the printing apparatus 1000 described in the column 501. Being a print order means
It is indicated by <order print> in the column 503, and the description from there to </ order> in the column 507 indicates that it is one print order. The column 506 describes that the print target is the document data doc1 stored in the document server 4000 (http://myserver.com), and the column 504 sets the size by the <paper> tag. A
It is described in the column 505 that there are four sheets of paper and that one copy is output by the <copies> tag. In addition, the password is encrypted and attached to this email. The decryption key for this encryption is given to the printing apparatus 1000.

As described above, the print order data includes the identifier of the orderer, the identifier of the document data to be printed, the address of the stored server, and the password when authentication is performed. In addition, print setting information such as the paper size and the number of copies is also included as necessary.

The document doc1 whose output is instructed here is the user
It may be stored in the document server 4000 by suzuki, or may be a document created by a third party.

<Print Control Procedure> Next, referring to the flow charts shown in FIGS. 6, 7, 8 and 9, the overall print control procedure in the present embodiment in the printing system configured as described above will be described. explain. S6 in FIG.
01-S605, S701-S707 in FIG. 7, S801-S805 in FIG. 8, and S901 in FIG.
~ S908 shows each processing step.

FIG. 6 shows an order receiving process in which the printing system 9000 receives a print order. First, in steps S601 and S602, waiting for an order for printout and determining whether or not an order has been received are repeated until an order is placed. Whether or not an order has been received can be determined by, for example, whether or not an electronic mail as shown in FIG. 5 has arrived. Here, step S60
When it is determined that the print order is received in step 2, the process proceeds to step S603, the contents of the print order are analyzed, and then in step S604, the user identifier and the document UR
Extract L and output option information. Figure 5
In the example of, the user identifier is "suzuki@mydomain.mycompany.
com ”, the URL of the document is“ http://myserver.com/doc1 ”,
Output options are "A4" and "1" respectively. After that, the process advances to step S605, and once the extracted information is stored in the job storage unit 1030 in the format shown in FIG. 4, one ordering process ends, and the process from S601 is repeated. Further, in step S604, if the password is attached, the password is also stored as a part of the print job. If the password is encrypted, decrypt it and store it.

FIG. 7 shows a process in which the printing system 9000 outputs an ordered printed matter in response to an instruction from an orderer who visits a store. The procedure of FIG. 7 is executed by the formatter control unit 1100.

First, in step S701, the panel input / output control unit 1020 detects access to the operation panel 1012. Next, in step S702, the operation panel 1
012 is judged whether or not access is detected,
The processing from step S701 is repeated until access is made.

When the access to the operation panel is detected in step S702, the process proceeds to step S703.
A menu screen is displayed on the operation panel 1012 so that the operator can search for his or her own user identifier. If this menu allows the user to find his / her ordered job, for example, the job that has been ordered and is waiting to come to the store (that is, not output) is read from the job storage unit 1030, and the user identifier of the read job May be displayed in alphabetical order, or the menu may be such that the user directly inputs the user identifier. Next, in step S704, it is detected whether the user identifier has been selected (or entered), and step S704 is performed until it is selected.
The processing of 704 and step S705 is repeated. When the user identifier is selected in step S705, the process further proceeds to step S706.

In step S706, the password input menu is displayed to accept the password input.
If the operator and the orderer are the same person, the operator knows the password, so that the correct input is made. If not, or if the orderer inputs the password incorrectly, the process from step S706. Is repeated until the passwords match (step S707). On the other hand, if the passwords match in step S707, the print instruction is authenticated as the one that proves the correctness of the operator, and the process proceeds to the actual print processing. If the password has not been set in advance by the orderer, the password will be a predetermined character string or the like. Alternatively, if the password has not been set in advance by the orderer, steps S706 to 707 may be skipped. These steps S706 and 707 correspond to user authentication in a narrow sense, but step S70 in a broad sense.
The process from the input of the identifier 3 to step S707 may be referred to as authentication.

The actual print processing is the URL stored as the user identifier in the document acquisition processing in step S708.
After the document is obtained from the document, the output process is performed in the drawing process of step S709.

If the orderer's identifier is desired to be entered correctly in step S705, and if the correct password has not been entered in step S707, an opportunity to re-enter is given. It is desirable to limit the number of times to a predetermined number and to interrupt the process as an error if the re-input reaches the predetermined number. And
To that effect, it is desirable to record the error on a hard disk or a paper medium, and to notify the error not only to the operator but also to the store clerk. The error may be reported by sounding the buzzer at a high volume.

Furthermore, if printing is completed in step S709, the completed print job is stored in the job storage unit 10.
It is desirable to delete from 30.

FIG. 8 shows the document acquisition process used in FIG. This process is a process for acquiring the document ordered by the user. First, in step S801, the job storage unit 103
Corresponding user identifier from the job information stored in 0,
That is, the identifier input in step S704 is searched. If a job can be detected, the process advances to step S803, and if a corresponding job cannot be detected, the process advances to step S806 to display an error message indicating that there is no print order from the operator on the operation panel. If the input of the identifier in step S704 is performed by selecting from the list of identifiers included in the job stored in the job storage unit, even if step S802 is skipped, the corresponding user identifier is always present. good.

On the other hand, steps S802 to S8
When the process proceeds to 03, the URL of the document corresponding to the detected user identifier is detected. Since the user identifier and the URL of the document are tabulated as described in FIG. 4, they can be easily detected. Then, in step S804, the document HTTP
Send the URL of the document to the document server using the protocol. Since the document server is a Web server, it returns the document data specified by the URL by HTTP protocol communication.
Finally, in step S805, the document data sent from the document server is downloaded (read) and the process ends.

FIG. 9 shows the drawing process corresponding to step S709 of FIG. This process is a process for actually performing the printing process. In this embodiment, the document data is XML
It is assumed that it is described in a structured description language such as or HTML, but it goes without saying that the data format is not limited to this as long as the data format can be processed by the printing system. In the structured description language, the structure of a document is described by tags, and printing is performed according to the tags.

First, in step S901, the document data analysis unit 1103 checks whether the tag is a page end tag. If the tag is a page end tag, the flow advances to step S906 to perform processing. If it is not the end-of-page tag in step S901, it is determined whether or not the next analyzed tag is a tag that requires expansion processing to page memory such as character printing or graphic drawing (step S902). Proceed to S905, and immediately perform processing according to the tag such as attribute setting and print position control. On the other hand, if the process proceeds from step S902 to step S903, an intermediate code in a form that is easy to develop into a bitmap is generated. Upon receiving this intermediate code, the data drawing unit 110
In step 4, expansion processing to the page memory 1105 is performed (step S904), and after completion of the expansion processing, step S in FIG.
Returning to 902, the document data analysis process is repeated. If the page end tag is determined in step S901, the output control unit 1300 converts the content of the page memory 1105 into a video signal for the printer engine unit 1400 and outputs the image (step S9).
06). The printer engine unit 1400 prints the received video signal by forming a permanent visible image on a recording sheet (step S907). When the printed result is ejected in step S908, the print control process for each page is completed.

With the above configuration and procedure, it is sufficient to store the identifier of the output orderer and the location of the document data in the printing apparatus, and since the document data itself is stored in the document server, a certain output Even if the output order is congested to the store, the amount of individual data can be reduced, so the amount of data processed by the printing system and the processing time are also reduced, and the occurrence of failures due to data congestion can be prevented. .

Further, since the orderer and the person who received the trust instruct the actual output, the privacy of the orderer can be protected.

Since the document data itself is not stored in the printing system, the security of the document data is improved.

[Second Embodiment] In the first embodiment, an example of making a print order using the URL of a document with respect to the printing system has been described. In the present embodiment, an example of transmitting document data to the printing system will be described. .

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the printing system of this embodiment. In FIG. 10, 2000
Reference numerals 3000 and 3000 are general host computers connected to the Internet, which are terminals serving as clients for placing print orders. As in the first embodiment, 200
0 and 3000 are used by the users suzuki and sato, respectively. 4000 is a document server, which is a Web server commonly used on the Internet.
The content stored in its own storage device can be provided by using the P (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) protocol.

A printing system 9000 according to the present invention includes a printing apparatus 1000 and a document spooler 5000. The printing apparatus 1000 is provided with a secondary storage device 1030 as in the configuration of FIG. 3, and an operation panel 1012 is connected to it. The operation panel 1012 can be directly operated by the users suzuki and sato in order to take out the ordered output product. Although the operation panel 1012 is connected to the printing apparatus 1000 here, even if the operation panel 1012 is arranged inside the printing apparatus 1000, the structure of the present invention does not pose any problem. Further, reference numeral 5000 is a document spooler that temporarily holds document data. The document spooler 5000 is a Web server like the document server 4000.

Next, the operation will be described with reference to a specific example of the print order shown in FIG. FIG. 11 shows su as in the first embodiment.
A user with the user identifier zuki@mydomain.mycompany.com has an email address prn01@somedomain.som.
This is an example of a print order placed by e-mail to eshop.com. Here, the difference from the first embodiment is that the document document2 itself to be printed is directly attached to an e-mail and transmitted. In this embodiment, the email address prn01@somedomain.someshop.com is not the address of the printing apparatus 1000, but the document spooler 500.
The address is 0.

When the document spooler 5000 receives a print order by e-mail as shown in FIG. 11, the document data document2 attached to the e-mail is temporarily stored in the secondary storage device of the document spooler 5000 itself. And saved do
Change the cument2 URL to the user identifier suzuki@mydomain.mycomp
It is sent to the printing apparatus 1000 in the form of e-mail shown in FIG. 5, for example, along with any.com and the paper size A4 of the attached information. As in the first embodiment, the printing apparatus 1000 creates a print job having the configuration shown in FIG.
To store. After that, as in the first embodiment, the process waits for the orderer to come to the store, and the processes of FIGS. 7 to 9 are performed according to the operation.

With the above configuration, the user does not need to separately store the document data in the server and order the output. Therefore, even those who cannot use the document server can use the output service. Further, as in the first embodiment, since the orderer gives a print instruction, the privacy of the user can be protected.

The URL included in the message sent from the document spooler 5000 to the printing apparatus 1000, that is, the location and name of the document data indicating the address and directory of the document spooler, that is, the portion other than the file name. Document Spooler 5000
Is uniquely added and is information that the orderer cannot know. Therefore, when displaying the order contents on the operation panel as a list of document data identifiers in the in-store processing, it is better to display only the file name of the document data. Of course, if a list of orderer identifiers is displayed, the procedure as shown in FIG. 7 may be performed as in the first embodiment. In this way, the document spooler 5000 substitutes for the document server 4000, so that the printing apparatus 1000 can be realized with the same configuration as that of the first embodiment. Therefore, by applying the first embodiment and this embodiment at the same time, it is possible to easily provide a printing system capable of processing both a print order by URL and a print order by attaching a document.

In the first and second embodiments, an example of a print order by electronic mail is shown, but the order is not limited to this as long as the order can be received via the network. For example, an order from a home page that is generally used for Internet shopping, hotel reservations, etc. can be considered.

In the first and second embodiments, an example of specifying a document by URL has been described. However, another instruction method may be used as long as it indicates the place where the document data is stored.

Although the first and second embodiments have described the example of the communication by the HTTP protocol, the present invention is not limited to this as long as the document can be acquired.

Further, in the first and second embodiments, the user identifier is displayed in the job search menu in the in-store processing, but the user identifier can be displayed in an arbitrary character string by registering the name and nickname in advance. You can also

In the first and second embodiments, the structured description language is used as the format of the document data, but the present invention is not limited to this as long as it can be directly interpreted by the print system without using the printer driver. It goes without saying that this is not what you do.

[0065]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By managing the location and password of the document and acquiring the document data from the location at an arbitrary timing, it is possible to provide a printing system that considers data safety and privacy at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view showing a structure of a laser beam printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system in the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of a printing apparatus according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a specific example of a print order (job) table in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a specific example of a print order according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an order processing procedure in the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a storefront processing procedure in the first embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a document acquisition processing procedure according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a drawing processing procedure in the first embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to a second exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a specific example of a print order in the second embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a printing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

1012 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Operation panel 1000 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Printing device 1002 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Laser driver 1003 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Semiconductor laser 1004 ・ ・ ・Laser beam 1005 Rotating polygon mirror 1006 Electrostatic drum 1007 Developing unit 1008 Cassette 1009 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Feeding roller 1010 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Conveying roller 1011 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Conveying roller 1012 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Operation panel 1100 ・ ・ ・Formatter control unit 1101 Protocol control unit 1102 Print instruction processing unit 1103 Document data analysis unit 1104・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Data drawing 1105 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Page memory 1200 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Printer interface 1300 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Output control 1400 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Printer engine unit 2000 ・ ・ ・・ ・ ・ Host computer 3000 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Host computer 4000 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Document server 5000 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Document spooler 9000 ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ Printing system

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI theme code (reference) G06F 12/14 320 G06F 12/14 320C 5C062 H04N 1/32 H04N 1/32 Z 5C075 F term (reference) 2C061 AP01 AQ06 CL08 HJ06 HK04 HN06 HQ17 2C187 AC07 AE13 BF26 BF52 GD02 5B017 AA03 BA05 CA16 5B021 AA01 AA02 BB04 NN18 5B082 EA12 5C062 AA05 AA29 AB22 AB38 AB42 AC21 AC41 AF00 BA00 5C0 AB0 5900BB0 5C0

Claims (18)

[Claims] 1. Receiving means for receiving location information indicating the location of data and authentication information, storage means for storing the location information and authentication information received by the receiving means in association with each other, and the authentication information, Authentication means for determining whether to accept the print instruction, and when the print instruction is accepted by the authentication means,
A printing apparatus comprising: an acquisition unit that acquires data from the location indicated by the location information associated with the authentication information; and a printing unit that prints the data acquired by the acquisition unit. 2. The printing apparatus further comprises input means, wherein the authentication means accepts the print instruction when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. Claim 1 characterized by the above-mentioned.
The printing device according to. 3. The authentication means further comprises an input means, and the authentication means further inputs a password when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the prompting and input password matches the password included in the authentication information together with the identifier that matches the input identifier, the printing instruction is accepted. 4. A second receiving means for receiving data and authentication information, a storing means for storing the data received by the second receiving means, and information indicating a storage destination of the data stored by the storing means. 4. The external device, which comprises, as the location information of the data, a transmitting unit that transmits the location information together with the authentication information received by the second receiving unit to the printing apparatus, is capable of communicating. The printing apparatus according to any one of claims. 5. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the receiving unit receives the data location information and the authentication information via an electric communication line. 6. The second receiving means receives the data and the authentication information via an electric communication line, and the transmitting means transmits the location information of the data and the authentication information via the electric communication line. The printing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein: 7. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data is data described in a structured description language. 8. A storage step of storing location information indicating the location of the received data and authentication information in association with each other by a storage means, and an authentication step of determining whether or not to accept a print instruction based on the authentication information. When the print instruction is accepted by the authentication step,
A print control method comprising: an acquisition step of acquiring data from a location indicated by location information associated with the authentication information; and a printing step of performing a print process on the data obtained by the acquisition step. 9. The received data is stored by the first storage means, and the location information indicating the location where the data is stored and the authentication information received together with the data are associated with each other, and secondly stored.
A storage step of storing by the storage means, an authentication step of determining whether to accept the print instruction based on the authentication information stored in the second storage means, and a case where the print instruction is accepted by the authentication step,
An acquisition step of acquiring the data stored in the first storage means from the location indicated by the location information associated with the authentication information; and a printing step of performing a print process on the data acquired by the acquisition step. A characteristic print control method. 10. The authentication step, wherein the print instruction is accepted when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. Alternatively, the printing control method according to Item 9. 11. The authenticating step further prompts the user to enter a password if the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means, and the input password is 10. The print control method according to claim 8, wherein a print instruction is accepted when the password that is included in the authentication information is matched with the identifier that matches the input identifier. 12. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a terminal device that transmits a message including a location of data and authentication information to the receiving unit. Print ordering system. 13. The printing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising: a terminal device that transmits a message including data and authentication information to the second receiving unit. Print ordering system. 14. The print ordering system according to claim 12, further comprising a document server device that stores the document data in a location corresponding to the location of the data. 15. Receiving means for receiving location information indicating the location of data and authentication information by a computer; storage means for storing the location information and authentication information received by the receiving means in association with each other; Authentication means for determining whether to accept the print instruction by the information, and when the print instruction is accepted by the authentication means,
A computer program for realizing an acquisition unit that acquires data from the location indicated by the location information associated with the authentication information, and a printing unit that prints the data acquired by the acquisition unit. 16. The computer further realizes input means, and the authentication means issues a print instruction when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. Computer program according to claim 15, characterized in that it is recognized. 17. The computer further realizes input means, and the authentication means further uses a password when the identifier input by the input means matches the identifier included in the authentication information stored in the storage means. 16. The computer according to claim 15, wherein a print instruction is accepted when the input password is prompted, and the input password matches the password included in the authentication information together with the identifier that matches the input identifier. program. 18. A computer-readable storage medium for storing the computer program according to any one of claims 15 to 17.