JP2003251892A - Printer and print system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem of a prior art printer or print system that when the printer is stopped during print operation of some job and that job is printed again, the user is required to manually count the number of printed copies or the page number of the finally printed page and to check the remaining number of copies required to be reprinted or the range of print page. <P>SOLUTION: In the print system comprising a computer and a printer connected directly or indirectly through a network with the computer, the printer is provided with a job record section. The number of printed copies of each print job and the page number of the finally printed page are recorded in the job record section so that the computer can refer the content at the job record section in units of job and display the content thus referred on the screen of the computer. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer used by a computer such as a personal computer or a workstation, and a printing system using the printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional invention (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 07-72993), a printing system provides a function of recording a print result of each document as a job history.

[0003]

However, in the conventional printing system, as a job history, the registration time of each job, the print start time, the print end time, the print end code, the alternative printer name, and the printed file name column are recorded. But (a)
The number of printed copies and (b) the page number within the last printed page were not recorded. If the printer is stopped during printing for a job, and you want to print the job again, you need to manually count the number of printed copies and the internal page number of the last printed page, and use the remaining It was necessary to check the number of print copies and print page range.

When printing product instruction manuals and the like, there are many cases where the number of pages per book is several hundred. The number of copies to be printed is often as high as several hundred.
Therefore, it is time-consuming and inefficient for the user to manually count (a) the number of printed copies and (b) the internal page number of the last printed page. An object of the present invention is to provide a job history function that solves the above-mentioned problems of the prior art and improve the work efficiency and usability of the printer and the printing system.

[0005]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention employs the following means.

The printer according to the present invention comprises a printer controller and a printer engine. The printer controller is provided with a job history section, and the job history section records the number of printed copies of each print job and the last printed page number. It is characterized by

The printing system according to the present invention comprises a computer,
In a printing system including a printer directly connected to the computer or indirectly connected via a network, the printer includes a printer controller and a printer engine, and the job history unit is provided in the printer controller. The number of printed copies of each print job and the page number printed at the end are recorded, and the contents of the job history part of the printer can be referred from the computer for each job and displayed on the screen of the computer. To do.

A second printing system according to the present invention comprises:
In the printing system, the print job is printed according to a print instruction from the computer to the printer, and when the print job is printed by the printer, the printer controller prints (a) the number of printed copies of the print job, and (b) finally. The printed page number is recorded, a printer failure occurs during printing of the print job, the printing of the print job ends abnormally in the middle, and the computer refers to the job history of the print job to the printer. So that the computer user
(a) The number of printed copies, (b) The last printed page number is acquired, and based on this acquisition result, for the print job by the user of the computer, the pages after the page next to the page number last printed It is characterized in that the printing of the print job is continued by instructing the printer to print.

Further, it is characterized in that the contents specified by the user regarding the print job are recorded in the job history portion.

[0010]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below. First, the overall configuration of the printing system will be described with reference to FIG.

The printing system comprises a network 400,
First computer 310, second computer 320, third computer 33
0 and the printer 100. Each computer 310,
320, 330 and printer 100 are network 400
It is connected to the.

The printer 100 is a printer controller 2
00 and printer engine 500. The printer controller 200 receives a print command sequence called a PDL document from each of the computers 310, 320, 330, performs a series of printing processes, and then transmits dot image data to the printer engine 500. Printer engine 500
Receives the dot image data and physically prints on the paper using the printer mechanism. As a printer mechanism, laser optics-based electrophotography, LE
Various methods such as D-use electrophotography, liquid crystal shutter-use electrophotography, inkjet, shuttle type impact, etc. can be used.

The following description will be given for an electrophotographic page printer. The same can be realized when another mechanism such as an ink jet is used as a mechanism, or when a line printer system in which a printing unit is a line is used.

The computers 310, 320 and 330 are
It is a device that requests the printer to perform processing such as printing and storage of documents, and is also called a client. Hereinafter, the name "client" will be used together with the computer.

Further, the printer 100 receives the PDL document from each of the computers 310, 320 and 330, and prints the PDL document according to an instruction from each of the computers. Details will be described later.

Next, referring to FIG. 3, each computer 310, 32
The configuration of 0 and 330 will be described. Each computer 31
All of 0, 320, and 330 have the configuration shown in FIG. The computer 300 includes a communication unit 3110, an OS kernel unit 3120,
Printer logic driver unit 3130, application program unit 3
140, a spool control instruction unit 3160, and a job history reference unit 3180.

The communication unit 3110 comprises hardware and software for the computer 300 to communicate with various devices (computer, printer, scanner, etc.) on the network 400 via the network 400. The scanner is omitted from the figure. OS kernel unit 3120
Is basic software (also referred to as an operating system) for controlling hardware, a user interface, and the like that configure the computer 300. Communication unit 31
Although 10 can be regarded as a part of the OS kernel unit 3120,
It was described as a separate element to clarify that.

The application program unit 3140 is a program for performing word processing, spreadsheet, graphic document creation, image document creation, document layout, and the like. While creating various documents, it instructs the printer logic driver unit 3130 to process the created documents.

The printer logic driver unit 3130 converts the document created by the application program unit 3140 into a format (hereinafter, referred to as PDL format) which the printer controller 200 such as a print command string or page description language can receive and print. The converted document in PDL format (hereinafter, also abbreviated as PDL document) is transmitted to the printer controller 200.

The computer 300 has its OS kernel section 31.
The PDL format document is transmitted to the printer controller 200 via the communication unit 20 or the communication unit 3110. The connection between the computer 300 and the printer controller 200 is local to the printer.
This is performed using the I / F 410 or the network 400. The basic function is the same regardless of which connection is used.

An example of the PDL format is PostScri of Adobe
pt (registered trademark), PDF (Portable Document Format; registered trademark) and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format; registered trademark),
There are PCL-5, PCL-5E, PCL-6, PCL-XL (registered trademark), JPEG, etc. of HP. The present invention can support any one or more of these PDLs.

The spool control instructing section 3160 is the computer 3
00 instructs the spool control service unit 2110 in the printer controller 200 to control the print waiting order for the print jobs stored in the spool, the status reference such as the presence / absence of a failure and its contents, the order change, and the deletion. Used for.

The job history reference section 3180 is used by the computer 30.
From 0 to the overall management unit 20 in the printer controller 200
00 is used to instruct the reference of the history information of each job. Hereinafter, the processing content of the printer controller 200 will be described in detail with reference to FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printer controller 200 includes a spool 2100, a storage 2200, an output work section 2400, an output work b section 2520, a spool control service section 2110 which is each processing section, and an overall management section 2.
000, drawing unit 2310, compression unit 2320, automatic imposition unit 2810, print control unit 2510, engine control unit 26.
It is composed of 00.

First, the spool 2100 and the output work unit 2
400 will be described.

The spool 2100 is for each computer 310, 32.
A queue (also referred to as a queue) for accepting and registering various requests (hereinafter referred to as print requests) such as printing issued to the printer controller 200 by the printers 0 and 330. The various requests from each computer to the printer controller 200 include a print request from the application program unit 3140 via the printer logic driver unit 3130.

The printer controller 200 registers each print request as a print job in the spool 2100 in the order of receipt. In main registration, (i) management information such as a job name (with serial number), registration date and time, print document capacity (size), and job ticket for managing each print job, and (ii)
A pair of print data, which is the actual print content, is registered as a file. In the above "print request from the application program section 3140 via the printer logic driver section 3130",
Documents in PDL format are used as print data. The spool control service unit 2110 executes the following three functions. (1) Acceptance of print jobs and registration in spool, (2)
Execution of print jobs stored in the spool in the order of acceptance,
(3) Execution of a request from the spool control instruction unit 3160 in each computer 310, 320, 330.

In the above (1), as described above, as the above-mentioned various requests from the respective computers to the printer controller 200, a print request or the like from the application program section 3140 via the printer logic driver section 3130 is accepted.

In the above (2), the spool reading section 212
0 sequentially reads the print jobs in the spool 2100 and processes them. At this time, the above-mentioned “print request from the application program unit 3140 via the printer logic driver unit 3130”
Then, the spool reading unit 2120 reads a PDL-format document stored as print data in the spool from the spool 2100 and processes it. Multiple PDLs as PDL
When the above is supported, the spool reading unit 2120 or the drawing unit 2310 discriminates the PDL type and executes the PDL-compatible processing.

The registered print jobs are read by the spool reading unit 2120 in the spool control service unit 2110 shown in FIG. 2 in the order of reception and passed to the latter stage of the printing process.

2000, 2110, 2230, 231
The respective processing units of 0, 2320, 2810, and 2510 are implemented in processing units called tasks or processes in the field of software. The execution of each task is switched by the OS kernel unit according to the input / output between the printer controller and external devices and devices and the processing status inside the printer controller. As a result, the printing and storage performance of the printer controller was improved, and the printing throughput and storage throughput were increased.

As a task, specifically, the overall management unit 20
00, spool control service section 2110, drawing section 231
0, a compression unit 2320, an automatic imposition unit 2810, and a print control unit 2510 are provided.

The drawing unit 2310 inputs a document in PDL format, performs drawing, that is, dot-expands each of the character elements, graphic elements, and image elements forming the PDL document, and outputs it in dot image format. The output from the drawing unit 2310 is passed to the compression unit 2320.

The compression unit 2320 inputs a document in the original dot image format before compression and outputs the output as a work unit 2400.
Output to. The compression unit 2320 has a compression mode and a non-compression mode as its operation modes. In the compression mode, the input dot image data is subjected to image compression processing, and is output to the output work unit 2400 as a dot image in a compression format with a reduced data amount. MH, MR, MMR, LZW, AHA, LZW, JBI as compression algorithm
An appropriate one was selected from G, JPEG, etc. and used. In the uncompressed mode, the input dot image data is output to the output work unit 2400 in the uncompressed format.

The automatic imposition unit 2810 has a decompression function 2810.
A, an imposition function 2810B, and a compression function 2810C are used, and the dot image data in the output work unit 2400 is processed as an input. It is determined whether the dot image data input first is the uncompressed format or the compressed format. In the case of the uncompressed format, it is directly input to the imposition function 2810B.
In the case of the compressed format, the decompression function 2810A decompresses the data to convert it into dot image data in a non-compressed format, and then inputs the imposition function 2810B. The imposition function 2810B performs imposition processing. The imposition processing is performed according to the content instructed by the printer logic driver unit 3130 to the automatic imposition unit 2810 using a parameter called a job ticket, and the dot image data that is the output result is output to the compression function 2810C. .

As imposition types, 1UP, 2UP,
What is referred to as 4UP, saddle stitching, double binding, and double speed is provided, and the printer logic driver unit 3130 instructs the automatic imposition unit 2810 in the printer controller 200 using the above-mentioned job ticket. The types of each imposition provided are shown in FIGS. 11, 12, 13, and 14.

The compression function 2810C applies the same compression processing to the input dot image data as the compression unit 2320, and outputs the compressed dot image data.

This output is output to and stored in the output work b section 2520. The data of the output work b section 2520 is later read by the engine control section 2600 and printing is performed. Regarding the two-piece mounting, two types shown in FIG. 13 were provided. In the case of double-cutting the first type 20A1, the two surfaces are arranged in the same direction. On the other hand, the second type 20A
In the case of 2 pages for 2 sheets, as shown in 20A3, one surface of the two surfaces was rotated by 180 degrees and arranged.

In this printing system, by selecting a job ticket, one of these two types of two-page stacking can be selected. In addition, only one of the two is attached,
It is also possible to eliminate the need for selection in the job ticket.

Here, the job ticket is defined. The job ticket is a set of parameters for the user to instruct the printer controller 200 from the computer 300 on the printing method, appearance, number of copies, etc. of the printed matter.
Contents to be instructed are each item belonging to the major items of the print information 6A, the paper feeding / discharging unit 6C, the post-processing 6D, and the imposition 6E, which will be described later with reference to FIG.

Specifically, the user uses the printer logic driver unit 3130 in the computer 300 to instruct these instruction contents for each print job.

For example, regarding imposition, using the printer logic driver unit 3130, parameters (633 to 637, 639 to 642) relating to imposition 6E such as imposition type 639 and imposition detailed setting 640 in FIG. The appropriate one). Upon receiving this instruction, the automatic imposition unit 2810 in the printer controller 200 reads the set of these imposition parameters and executes the instructed imposition processing.

Although the processing of each task described above is performed by software, it is also possible to improve the processing performance of each task by mounting auxiliary hardware that shares the execution of all or part of the processing of each task. For example, the drawing unit 2310, the compression unit 2320, the decompression function 2810A, and the compression function 2810.
If it is carried out for C, the effect is great. Also in the present invention, when performance improvement is required, it is implemented as an option.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printer controller 200 is provided with an overall management section 2000 and a job history section 2010. The job history section 2010 includes a spool 2100
The processing results, attribute information, and the like of each print job stored and executed are recorded. As the processing result, for example, the number of printed copies of each print job and the page number printed at the end are recorded. For details of the contents recorded in the job history section 2010,
This will be described later with reference to FIGS. Each computer 310, 32
A job history reference unit 3180 is provided on 0, 330,
The contents of the job history unit in the printer controller 200 are referred to on a job-by-job basis so that they can be displayed on the screen of each computer. Next, referring to FIGS.
Recorded items for each print job recorded in 10 will be described. The recording items are classified into major items such as print information 6A, display information 6B, paper feed / discharge unit 6C, post-processing 6D, and imposition 6E.

The print information 6A includes a user name 601, a document name 602, a used job ticket name 603, and a printer name 60.
4, printer model number 605, spool registration date / time 606, processing start date / time 607, processing end time 608, print result 60
9, printed copies 610, printed page numbers 611,
Error code 612, number of copies to be printed 616, copy printing 61
7, a print range 618, a print start page 619, and a print end page 620. User name 601, document name 60
Reference numeral 2 is the name of the user on the computer 300 who has issued the print request for the print job, and the name of the document file on the computer 300 corresponding to the print job. Job ticket name used 6
03, the printer name 604, and the printer model number 605 are the name of the job ticket at the time of the print request, the name of the target printer, and the model number of the target printer. Printer model number 60
The numeral 5 is a number determined by the printer manufacturer for the combination of the type and version of the printer controller 200 and the type and version of the printer engine 500.

Spool registration date / time 606, processing start date / time 6
07 and processing end time 608 are the registration date and time of each print job in the spool 2100, the start date and time of the processing by the spool reading unit, and the end date and time of the processing (execution) by the printer controller 200. The date and time are described in units of year, month, day, and second. The print result 609 is a result at the end of the above process, and records any one of normal end, abnormal end, cancel (during a process waiting state, that is, before process), and cancel (during process). In the error code 612, a classification code of abnormal termination in the printer 100 is recorded when the print result 609 is abnormal termination.

The number of printed copies 610 and the printed page number 611 are the number of printed copies of each print job, and the page number printed last for a certain copy. As will be described later, when the print result 609 is abnormally terminated, the user requests the print request from the computer 300 again and prints the remaining part of the print job. It is effective when

Number of copies to be printed 616, copy printing 617, print range 618, print start page 619, print end page 6
Reference numeral 20 denotes the following instruction when the application program unit 3140 makes a print request via the printer logic driver unit 3130.

The number of copies to be printed 616 is the number of copies to be printed, and the copy unit printing 617 is an instruction as to whether or not to collectively print for each copy. A print range 618 indicates whether the print range of the document is all pages or a specified range of pages. In the latter case, for the document to be printed, the page to start printing on the print start page 619 and the page to end printing on the print end page are instructed.

The display information 6B of the large classification includes the display unit 62.
1 was set. The display unit 621 is a unit for displaying the length on the screen, and records either mm, inch, or point. Here, the point is 1/72 inch, which is a unit of length used in the printing field.

The paper feeding / discharging unit 6C includes a first-order paper feeding unit 622,
The second-order sheet feeding unit 623, the third-order sheet feeding unit 624, the fourth-order sheet feeding unit 625, the sheet information 626, and the sheet discharging unit 627.

First-order sheet feeding section 622 and second-order sheet feeding section 62
When the application program unit 3140 makes a print request via the printer logic driver unit 3130, the third, third-order sheet feeding unit 624, and fourth-order sheet feeding unit 625 respectively use the first and second sheet feeding units, The paper feed unit used in the second priority, the paper feed unit used in the third priority, and the paper feed unit used in the fourth priority were recorded.
The paper information 626 records the color, type, thickness, etc. of the paper specified by the print instruction.

As the paper discharge unit, the paper discharge unit designated by the print instruction is designated. For example, one of the paper discharge unit 1, the paper discharge unit 2, and automatic selection is recorded. In the automatic selection, the print instruction does not specify a specific paper discharge unit, but the automatic selection is specified. In response to this, the printer controller 200 follows the built-in logic.
This is to automatically select the paper discharge unit. The printer controller 200, for example, automatically selects the paper ejection unit in the descending order of the number of sheets that can be stored in the paper ejection unit.

The post-processing 6D is composed of staples 628, punches 629, folding 630, cutting 631, and cutting amount 632. Staple 628, punch 629, folding 630,
In the cutting 631 and the cutting amount 632, the staple position, the presence / absence of punches (punching), the presence / absence of folding, the presence / absence of cutting, and the length in the case of cutting are recorded in the cutting instruction.

Imposition 6E includes simplex / duplex printing 633, binding position 634, output paper size 635, custom size X636, custom size Y637, and imposition type 63.
9, imposition detailed setting 640, saddle stitching shift 641, and printing position 642. For single-sided / double-sided printing 633 and binding position 634, one of single-sided printing and double-sided printing designated by the print instruction, or long-side binding or short-side binding at the binding position when double-sided printing is designated Recorded instructions. The output paper size 635 indicates the paper size in which the result of the imposition processing when the imposition is instructed by the print instruction is written. Paper sizes include B5, B4, A
5, A4, A3, B5 novi, B4 novi, A4 novi, A3
Provided Novi, Letter, Folio, Legal, Ledger, SuperB, custom size, etc. Of these, B5 Novi, B4 Novi, A4 Novi, and A3 Novi are B5, B4, A4, and A3.
It is a slightly larger size paper, and by cutting them, the finished printed matter can be made with standard size papers such as B5, B4, A4, and A3. Also,
The custom size is an arbitrary size of paper for which the user has specified the width and height, and the specified width and height are recorded in the custom size width 636 and the custom size height 637.

The imposition type 639 is the type of imposition instructed by the print instruction, and is 1UP, 2UP, 4UP,
Saddle stitch, double mint, or double speed was recorded. The imposition specifications of each are shown in FIG. The imposition detail setting 640 is the designation of detailed specifications of the surface layout in each imposition type when each imposition type is designated. Specifically, any one of Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 was recorded.

The saddle stitch binding shift 641 is a shift amount per sheet when the imposition type is saddle stitching. Print position 642
Is an item for designating the layout of the input original on the output paper in each imposition type, and is one of the selection range of the layout depending on the reference position 642-1: center, left justification, right justification, top justification, or bottom justification. Was recorded. In the center, the input document is placed in the center of the output paper. Left alignment, right alignment, top alignment,
In bottom alignment, the input document is printed on the left edge, right edge, and top edge of the output paper.
Move to the bottom. The shift 642-2 is the above-mentioned reference position 64.
When the left alignment, the right alignment, the top alignment, and the bottom alignment are specified in 2-1, in addition to the alignment to the left end, the right end, the upper end, and the lower end, the shift amount is further specified.

The following information is the detailed contents that the user has instructed as the job ticket for each print job. The job ticket is issued by the application program section 31 by the user.
40 while using the printer logic driver unit 3130
Direct through.

(1) Number of copies to be printed 616, copy printing 61
7, print range 618, print start page 619, print end page 620.

(2) First-order sheet feeding section 622, second-order sheet feeding section 623, third-order sheet feeding section 624, fourth-order sheet feeding section 625, sheet information 626, sheet ejection section 627.

(3) Staple 628, punch 629,
Folding 630, cutting 631, cutting amount 632 (4) simplex / duplex printing 633, binding position 634, output paper size 635, custom size X (636), custom size Y (637), imposition type 639, imposition detailed setting 640, saddle stitch shift 641, printing position 642.

Next, FIGS. 4 and 5 show user interface screens of the job history reference section 3180 on the computer 300. FIG. 4 is a screen for viewing an overview of the history of each print job, and displays the history of all print jobs 401, 402, 403, 404 stored in the job history unit 2010 of the printer controller 200. For each print job, the job history summary items shown by 6L in FIGS. 6 to 8 are displayed. Specifically, the print job name and job ticket name 40-a, print result 40-b,
The user name 40-c, the processing mode 40-d, the number of prints and the total number of prints 40-e, the printer name 40-f, the processing start date and time 40-g, the details 40-h, etc. are displayed. In the print job name and job ticket name 40-a, 401, 402,
Like 403 and 404, the print job name is displayed first, and the job ticket name is displayed in parentheses following it. In 40-e, the number of printed copies and the total number of printed copies are displayed before and after "/". Following them, P. The printed page number is displayed as a number following the head part. For example, in 402, the number of printed copies is 325 before “/”, and the total number of prints is 1 after “/”.
It was displayed that it was 000. And behind them,
P. in parentheses with a space in between. It is shown that the printed page number is 436 as a number following the head portion. For 401, 403, and 404, similarly to 402, the number of printed copies, the total number of printed copies, and the printed page number are displayed in the 40-e column. If each print job is printed normally, the number of printed copies matches the total number of prints. In the case of abnormal termination, the number of printed copies is less than the total number of prints. Although not shown in FIG. 4 in terms of space, all items shown by 6L in FIGS. 6 to 8 are displayed as summary items of each print job history.

FIG. 5 shows the screen of FIG. 4 in which 401, 4 are displayed on the screen so that the history of one print job is displayed in detail.
This screen is displayed when a print job such as 02, 403, or 404 is selected. Detailed display is possible for all jobs. Therefore, in the column of details 40-h, "○"
Was displayed and it was made clear to the computer user that the details could be displayed.

FIG. 5 shows each of the print jobs shown in FIGS.
The detailed items of the job history shown by 6M in 8 are displayed.
Specifically, for example, the user name 501, the document name 502, and the job ticket name 503 are displayed as the items related to the document 5A. As items related to the processing result 5B, the printer name 504, the printer model number 505, the spool registration date and time 50
6, processing start date / time 507, processing end date / time 508, print result 509, printed copy number 510, printed page number 5
11 is displayed. In addition, the number of print copies 514, copy printing 515, and the like are displayed as items related to the print conditions. Although not shown in FIG. 5 in terms of space, all items shown by 6M in FIGS. 6 to 8 are displayed as detailed items of each print job history.

(1) Of the items whose outline is x and details are ○,
It also made it possible to move any item from detail to summary.

(2) It is possible to omit any of the details. Accordingly, the job ticket and the controller process are limited.

By referring to the job history of each print job from the computer 300, even if the print job ends abnormally in the printer, it is possible to save the user's trouble when printing the rest of the print job. The details will be described below.

(1) The computer 300 is instructed to print a certain document (file). At this time, N is designated as the number of print copies.

(2) The printer controller 200 receives the print job and registers it in the spool 200.

(3) The spool reading unit 2120 in the printer controller 200 spools the print job
Read from 100 and start processing. As processing, print processing corresponding to an instruction from the application program unit 3140 or the like is executed.

(4) When the print process ends normally, the print result 609 ends normally, and the print controller 2510 stores the number of printed copies and the number of printed pages. Record the final number of output copies and the final output page number in the report. The print control unit 2510 notifies the engine control unit 2600 that the last ejected page number has been normally ejected from the printer engine 500, and the eject control timer 2600 causes the ejection time timer corresponding to the ejection end signal from the printer 500 or the sheet size. This is the page number that will be updated when confirmed by monitoring. When completed normally, the final discharged page number is the total number of pages of the printed document. The print control unit 2510 updates the final number of discharged sheets at the time when the process is started for the first page of each copy of the print document. When completed normally, the final number of printed sheets is the total number of printed copies of the printed document.

(5) When the print processing ends abnormally, the print result 609 is recorded as abnormal end. At the time of this abnormal termination, the print control unit 2510 reports the number of printed copies and the number of printed pages by referring to the management information by the engine control unit 2600, and then reports it to the overall management unit 2000. The overall management unit 2000 records the received final number of discharged sheets and the last discharged page number in the job history unit 2010. The final discharged page number is counted in the same manner as in (4). In the case of abnormal termination, the final ejected page number is the number of printed pages out of the number of pages of the printed document. The final number of discharged sheets is counted in the same manner as in (4). In the case of abnormal termination, the final number of printed sheets is the number of printed sheets of the print document that are currently being printed.

The job history information shown in FIGS. 6 to 8 is the content designated as the job ticket when printing from the application program 3140.

Job history information regarding imposition, specifically, single-sided / double-sided printing 633, binding position 634, output paper size 635, custom size X636, custom size Y637, imposition type 639, imposition detail setting 640,
The saddle stitch binding shift 641 and the printing position 642 are specified by the user as imposition conditions.

In the print information 6A, the user name 60
1, document name 602, used job ticket name 603, printer name 604, printer model number 605, spool registration date / time 606, processing start date / time 607, processing end time 608, print result 609, printed copy number 610, printed page number 611, Error code 612, number of copies 616, copy printing 617, print range 618, print start page 61
9. The print end page 620 is also the application program 3140.
The contents specified as a job ticket and the result of executing printing at the time of the printing process based on the instruction from. For example,
The error code 612 is an error code generated in the printing process. Number of copies 616, copy printing 617, print range 6
18, print start page 619, print end page 620
Is instructed by the user as a job ticket when instructing printing from the application program 3140.

As described above, the print processing result and the designated value are recorded as the job history for each print job. Therefore, the user or the system administrator can refer to the result or the designated value of the print job for the printer or the printing system from the computer.

The print control unit 2510 performs the following processing. (1) Page sequence control. (2) Setting engine control information and finisher control information on each page.

In the page sequence control (1), the logical page order of the document received from each computer 310, 320, 330 is converted into the physical page order required by the printer engine 500 at the time of printing. For simplex printing, the page order is usually not changed. In the case of double-sided printing, page order conversion requested by the printer engine 500 is performed.

There are usually the following two types.

(A) Cyclic double-sided printing Page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10 in the logical page order are set to the paper size. It is converted into a physical page order that is determined by the number of stays for each page. Number of stays is 3
When printing 10 pages per page, conversion is made to page 2, page 4, page 6, page 1, page 8, page 3, page 10, page 5, page 7, page 9.

(B) Intermediate tray type double-sided printing Page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10 in the logical page order are printed. Convert to a physical page order that is determined by the maximum number of intermediate trays that can be stored for each size. When the maximum number of sheets stored in the intermediate tray is 3 and printing for 10 pages is performed, conversion is performed to page 4, page 5, page 6, page 1, page 2, page 3, page 9, page 10, page 7, page 8. .

In (2), engine control information and finisher control information are set for each page. The engine control information is set for the paper feed unit and the paper discharge unit, and the finisher control information is set for stapling, punching, side stitching, saddle stitching, and the like.

The spool control service unit 2110 accepts and executes various requests from the spool control instruction unit 3160. The following are prepared as various requests. (1) List display of print jobs. (2) Delete print job. (3) Hold print job. (4) Release hold of print job. (5) Display of detailed print job information. (6) Pause the printer. (7) Restart the printer. (8) Delete all print jobs in the printer. (9) Printer status display. (10) Display of printer specifications and setting values.

The engine control unit controls the printer engine 500 via an engine I / F adapter 2640 described later with reference to FIG. Here, it is realized as the driver software in the printer controller 200, but it can also be realized by using the driver software and the task together.

Next, with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10, a hardware configuration of each device constituting the printing system will be described.

First, the printer controller 200 will be described with reference to FIG. Printer controller 2
00 is an MPU 700, a system bus 701, a ROM memory 710, a RAM memory 711, a keyboard 721,
Mouse 722, disk controller 731, secondary storage device 732, display controller 741, display 7
42, network controller 750, local I /
It is a device including an F adapter 780, a panel I / F adapter 760, an operation panel 770, and an engine I / F adapter 2640.

The system bus 701 is made up of various input / output signals (address signal, data signal, other control signal) of the MPU 700.

The MPU 700, via the system bus 701, peripheral devices such as a keyboard 721, a secondary storage device 732, a display 742, a network 400, and R
It inputs and outputs to and from memories such as the OM memory 710 and the RAM memory 711.

The keyboard 721 is an input device composed of a plurality of input keyboards, and is connected with a mouse which is a kind of pointing device. The secondary storage device 732 is
The display 742 is connected to the system bus 701 via the disk controller 731 and the display controller 741. Further, the system bus 701 of the present apparatus is connected to the network 400 such as LAN or WAN via the network controller 750.

As the physical I / F of the network 400,
Ethernet (registered trademark), Token-Ring, FDDI (Fiber Dist
ributed Data Interfae,), ATM (Asynchronous Transfee
r Mode), ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Networ
Using k) or the like, an appropriate hardware logic of the network controller 750 is mounted according to the type of physical I / F used.

The local I / F adapter 780 is an adapter for directly connecting the printer controller 200 to a computer. In this case, the interface with the computer is Centronics, SCSI, fiber channel, IEEE139
4. Use USB, RS-232C, RS-422 / 423, etc., and connect using the printer local I / F adapter.

The panel I / F adapter 760 is an adapter for interfacing with the operation panel 770. In this case, RS is used as the interface with the panel.
-232C, original interface, etc. are used.

The engine I / F adapter 2640 is an adapter for interfacing with the printer engine 500. In this case, a video interface is used as an interface with the printer engine 500.

The ROM memory 710 stores an initialization start-up program (IPL (Initial Program) for the printer controller 200.
ogram Loading) Also called a program) and stores a part of the character font.

The RAM memory 711 stores (a) printer controller control program, (b) character font remainder, (c) various buffer memories, (d) various management tables, and the like. Of these, (a) and (b) are stored by being loaded from the secondary storage device 732 by the IPL program. Further, (a) and (b) may not be stored in the RAM memory 711 but may be stored in the ROM memory 710 in advance. On the contrary, the ROM memory 71
No character font may be stored in 0, and all may be stored in the RAM memory 711.

The engine I / F adapter 2640 is an MP
According to the instruction of U700, input / output processing is performed with the printer engine 500.

The engine I / F adapter 2640 performs a process (corresponding to 451) of reading the contents of the output buffer unit 410 in the adapter 2640 into the printer engine 500. This read processing is performed by the engine I / F adapter 2640.
This is performed using the DMA (Direct Memory Access) function built into the. When the reading of the dot image data for one page from the output buffer unit 410 in the output buffer unit 410 is completed, the engine I / F adapter 264
0 asserts an interrupt signal (a part of the bus signal for the MPU 700) to the MPU 700, and activates the read end interrupt processing of the output buffer unit 410 by the MPU. In this read end interrupt process, the fact that the read output buffer is ready to be used for printing the next page is set in the management table for the output buffer section, and the engine / waiting for the output buffer is available. The tasks such as the finisher control unit 430 are released from the empty state.

The engine I / F adapter 2640 subjects the read dot image data in the compressed format to decompression processing, restores the uncompressed dot image, converts the dot image into parallel serial data, and converts the dot image data into serial data. Image transfer signal 451 between
Output to the printer engine 500. The image transfer signal 451 may be transferred in parallel format without performing parallel-serial conversion.

The engine I / F adapter 2640 uses the signal 452 for command transmission and status reception with the printer engine 500, and the printer engine 500.
A command for inquiries and instructions is sent to, or a response status is received from the printer engine 500.

There are two methods of mounting the engine I / F adapter 2640, namely, a method of mounting a dedicated sub MPU on the adapter and a method of allowing the MPU 700 to perform the necessary control processing without mounting the sub MPU. Either can be used.

Next, the hardware configuration of the computer 300 will be described with reference to FIG. The computer 300 is M
PU 800, system bus 801, ROM memory 81
0, RAM memory 811, keyboard 821, mouse 8
22, disk controller 831, secondary storage device 83
2, display controller 841, display 842, network controller 850, printer adapter 86
It is a device consisting of zero. Of the above, the parts other than the printer adapter 860 can be realized in the same manner as the case of the printer controller 200.

The printer adapter 860 is used for the computer 300 to directly connect to the printer controller 200 using the printer local I / F cable. In this case, the interface between the computer and printer controller 200 is Centronics, SCSI, fiber channel
l, IEEE1394, USB, RS-232C, RS-422 / 423, etc. are used.

According to the above embodiment, by referring to the job history on the printer controller from the computer, the history of each print job executed by the printer can be displayed for each job on the screen of the computer.

Therefore, since the user of the printer and the system administrator can grasp the history of each print job for which printing has been completed from the computer, the usability of the printer can be improved. As job history information, for each print job,
You can refer to the number of printed copies and the printed page number. Even if a print job terminates abnormally, when it is reprinted next time, the remaining number of print copies and which page should be reprinted from which the abnormality has occurred You can automatically know without counting.
Since the user can instruct reprinting based on this information, the trouble of counting the number of reprint pages at the time of abnormal termination can be saved.
It can be lost.

The present invention can be similarly realized in the following cases.

(1) When the computer and the printer controller in FIGS. 2 and 3 are connected by the Web application connection method instead of the client-server type connection method. The Web application connection method is an HTTP server program and CGI (Common Gatew
ay Interface) is a method of realizing a user interface screen on a Web browser on a computer by installing a program. The user interface screens in FIGS. 9 to 14 are screens that can be used in both the client-server type connection method and the Web application connection method.

(2) A PDL format file managed by the computer is sent directly from the computer to the printer controller, and the file is printed by the printer controller.

In this case, the user instructs the printer controller 200 via the computer 300 for the job ticket, which is the instruction content for the user's printing instruction regarding the PDL format file.

[0109]

By using the job history function, the printer user can refer to the history of each print job.
The usability of the printer and the printing system could be improved.

Further, when a printer failure occurs during printing of a print job and the printing of the print job ends abnormally on the way, the computer can refer the job history of the print job to the printer. , The user of the computer acquires (a) the number of printed copies, and (b) the page number printed last, and based on this acquisition result, the page number of the page printed last by the user of the computer By instructing the printer to print the pages after the next page, the printing of the print job can be continued. As a result, it is possible to improve the print continuity in the event of a printer failure.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a printer and a printing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a control system of a printer controller according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the configuration of a computer according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a user interface of a computer according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a user interface of a computer according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining information recorded in a job history portion according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining information recorded in the job history portion according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining information recorded in a job history portion according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a hardware configuration diagram of a printer controller according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a hardware configuration diagram of a computer according to the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining imposition processing in the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining imposition processing in the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining imposition processing in the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram for explaining imposition processing in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Printer, 200 ... Printer Controller, 3
10 ... First computer, 320 ... Second computer, 330 ... Third
Computer, 400 ... Network, 410 ... Printer local I / F, 500 ... Printer engine, 2000 ... Overall management section, 2010 ... Job history section, 2100 ... Spool, 2110 ... Spool control service section, 2310 ... Drawing section, 2400 ... Output Work unit, 2510 ... Print control unit, 2600 ... Engine control unit.

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Katsumi Kumagai             Hitachiko, 1060 Takeda, Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture             Machine Co., Ltd. F term (reference) 2C061 AP01 AQ01 AQ05 AQ06 AR03                       HK14 HK15 HN16 HV60                 2C087 AC07 AC08 AC12 BA06 BD40                       BD53 CB02 CB20 DA10                 5B021 AA01 AA04 BB10 CC05 EE01                       NN19 NN21

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A printer comprising a printer controller and a printer engine, wherein a job history section is provided in the printer controller, and the number of printed copies of each print job and the last printed page number are recorded in the job history section. Characteristic printer. 2. A printing system comprising a computer and a printer directly connected to the computer or indirectly connected via a network, wherein the printer comprises a printer controller and a printer engine, and the printer controller has a job history. Part,
The number of printed copies of each print job and the last printed page number are recorded in the job history section, and the contents of the job history section of the printer are referred to from the computer for each job and displayed on the screen of the computer. And printing system. 3. A print job is printed according to a print instruction from a computer to a printer, and when the print job is printed by the printer, the printer controller prints (a) the number of printed copies and (b) the last copy of the print job. The page number printed on the printer is recorded, and a printer failure occurs while the printer is printing the print job. Printing of the print job ends abnormally in the middle. Refer to the job history of the print job from the computer to the printer. By doing so, the computer user obtains (a) the number of printed copies, (b) the last printed page number,
Based on this acquisition result, the user of the computer instructs the printer to print the page after the page number printed last for the print job, and thus the printing for the print job is continued. Claim 2 characterized by the above-mentioned.
The printing system described. 4. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the job history portion records the designation contents of the print job by the user. 5. The printing system according to claim 2, wherein the job history portion records the contents specified by the user regarding the print job.