JP2003266881A - Printer, print control method, medium recording print control program and print control program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem that when a command is interpreted at the time of canceling a print job although printing is not performed for media, that processing is a sheer waste and since a processing load is imposed, start of printing another job is delayed. <P>SOLUTION: When one file is created in units of job at the time of spooling print job data and then canceling of the print job is requested, canceling is performed in units of job by deleting that file. The file is deleted before a processing for interpreting the command of the print job data is performed so that useless interpretation of command can be prevented for the print job data being canceled. Since the processing load is reduced, jobs subsequent to the print job being canceled can be processed quickly. <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 printing apparatus, a printing control method, a medium recording a printing control program, and a printing control program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a printing apparatus such as a laser printer, when a print job is input, print job data including a command such as a page description language is acquired and spooled, and the command is interpreted to generate print data. The printing is executed by sending the print data to the print engine. Since the transfer speed of print job data is much higher than the print execution speed, if many print jobs are input, the start of printing will be waited for a while. If the input print job is incorrect, or if an error is found in the print document, the print job is canceled. However, at this time, if the delimiter of the print job is not clear, it is not known which data should be deleted. Therefore, the spooled data is interpreted as the above command but not printed, and only the command interpretation is performed. It is executed to realize the cancellation process.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional printing apparatus, the command is interpreted even though the printing on the medium is not executed when the print job is canceled, and this processing is completely useless and Because of the load, the start of printing other jobs will be delayed. The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and a printing apparatus, a print control method, and a medium in which a print control program is recorded, which can reduce a processing load by deleting a spool file before interpreting a command. And to provide a print control program.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, in the invention according to claim 1, print job data receiving means for receiving print job data of a print job input by a client PC connected via a network. A hard disk drive for spooling the received print job data; spool control means for spooling the received print job data into one file for each job in the hard disk drive; and the spooled print job Print data generation means for interpreting commands in the data and generating print data for executing printing in the printing unit;
A print unit that acquires print data generated by the print data generating unit and prints on a print medium, a cancel request receiving unit that receives a cancel request of the input print job via a network, and the cancel unit. The file deleting unit deletes from the hard disk drive a file of a print job for which a cancellation request has been made by the request receiving unit and whose interpretation by the print data generating unit has not started.

In the invention according to claim 1 configured as described above, the printing apparatus can be connected to the client PC via the network, and the print job data of the print job input by the client PC by the print job data receiving means. To receive. The received print job data is spooled to the hard disk drive in a state before executing command interpretation and the like. The print data generation means interprets the command in the spooled print job data and generates print data for causing the printing unit to execute printing. This print data is acquired by the print unit, and printing on the print medium is executed by the print unit.

According to the present invention, the spool control means is provided with a cancel request receiving means and a file deleting means so that the print job once spooled can be canceled. The cancel request receiving means prints via a network. Receives a job cancel request. The file deleting means deletes from the hard disk drive a file of the print job for which the cancel request has been issued by the cancel request receiving means and whose interpretation by the print data generating means has not started. Therefore, it is possible to cancel the print job by deleting the print job data spooled in the hard disk drive before interpreting the command in the print job data. As a result, when another print job is spooled, the other print job can be started immediately.

[0007] Here, the printing apparatus and the client PC may be connected via a network, and the standard thereof is not limited. For example, a configuration conforming to the USB or IEEE 1394 standard or a connection via a parallel port may be used, and various configurations may be adopted. The print job data need only be data for executing the print job, and since it has a configuration that can interpret the command later, it is the data before including the command and converted to bitmap data by command interpretation. is there. Of course,
The format of the command, that is, the applied page description language is not limited.

Since the command interpretation is executed by the print data generating means, it is sufficient that the spool control means can spool the received data as it is without executing the command interpretation or the like. However, in the present invention, the spool control means spools the data into one file for each job so that the print job can be canceled for each job. At this time, it is possible to adopt a configuration in which one print job starts from one job input process to one end, and one file contains data from the start to the end of the job input process.

The print data generating means only needs to be able to interpret the commands in the print job data, and can be configured to be able to interpret various page description languages. It is also possible to generate a print queue as a management of print jobs, and it is possible to adopt a configuration in which the queues are generated in the order of input of print jobs. The printing unit only needs to be able to print on print media based on the generated print data,
A printer that includes a mechanical drive unit that acquires print data and attaches toner to a medium, ejects ink, and the like, and includes a print engine as a configuration that executes printing on a print medium includes the print engine.

The cancellation request receiving means is only required to be able to receive the cancellation request via the network,
In the present invention, since the print job data before command interpretation is deleted, the cancel request regarding the job before command interpretation can be received. File deletion means
It is only necessary to be able to delete from the hard disk drive a file of a print job for which a cancellation request has been made, the interpretation of which has not been started by the print data generating means. Therefore, it may be configured so that the print job before command interpretation can be grasped.

Further, in the invention according to claim 2 as a configuration example suitable for grasping the print job for which the cancellation request is made, the spool control means can uniquely identify the print job when spooling the file. The cancel request receiving means recognizes the print job to be canceled by the identifier. That is, when spooling the print job data as a file, if an identifier that can uniquely identify which print job the file belongs to is attached, the print job that is the cancellation request target can be easily identified by the identifier. can do.

Further, in the invention according to claim 3 as a concrete configuration example when executing the cancellation, the client PC is an MI of the printing apparatus via the network.
It is possible to uniquely identify the correspondence between the print job data spooled in the hard disk drive by the B information and the print job input from the client PC, and a cancel request for the input print job is accepted by a predetermined user interface. At the same time, it is possible to output MIB information indicating a cancellation request via the network, and the cancellation request receiving means can store the MIB information and output it via the network.

That is, the MIB information can include a spool file spooled in the hard disk drive and information that can identify the spool file. According to the MIB information, a print job that can be easily canceled in the client PC. Can be grasped. Further, it is more convenient for the user who operates the client PC to grasp the print job by the submission time, the application program used, the file name on the client PC, the creator of the print job, etc.
According to the MIB information, the used application program or the like and the spool file can be easily associated with each other. Further, if the cancel request is made as the MIB information from the client PC, it is possible for the printing apparatus side to easily understand which file spooled in the hard disk drive is the file for which the cancel request is made.

As described above, a method of spooling a print job in units of jobs and deleting a file before interpreting a command so that cancellation can be executed in units of a job before interpreting a command is not limited to a substantial device. Instead, it is also effective as a method invention as in the invention described in claim 4. In addition, the above-described printing apparatus may exist alone or may be used in a state of being incorporated in a certain device. The idea of the invention includes various aspects. Further, it can be changed as appropriate such as software or hardware.

When the software of the printing apparatus is embodied as an example of embodying the idea of the invention, it naturally exists and is used on a recording medium recording such software.
As an example, the invention according to claim 5 specifies the invention as a medium in which a print control program is recorded.
Of course, the recording medium may be a magnetic recording medium or a magneto-optical recording medium, and any recording medium developed in the future can be considered in exactly the same manner.

Further, the copying stages of the primary duplicated product, the secondary duplicated product and the like are equivalent to each other without any question. Although different from the above medium, if the communication method is used as a supply method, the communication line serves as a transmission medium and the present invention is used. Of course, it can be specified as the invention of a program like the invention described in claim 6. Furthermore, the print control method, the medium in which the print control program is recorded, and the print control program can be configured to correspond to the above claims 2 and 3.

[0017]

As described above, claim 1, claim 4
According to the invention of claim 6, it is possible to cancel the print job before interpreting the command in the print job data, and when another print job is spooled, the other print job is promptly processed. A printing device capable of starting execution, a print control method, a medium recording a print control program, and a print control program can be provided. According to the second aspect of the invention, the print job for which the cancel request is issued can be easily grasped. Further, according to the third aspect of the present invention, the print job for which the cancellation request is made and the spooled file can be easily associated with the client PC and the printing apparatus, and can be canceled while grasping.

[0018]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Here, embodiments of the present invention will be described in the following order. (1) Configuration of laser printer: (2) Configuration of print control program: (3) Printing process: (4) Canceling process of print job:

(1) Configuration of Laser Printer: FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic hardware configuration of a laser printer 10 which is a printing apparatus according to the present invention. The laser printer 10 uses the client P
Client PC that can be connected to C100 and 101
In 100 and 101, various print targets such as documents and images can be input as a print job. When a print job is input, print job data is sent out via the network. The laser printer 10 includes a control unit 20 that processes various data, a hard disk drive (HDD) 30 that stores various data, and a print engine 40 that performs laser beam irradiation, toner adhesion, and the like to perform printing on printing paper. I have it.

The control unit 20 acquires print job data, generates print data that can be printed by the print engine 40, and manages the execution order of print jobs. Controller 22, RAM 23, ROM 24 and communication I / F 2
5, a video I / F 26, and an IDE I / F 27. That is, a program execution environment including the CPU 21, the RAM 23, the ROM 24, and the memory controller 22 is provided, and the programs stored in the ROM 24 can be appropriately loaded into the RAM 23 to execute various programs.

The memory controller 22 is the CPU 2
1, RAM 23, ROM 24, communication I / F 25, video I / F 26, IDE I / F 27 are accessed to control transmission / reception of various data. The client PC1
The print job data output by 00 and 101 is loaded into the control unit 20 through the communication I / F 25 under the control of the memory controller 22. Here, the memory controller 22 accesses the IDE I / F 27, and spools the fetched print job data in the HDD 30 as it is without interpreting the command. In this embodiment, one spool file is generated from one job.

When the print job data is spooled in the HDD 30, the program execution environment including the CPU 21 and the like can take in the commands of the print job data under the control of the memory controller 22, and interpret the commands and generate the print queue appropriately. Run. In addition, it is possible to receive a print job cancel request and delete individual spool files, that is, cancel print jobs on a job-by-job basis. When the command of the print job data is interpreted, the print job data is converted into print data. The print data is data including bitmap data to be printed on each page of the printing paper, and the print engine 40 can execute printing by the print data.

When print data and a print queue are generated by the program execution environment including the CPU 21 and the like, the memory controller 22 appropriately sends the print data to the video I / F 26 in accordance with the print queue, and the video I / F 26
When print data is sent from the print engine 26 to the print engine 40, the print engine 40 is driven to execute printing for each page.

(2) Configuration of print control program: The program execution environment including the CPU 21 and the like in the control unit 20 specifically includes a print control program 50 having the functions shown in FIG. The function of the print control program 50 will be described below with reference to FIG. The print control program 50 includes a reception buffer 51a and a spool control unit 5
1b, a PDL interpreter 52, a print queue manager 53, an engine manager 54, a print job manager 55, and a MIB information manager 56.

The print control program 50 uses the communication I /
The print job data relating to the print job input by the client PCs 100 and 101 is acquired via F25 and buffered in the reception buffer 51a composed of the RAM 23. Spool controller 51
In b, the buffered print job data is made into one file for each job and spooled as a spool file 31 in the HDD 30. Here, the spool control unit 51b writes the print job data acquired in the reception buffer 51a into the HDD 30 as it is, and sets it as the spool file 31.

In this embodiment, the client PC 10
One print job is made from the start to the end of the one-time job input process performed by 0 and 101, and the spool file 31 is generated for each print job. In the spool control unit 51b, the job ID is assigned to each spool file 31 when spooling to the HDD 30.
Is attached. The job ID is the spool file 31.
Is a serial number for identifying the file name and has a one-to-one correspondence with the file name given to the spool file 31 when spooling to the HDD 30.

The print job data forming the spool file 31 has a predetermined PDL (Page Discription Language).
The command described in e) is included, and the PDL interpretation unit 52 sequentially interprets the command for the spool file 31 to generate the print data 23a in a format in which printing can be executed by the print engine 40. The print data 23a is stored in the RAM 23. The print queue management unit 53 manages the print queue such as generation of the print queue. In the present embodiment, the print queue management unit 53 generates the print queue so that printing is executed in the order of input of print jobs.

The engine management unit 54 uses the print data 23a.
Is performed and is passed to the print engine 40, and a process is performed to inquire of the print queue management unit 53 whether print data exists in the print queue. That is, the engine management unit 54 inquires whether print data exists in the print queue, and when the print data exists, the corresponding print data is acquired from the RAM 23 and passed to the print engine 40. Printing can be executed in the order of.

Further, in the present embodiment, it is possible to execute the cancel processing of the print job, and for this purpose, the print job management section 55 and the MIB information management section 56 are provided. The MIB information management unit 56 can acquire various kinds of MIB information from each module of the print control program 50, and one of them is the spool control unit 51b.
The job ID and file name of the spool file are acquired from the. Of course, various other information such as the model name of the laser printer 10 and the amount of consumables can be acquired in addition to this.

The MIB information management unit 56 manages the MIB information for executing the cancellation for each print job, and the print job and the job ID can be uniquely associated with the client PCs 100 and 101. Various information is output, and the client PCs 100, 10
The cancellation request from 1 is accepted.
To uniquely associate a print job with a job ID, information such as the user who submitted the print job, the document name, and the created application program is acquired for each print job, and these information and the job ID are acquired.
And the like are sent to the client PCs 100 and 101, and the job ID is output to the client PCs 100 and 101 in the two-way communication when the print job is input, and the print job being submitted and the job ID are associated with each other. Various configurations can be adopted.

Further, the MIB information management unit 56 can receive a cancel request for a print job via the communication I / F 25, and at the time of the cancel request, the file to be canceled is specified by the job ID. It has become. When the MIB information management unit 56 receives the cancellation request, the MIB information management unit 56 notifies the print job management unit 55 of the job ID of the print job that is the cancellation request target. The print job management unit 55 identifies the file name of the print job for which the cancellation request is made from the job ID, accesses the HDD 30, and deletes the file.

Here, the spool file 31 has the P
Since the command is not yet interpreted by the DL interpreting unit 52, the print job managing unit 55 deletes the spool file 31 so that the PDL interpreting unit 52
The print job is canceled before the command is interpreted. Therefore, if the file to be canceled is very large data, such as 100 pages, the job can be canceled without executing unnecessary command interpretation processing in the PDL interpreter 52, and the print job after that can be canceled. Can be started immediately.

In FIG. 2, the client PC 100,
A schematic configuration of 101 is also shown. In these client PCs 100 and 101, various documents and images can be created by various application programs (APL) 110, and the documents and images can be printed. When printing is executed, the data is output from the communication I / F 120 as print job data. Further, in the client PCs 100 and 101, the MIB information management APL110 is used as a kind of APL.
Is equipped with.

The MIB information management APL 110 can execute status management and print job management of the laser printer 10 based on the MIB information output from the MIB information management unit 56.
As a function of the information management APL 110, it is possible to cancel a print job that has already been submitted. FIG. 3 is an example showing a screen for managing print jobs by the MIB information management APL 110. Each parameter on this screen is
The MIB information management APL 110 displays the MIB information acquired from the laser printer 10.

As shown in the figure, the job ID, job name, status of each print job and radio buttons corresponding to each print job are displayed on the screen. For a print job whose radio button is checked and which is waiting to be printed, the cancel button can be reversed so that it can be clicked, and the cancellation can be executed by clicking the cancel button. The job name is composed of the user name of each print job, its document name, and the created application program name.
The job ID is acquired by the MIB information management unit 56 as described above, and is stored as MIB information in the client PC 10.
It is acquired at 0, 101.

At this time, since the print job can be specified from the job ID as described above, the job ID and the job name are displayed in association with each other in FIG. Therefore, the users of the client PCs 100 and 101 can easily specify the print job by the job name,
The print job to be canceled can be easily specified. The status indicates whether each job is being printed or is waiting to be printed. When the cancel button is clicked, the status indicates that the cancellation has been performed, and the MIB information management APL
110 is the job ID of the print job to be canceled
Is output from the communication I / F 120. This job ID is acquired by the MIB information management unit 56 and notified to the print job management unit 55.

(3) Printing Process: Next, the printing process in the above configuration will be described as a series of flows with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. In the laser printer 10,
The print control program 50 is always executed, and the print control program 50 determines whether print job data is received via the communication I / F 25 (step S).
100). When it is not determined that the print job data is received in step S100, the following step S1 is performed.
10 to S140 are skipped.

When it is determined in step S100 that print job data has been received, accumulation of print job data in the reception buffer 51a is started, and the spool controller 51b assigns a job ID and the HDD 3
A file name for spooling is added to 0 (steps S102 and S104). Further, the file is opened in the HDD 30 (step S110), and the print job data in the reception buffer 51a is written in the file (step S112). Then, it is determined whether or not the writing of the print job data is completed for all the data (step S114), and the writing of step S112 is performed until it is determined that the writing for all the data is completed in step S114.

When it is determined in step S114 that writing of all data is completed, the file is closed (step S116) and spooling to the HDD 30 is completed. As a result, the spool file 31 for each print job is spooled in the HDD.
When the spool file 31 is spooled, the PDL interpretation unit 52 stores the spooled print job data in the HDD.
The print data is read by reading out from 30 and interpreting various commands to generate print data (steps S120 and S130). The generated print data is accumulated in the RAM 23, and the print queue management unit 53 acquires the accumulated print data and generates a print queue (step S140). As a result, the execution order of the jobs of the spool file 31 is determined so that the printing is executed in the order of input of the print jobs.

The engine management unit 54 inquires of the print queue management unit 53 whether or not the print data exists in the print queue (step S150). If the print queue does not exist, the process from step S100 onward is executed. Repeat the process. When it is determined in step S150 that print data exists in the print queue, the print queue management unit 53 refers to the print queue and notifies the engine management unit 54 of the print data related to the print job existing in the print queue (step S150). S160).

The engine management unit 54 executes the printing by acquiring the print data of the notified print job from the RAM 23 in the order of the queue and passing the print data to the print engine 40 (step S170). The print pages of the print jobs existing in the print queue are sequentially printed by the above processing, and the print control program 50 according to the present embodiment further executes a job cancel processing routine when the cancel request is issued. Ready to run.

(4) Cancel processing of print job: FIG.
6 is a flowchart of the job canceling process. In the flow shown in FIG. 5, the MIB information management unit 5
Reference numeral 6 stands by in a waiting state for a print job cancel request output by the client PCs 100 and 101 (steps S200 and S210). When it is determined in step S210 that the cancellation request has been received, the MIB information management unit 56 acquires the job ID of the cancellation request target and notifies the print job management unit 55 (step S220). The print job management unit 55 uses the PDL interpretation unit 52 for the print job with the job ID.
Processing has not started and spool file 3
It is determined whether or not it exists as 1 (step S2).
30).

In the same step S230, the PDL interpreter 52
If it is not determined to be before the processing by step S200, the processing from step S200 is continued, and if it is determined in step S230 that the PDL interpretation section 52 is not performed, the print job management section 55 cancels the job ID from the job ID. The spool file is identified and the spool file is deleted (step S240). Therefore, the print job for which the cancel request is issued is deleted and canceled before the PDL interpretation unit 52 processes the job. As a result,
It is possible to immediately start execution of a job to be printed after the print job for which the cancellation request is made.

As described above, in the present invention, when spooling print job data, one file is generated for each job, and when a print job cancel request is made, this file is deleted so that each file is deleted. Execute cancellation. Further, this file is deleted before the process of interpreting the command of the print job data is executed, and it is possible to prevent unnecessary command interpretation of the print job data to be canceled. Therefore, the processing load is reduced, and jobs after the print job to be canceled can be executed immediately.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic hardware configuration of a laser printer.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a print control program.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a screen for managing print jobs.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of print processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a job cancel process.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Laser printer 20 ... Control unit 21 ... CPU 22 ... Memory controller 23 ... RAM 23a ... print data 24 ... ROM 25 ... Communication I / F 26 ... Video I / F 27 ... IDEI / F 30 ... HDD 31 ... spool file 40 ... Print engine 50 ... Print control program 51a ... Receive buffer 51b ... Spool controller 52 ... PDL interpreter 53 ... Print queue management unit 54 ... Engine Management Department 55 ... Print job management unit 56 ... MIB information management unit 100, 101 ... Client PC 110 ... MIB information management APL 120 ... Communication I / F

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A print job data receiving unit that receives print job data of a print job input by a client PC connected via a network, a hard disk drive that spools the received print job data, and the received print. When spooling job data, a spool control unit that spools one file for each job in the hard disk drive, and print data for interpreting a command in the spooled print job data and executing printing in the printing unit A print data generating unit, a print unit that acquires the print data generated by the print data generating unit and prints on a print medium, and a cancel request for the input print job described above via a network. Cancel request received Means and a file deleting means for deleting from the hard disk drive a file of a print job for which a cancellation request has been issued by the cancellation request receiving means, the file whose interpretation by the print data generating means has not started. A printing device characterized by: 2. The spool control means attaches an identifier that can uniquely identify a print job when spooling the file, and the cancel request receiving means recognizes the print job to be canceled by the identifier. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printing apparatus is characterized. 3. The client PC can uniquely identify the correspondence between print job data spooled in the hard disk drive and the print job input from the client PC by acquiring MIB information of the printing apparatus via the network. It is possible to accept a cancel request for the input print job by a predetermined user interface and output MIB information indicating the cancel request via the network, and the cancel request receiving means stores the MIB information. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printing apparatus is capable of outputting via the network. 4. A print control method for receiving print job data of a print job input by a client PC connected via a network, spooling the print job data on a hard disk drive, and executing printing on a print medium by a print unit. When spooling the received print job data, a spool control process is performed to make one file for each job and spool to the hard disk drive, and a command in the spooled print job data is interpreted to execute printing in the printing unit. A print data generation step for generating print data for performing the printing, a print execution step for acquiring the print data generated in the print data generation step, passing the print data to the print unit, and executing printing on the print medium; Net print job cancellation request The cancel request receiving step for receiving via the network and the file of the print job for which the cancel request is made in the cancel request receiving step, the file for which the interpretation in the print data generating step has not been started. And a file deleting step of deleting from the drive. 5. A print control program for receiving print job data of a print job input by a client PC connected via a network, spooling the print job data on a hard disk drive, and executing printing on a print medium by a printing unit is recorded. A medium, which is a spool control function for spooling the received print job data into one file for each job when spooling the received print job data, and a printing unit by interpreting a command in the spooled print job data. A print data generation function that generates print data for executing printing with, and a print execution function that acquires the print data generated by the print data generation function and transfers it to the print unit to execute printing on the print medium. The print job key entered above Cancel request reception function that receives a cancellation request via the network, and a print job file for which a cancellation request has been made by the cancellation request reception function, and which has not been interpreted by the print data generation function. A medium having a print control program recorded thereon, which allows a computer to realize a file deletion function of deleting from the hard disk drive. 6. A print control program for receiving print job data of a print job input by a client PC connected via a network, spooling the print job data on a hard disk drive, and executing printing on a print medium by a print unit. When spooling the received print job data, a spool control function that makes a single file for each job and spools to the hard disk drive, and interprets the command in the spooled print job data to execute printing in the printing unit. A print data generation function for generating print data for performing the print data generation, a print execution function for acquiring the print data generated by the print data generation function, passing the print data to the print unit, and executing printing on the print medium, and the above-mentioned input. Request to cancel print job The cancellation request reception function that is received via the network and the print job file for which the cancellation request has been issued by the cancellation request reception function, and whose interpretation has not been started by the print data generation function. A print control program that causes a computer to realize a file deletion function of deleting from a computer.