JP2004175033A - Printer and bar code printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer and a bar code printing method in which print using an ink jet print mechanism and print using a thermal transfer print mechanism can be separated appropriately when print data is printed and the features of a print using the ink jet print mechanism and the features of a print using the thermal transfer print mechanism can be utilized sufficiently. <P>SOLUTION: The printer comprises a section 12 for extracting bar code data from print data, a thermal transfer print section 13 for printing bar code data extracted at the bar code data extracting section 12 using a thermal transfer print mechanism 2, and an ink jet print control section 14 for printing the print data other than the bar code data using an ink jet print mechanism 3. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a printer having an ink jet printing mechanism and a thermal transfer printing mechanism and a bar code printing method, and particularly to a printer and a bar code printing method for performing full color printing by an ink jet printing mechanism.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, full color printing of labels has been promoted due to the improvement of ink jet printing technology.However, ink jet printing has the disadvantage that printing speed is inferior, ink is faded by friction, and color is faded by sunlight. Had. Therefore, a printer having a plurality of printing mechanisms combining an inkjet printing mechanism and another printing mechanism has been studied.
[0003]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a printer having a plurality of printing mechanisms, according to Patent Document 1, an ink jet nozzle provided at a surface of a material to be printed at intervals to face the material to be printed by jetting ink to the surface of the material to be printed, and a printer storing the ink. First printing means including an ink cartridge for supplying ink to an ink jet nozzle, and a thermal head for heating only a portion to be printed which is provided in contact with the surface of the material to be printed so as to form a thermosensitive coloring layer There has been proposed a two-color printer provided with a second printing unit including the following.
[0004]
Further, according to Patent Document 2, a stock unit for stocking paper printed by the first printing mechanism is provided between the first printing mechanism and the first printing mechanism, and the stock unit is set in advance by the first printing mechanism. There has been proposed a printer that prints information such as a pattern of an admission ticket and prints unique information such as a serial number by a second printing mechanism.
[0005]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-10-337912 [Patent Document 2]
JP 2000-355128 A
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, in the prior art, when printing print data, it is not clear which data is to be printed by the ink jet printing mechanism or the thermal transfer printing mechanism. There is a problem that the advantages of the system are not fully utilized.
[0007]
The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object thereof is to appropriately print, when printing print data, using an inkjet printing mechanism and printing using a thermal transfer printing mechanism. An object of the present invention is to provide a printer and a barcode printing method which can be separated and can fully utilize the advantages of printing using an ink jet printing mechanism and the advantages of printing using a thermal transfer printing mechanism.
[0008]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The present invention has the following configurations in order to solve the above problems.
The gist of the invention according to claim 1 is a printer having an ink jet printing mechanism and a thermal transfer printing mechanism, wherein the print data receiving means receives print data from a host device, and the print data receiving means receives the print data from the host apparatus. Bar code data extracting means for extracting bar code data from print data, thermal transfer printing control means for printing the bar code data extracted by the bar code data extracting means using the thermal transfer printing mechanism, and the bar code data And an ink jet print control means for printing the print data other than the above using the ink jet printing mechanism.
The gist of the invention according to claim 2 includes a thermal head separation mechanism for separating a thermal head and a platen of the thermal transfer printing mechanism, and when the barcode data is not included in the print data, 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein said thermal transfer printing control means separates said thermal head and said platen by said thermal head separating mechanism.
The gist of the invention according to claim 3 is a printer having an ink jet printing mechanism and a thermal transfer printing mechanism, wherein the print data receiving means receives print data from a host device, and the print data receiving means receives the print data. Specific data extracting means for extracting specific data from the print data; specific data selecting means for selecting a type of the specific data extracted by the specific data extracting means; and the specific data extracted by the specific data extracting means A thermal transfer printing control means for printing using the thermal transfer printing mechanism, and an inkjet printing control means for printing the print data other than the specific data using the inkjet printing mechanism. .
The gist of the invention according to claim 4 is a bar code printing method in a printer having an ink jet printing mechanism and a thermal transfer printing mechanism, wherein print data is received from a host device, and a bar code is obtained from the received print data. Barcode printing, wherein data is extracted, the extracted barcode data is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism, and the print data other than the barcode data is printed using the inkjet printing mechanism. Be in the way.
[0009]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
[0010]
(First Embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer according to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit of the printer according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG.
[0011]
The printer 1 according to the first embodiment has a thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and an ink jet printing mechanism 3, and performs printing on the label continuous paper 4 using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and the ink jet printing mechanism 3. It is configured.
[0012]
Referring to FIG. 1, the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 includes a thermal head 21, a platen roller 22 disposed at a position facing the thermal head 21, and a transfer that supplies a transfer ribbon between the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22. It comprises a ribbon supply mechanism 23 and a transfer ribbon take-up mechanism 24 for winding up a used transfer ribbon.
[0013]
Further, the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 is provided with a thermal head separating mechanism 5 (not shown) so that the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 can be brought into contact with and separated from each other. The thermal head separation mechanism 5 may be configured so that the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 are brought into contact with and separated from each other by using a solenoid or the like. As shown in the publication, an eccentric cam may be provided on the rotation shaft of the platen roller 22, and the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 may be configured to contact and separate from each other by bringing the eccentric cam into contact with the thermal head 21.
[0014]
The ink jet printing mechanism 3 includes an ink jet type print head 31 and a platen roller 32 disposed at a position facing the print head 31, and includes an ink tank (not shown) storing a plurality of color inks. Printing is possible.
[0015]
Referring to FIG. 2, the control unit 10 of the printer 1 according to the first embodiment includes a print data receiving unit 11 for receiving print data from a host device such as a computer, and a print data receiving unit 11 for receiving print data. And a bar code data extraction unit 12 for extracting bar code data from the printer. The bar code data extracted by the bar code data extraction unit 12 is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2, and the print data contains the bar code data. If not, a thermal transfer print control unit 13 for separating the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 by the thermal head separation mechanism 5 and an ink jet print control unit for printing print data other than barcode data using the ink jet print mechanism 3 14
[0016]
Next, the operation of the first embodiment will be described in detail with reference to FIG.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining a printing operation of the printer according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of printing on label continuous paper.
[0017]
When the print data receiving unit 11 receives print data from a host device such as a computer (step A1), the barcode data extracting unit 12 determines whether the barcode data exists in the print data received by the print data receiving unit 11. (Step A2), and if barcode data exists in the print data, the barcode data is extracted from the print data (Step A3), and the extracted barcode data is sent to the thermal transfer print control unit 13. At the same time, the print data other than the barcode data is output to the inkjet print control unit 14.
[0018]
Upon receiving the bar code data extracted by the bar code data extraction unit 12, the thermal transfer print control unit 13 controls the thermal head separation mechanism 5 to bring the thermal head 21 into contact with the platen roller 22 (step A4). The code data is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 (step A5). When the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 are already in contact with each other, the operation of Step A4 is omitted.
[0019]
Next, the inkjet print control unit 14 prints print data other than the barcode data received from the barcode data extraction unit 12 by using the inkjet print mechanism 3 (step A6), and as shown in FIG. A label is obtained in which a bar code printing area 6 printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and a full color printing area 7 printed using the ink jet printing mechanism 3 coexist. When a barcode is printed using the ink jet printing mechanism 3, it is highly likely that a reading failure occurs due to fading due to sunlight, and therefore, in the first embodiment, printing with good barcode reading conditions can be performed. A bar code is printed by using a thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 which can be used.
[0020]
If the barcode data is not included in the print data in step A2, the barcode data extraction unit 12 notifies the thermal transfer print control unit 13 that there is no barcode data, and the thermal transfer print control unit 13 The thermal head separation mechanism 5 is controlled to separate the thermal head 21 from the platen roller 22 (step A7). When the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 are already separated from each other, the operation of Step A7 is omitted.
[0021]
Next, the barcode data extraction unit 12 outputs the print data to the inkjet print control unit 14, and the inkjet print control unit 14 prints the print data received from the barcode data extraction unit 12 using the inkjet print mechanism 3. As a result (step A8), a label having only the full-color print area 7 printed using the inkjet printing mechanism 3 is obtained.
[0022]
As described above, according to the first embodiment, when printing print data, barcode data is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and maintenance data other than the barcode data is printed using the inkjet printing mechanism. By using a configuration in which printing is performed by using the ink jet printing mechanism 3, the advantage of printing using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and the advantage of printing using the ink jet printing mechanism 3 can be sufficiently utilized.
[0023]
Furthermore, according to the first embodiment, when barcode data does not exist in the print data, the thermal head separation mechanism 5 separates the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 so that the transfer is performed. There is an effect that running cost can be reduced without wasteful use of the ribbon.
[0024]
(Second embodiment)
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control unit according to the second embodiment of the printer according to the present invention. FIG. 6 shows an example of selection of specific data extracted by the specific data extraction unit shown in FIG. FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a printing operation of the printer according to the second embodiment of the present invention.
[0025]
The second embodiment is the same as the first embodiment in that it has a thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and an ink jet printing mechanism 3, but the control unit 10 controls the barcode of the first embodiment. Instead of the data extracting unit 12, a specific data extracting unit 15 and an input unit 16 for selecting specific data to be extracted by the specific data extracting unit 15 are provided.
[0026]
The specific data extracting unit 15 extracts the specific data selected by the input unit 16 from the print data received by the print data receiving unit. The specific data extracted by the specific data extraction unit 15 is printed by using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2, and includes bar code data, character data, black data, and print data as shown in FIG. All can be selected as specific data.
[0027]
First, specific data extracted by the specific data extracting unit 15 is selected by the input unit 16, and when print data is received from the host device such as a computer by the print data receiving unit 11 (step B <b> 1), the specific data is extracted. The extracting unit 15 determines whether or not the print data received by the print data receiving unit 11 includes the specific data (step B2). If the print data includes the specific data, the extraction unit 15 extracts the specific data from the print data. The extracted specific data is output to the thermal transfer print control unit 13 and print data other than the specific data is output to the inkjet print control unit 14 (step B3).
[0028]
Upon receiving the specific data extracted by the specific data extracting unit 15, the thermal transfer printing control unit 13 controls the thermal head separation mechanism 5 to bring the thermal head 21 into contact with the platen roller 22 (step B4), and Printing is performed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 (step B5). When the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 are already in contact with each other, the operation of Step B4 is omitted.
[0029]
Next, the inkjet print control unit 14 prints the print data other than the specific data received from the barcode data extraction unit 12 using the inkjet print mechanism 3 (Step B6).
[0030]
If the specific data is not included in the print data in step B2, the specific data extraction unit 15 notifies the thermal transfer print control unit 13 that there is no specific data, and the thermal transfer print control unit 13 The mechanism 5 is controlled to separate the thermal head 21 from the platen roller 22 (step B7). When the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 are already separated from each other, the operation of Step A7 is omitted.
[0031]
Next, the specific data extraction unit 15 outputs the print data to the inkjet print control unit 14, and the inkjet print control unit 14 prints the print data received from the specific data extraction unit 15 by using the inkjet print mechanism 3 (step). B8).
[0032]
If nothing is selected as specific data, all print data will be printed using the inkjet printing mechanism 3. If all print data is selected as specific data, all print data will be printed. Is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2. When barcode data and character data are selected as specific data as shown in FIG. 6, for example, the barcode data and character data are printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2, and the barcode data and character data are printed. Print data such as a logo mark and a one-point color excluding data is printed using the inkjet printing mechanism 3.
[0033]
As described above, according to the second embodiment, when printing print data, data to be printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and data to be printed using the inkjet printing mechanism 3 can be selected. With this configuration, the advantage of printing using the thermal transfer printing mechanism 2 and the advantage of printing using the inkjet printing mechanism 3 can be fully utilized by the user's selection.
[0034]
It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and it is clear that each embodiment can be appropriately modified within the scope of the technical idea of the present invention. Further, the number, position, shape, and the like of the constituent members are not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be set to numbers, positions, shapes, and the like suitable for carrying out the present invention. In the drawings, the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals.
[0035]
【The invention's effect】
In the printer and the barcode printing method of the present invention, when printing print data, barcode data is printed using a thermal transfer printing mechanism, and maintenance data other than barcode data is printed using an inkjet printing mechanism. With this configuration, the advantage of printing using the thermal transfer printing mechanism and the advantage of printing using the inkjet printing mechanism can be fully utilized.
[0036]
Further, the printer and the barcode printing method of the present invention are configured such that, when printing print data, data to be printed using a thermal transfer printing mechanism and data to be printed using an inkjet printing mechanism can be selected. In addition, the advantage of printing using the thermal transfer printing mechanism and the advantage of printing using the inkjet printing mechanism can be fully utilized by the user's selection.
[0037]
Further, the printer and the barcode printing method of the present invention are configured such that when barcode data does not exist in the print data, the thermal head separation mechanism 5 separates the thermal head 21 and the platen roller 22 from each other. There is an effect that the running cost can be reduced without wastefully using the transfer ribbon.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a configuration of a printer according to a first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit of the printer according to the first embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining a printing operation of the printer according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of printing on label continuous paper.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control unit of a printer according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of selection of specific data extracted by a specific data extraction unit illustrated in FIG. 5;
FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a printing operation of a printer according to a second embodiment of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 Printer 2 Thermal transfer printing mechanism 3 Inkjet printing mechanism 4 Label continuous paper 5 Thermal head separation mechanism 6 Barcode printing area 7 Full color printing area 10 Control unit 11 Print data receiving unit 12 Barcode data extraction unit 13 Thermal transfer printing control unit 14 Inkjet printing Control unit 15 Specific data extraction unit 16 Input unit 21 Thermal head 22 Platen roller 23 Transfer ribbon supply mechanism 24 Transfer ribbon winding mechanism 31 Print head 32 Platen roller

Claims (4)

An inkjet printing mechanism, a printer having a thermal transfer printing mechanism,
Print data receiving means for receiving print data from a host device;
Barcode data extraction means for extracting barcode data from the print data received by the print data reception means,
Thermal transfer printing control means for printing the barcode data extracted by the barcode data extracting means using the thermal transfer printing mechanism,
A printer comprising: an inkjet printing control unit configured to print the print data other than the barcode data by using the inkjet printing mechanism. A thermal head separation mechanism for separating the thermal head and the platen of the thermal transfer printing mechanism,
2. The thermal transfer print control unit, when the barcode data is not included in the print data, causes the thermal head and the platen to be separated by the thermal head separation mechanism. Printer. An inkjet printing mechanism, a printer having a thermal transfer printing mechanism,
Print data receiving means for receiving print data from a host device;
Specific data extracting means for extracting specific data from the print data received by the print data receiving means,
Specific data selecting means for selecting the type of the specific data extracted by the specific data extracting means;
Thermal transfer printing control means for printing the specific data extracted by the specific data extracting means using the thermal transfer printing mechanism,
A printer for printing the print data other than the specific data by using the ink jet printing mechanism. An inkjet printing mechanism, a bar code printing method in a printer having a thermal transfer printing mechanism,
Receive print data from the host device,
Extracting barcode data from the received print data,
The extracted bar code data is printed using the thermal transfer printing mechanism,
A barcode printing method, wherein the print data other than the barcode data is printed using the ink jet printing mechanism.

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