JP2004348401A - Image forming device management system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming device management system that totals time to complete printing jobs including print jobs in a print queue in an image forming device and notifies it to an information processing device 3. <P>SOLUTION: The information processing devices 3 and 4 issue to the image forming device 1 print data of a PDL (page description language) format to be printed in the image forming device 1 and data on printing time to finish processing and printing the print data in the image forming device 1. The image forming device 1, on receiving the print data and printing time data, adds the print data and printing time data to a print queue as a single print job, and in response to a request from the information processing device 3 or 4, totals time to complete printing each print job included in the print queue according to the printing time data included in each print job, and notifies it to the information processing device 3 or 4. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus management system in which, in response to a request from an information processing apparatus, the image forming apparatus totals the print end time of each print job in a print queue and notifies the information processing apparatus.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, copiers, facsimile machines, printers, plotters, etc., have been used as devices with a single function, but recent image forming devices have integrated multiple functions of these devices into one device. It is called a multifunction device or multifunction device. Therefore, an image forming apparatus having a printer function is connected to a network, and is frequently used as an output device of a plurality of information processing apparatuses.
[0003]
Since such an image forming apparatus is shared by a plurality of information processing apparatuses, the image forming apparatus is often installed at a location distant from each information processing apparatus. Therefore, the user of the information processing apparatus that performs printing needs to move to the installation location of the image forming apparatus after the estimated printing end time elapses, and take steps to collect the printed material to be output. There is no problem if printing is completed at the expected time, but if it is not completed, moving and waiting for printing is wasted.
[0004]
Therefore, a recent OS (Operating System) installed in the information processing apparatus includes a print queue browser that can monitor a general state of printing via the information processing apparatus serving as a printer server. Further, a printer used by a plurality of users, particularly a network printer, is often provided with a print queue browser capable of listing the status of a print queue in more detail. FIG. 8 shows an example of a print queue state displayed on such a conventional print queue browser. Four documents, Job 1 to Job 4, are sent to the print queue of the image forming apparatus 1, and Job 1 requested by the information processing apparatus 5 is being printed. When the printing of all five pages is completed, the line of job 1 disappears, the information of job 2 to job 4 is sequentially moved up and displayed, and the display of job 2 is changed to the display during printing.
[0005]
In the above example, if the user of the information processing device 5 monitors the status of the job 1 sequentially with the print queue browser, it can be determined that the printing has ended when the job 1 disappears from the print queue browser. Thereafter, the user can move to the installation location of the image forming apparatus 1 and collect the output printed matter.
[0006]
However, in the above method, since the state of the image forming apparatus 1 must be constantly monitored by the print queue browser, the operation of the information processing apparatus 5 is hindered, and the work efficiency is reduced. In addition, the user of another information processing apparatus displaying the print waiting state does not know when his or her document is printed at all, and is added to the print queue before his / her document. There is no other way than to make a rough guess from the number of pages in other documents.
[0007]
As a solution to such a drawback, Patent Document 1 discloses a print management method for estimating a time required for a printer to perform printing based on input print data and responding to an inquiry about a printing time via an information processing apparatus. ing.
[0008]
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 4-52726
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
The method disclosed in Patent Literature 1 reports a predicted print time to an information processing apparatus when an inquiry is made from the information processing apparatus. Therefore, the user moves after the elapse of the time and copies the output printed matter. The probability of collecting can be increased. However, in order for the printer to predict the printing time in this way, the information processing apparatus and the printer are connected one-to-one, and further, there is a restriction that only the job for which the printer has started the printing process can be predicted. Further, it is assumed that the printer receives image data already developed in a bitmap from the information processing apparatus, and multiplies the standard time for the printer to process one page of the image data by the number of pages.
[0010]
For this reason, it is difficult to use a printer connected to a network, for example, because the time required for printing a job waiting to be printed cannot be predicted and the printer cannot be shared by a plurality of information processing apparatuses.
[0011]
The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and can be shared by a plurality of information processing apparatuses, and calculates the total processing time of each drawing command of print data as a printing time in each information processing apparatus. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus management system that notifies the image forming apparatus of a job, including a print job that is in a print waiting state in the image forming apparatus, and totals the print completion time of the job, and notifies the information processing apparatus of the total time. Is what you do.
[0012]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, in an image forming apparatus management system including an image forming apparatus and an information processing apparatus equipped with a printer driver program for performing printing by the image forming apparatus via a network, The information processing apparatus converts print data in a PDL (Page Description Language) format for printing by the image forming apparatus and data of a printing time required from the processing of the print data by the image forming apparatus to the end of printing. The print job is issued to the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus receives the print data and the print time data, and adds the print data and the print time data to the print queue as one print job. The time required for each print job included in the print queue to complete printing in response to a request from And aggregated based on the data, and notifies the information processing apparatus.
[0013]
The print data is composed of a plurality of drawing commands, and the printing time data is data of the total processing time during which each of the drawing commands is processed by the image forming apparatus.
[0014]
The printer driver program includes, as data, a plurality of drawing commands and respective processing times during which the plurality of drawing commands are processed by the image forming apparatus.
[0015]
The time required for each print job included in the print queue to complete printing is determined by the wait time for each print job until the print job is processed by the image forming apparatus and the print is completed, and the time required for the print job to be completed by the image forming apparatus. The print end time is processed and printing is completed.
[0016]
The printer driver program includes a browser program that displays a list of the time until printing of a print job included in a print queue notified by the image forming apparatus is completed for each print job.
[0017]
The request from the information processing apparatus is sent to the image forming apparatus by activating the browser program on the information processing apparatus.
[0018]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a network including an information processing apparatus and an image forming apparatus. Two image forming apparatuses 1 and 2, and four information processing apparatuses 3 to 6 are connected to the network 7, and the image forming apparatuses 1 and 2 are connected to the printers by the information processing apparatuses 3 to 6, respectively. As shared. In this case, the network 7 may be a small-scale network using the USB or IEEE 1394 interface standard, a medium or large-scale network such as a LAN or WAN, an intranet type using communication based on the Internet protocol via these networks, or a router. For example, it may be connected to the Internet via an Internet connection.
[0019]
Next, a schematic configuration of the image forming apparatuses 1 and 2 and the information processing apparatuses 3 to 6 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic internal configuration of the information processing apparatuses 3 and 4 and the image forming apparatus 1 as an example. Since the image forming apparatus 2 has the same configuration as the image forming apparatus 1 and the information processing apparatuses 5 and 6 have the same configuration as the information processing apparatuses 3 and 4, the description is omitted.
[0020]
An OS 10a is mounted on the information processing device 3, and a certain application program (hereinafter, application) 11a runs on the OS 10a. The document created by the application 11a is converted into a predetermined format for printing by a printer driver program (hereinafter, printer driver) 12a also operating on the OS 10a and provided by the OS 10a or separately installed. Is spooled once in the print spooler 13a. The drawing command processing time calculation means 14a and the print waiting time display means 9a included in the printer driver 12a will be described later in detail. This is a means for calculating a processing time for rasterizing (image data conversion) by the apparatus 1 or a page feed processing time for printing. The print waiting time display unit 9a is a unit for displaying a waiting time until the printing of each print job input to the printing queue of the image forming apparatus 1 is completed and a printing end time.
[0021]
The same thing is mounted or installed in the information processing device 4. Since the information processing apparatus 4 has an OS different from that of the information processing apparatus 3, the OS 10b and a reference number are assigned. Similarly, the application 11b, the printer driver 12b, the print spooler 13b, the drawing command processing time calculation unit 14b, and the print waiting time display unit 9b are used. The information processing device 3 will be described as a representative of the information processing device.
[0022]
Next, the flow of data for printing in the information processing device 3 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating processing of print data performed by the information processing apparatus 3. When a print start operation is performed in S1 (step 1), the document created or edited by the application 11a of the information processing device 3 is passed to the printer driver 12a in S2, where the document is temporarily converted into a format for print data. Is done. The image forming apparatus 1, which is an output apparatus, analyzes a printer description language (PDL) to generate image data for printing. Therefore, the printer driver 12a converts the document into print data in PDL format. Convert.
[0023]
The print data in the PDL format includes many drawing commands. Each drawing command is a command for performing various drawing such as a box, an arc, a circle, a point, an ellipse, a straight line, and a curve. The image forming apparatus 1 receives print data in the PDL format, which is an aggregate of these rendering commands, from the information processing device 3, renders the data on the storage device, and converts the data into image data. Also, the drawing command includes a form feed command for performing page feed. In the case of this form feed command, unlike a normal drawing command converted into image data, a page feed is performed when executed. That is, a sheet is fed by the image forming apparatus 1, an image converted from each drawing command into image data is formed and discharged. The time required for this may be, for example, about several seconds.
[0024]
The printer driver 12a has a drawing command processing time calculation unit 14a, and average processing time for each drawing command to be converted into image data by the image forming apparatus 1, and paper feed, image formation, and discharge for form feed. The average processing time up to is stored. Therefore, before the drawing command is sent from the printer driver 12a to the print spooler 13a in S5, the average processing time of each drawing command included in the print data is stored in the drawing command processing time table provided in the printer driver 12a in S3. The calculation is performed by referring to (S3a), and in S4, the average processing time of each drawing command is sequentially added. In S6, it is determined whether or not it is the last of the print data. Finally, the processing times of all the drawing commands included in the print data are summed up as a print time, and in S7, the print spooler 13a is printed together with the print data. The image data is transmitted to the image forming apparatus 1 through the image forming apparatus 1.
[0025]
The drawing command processing time calculation means 14a included in the printer driver 12a will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is an example of a drawing command processing time table included in the printer driver 12a. The printer driver 12a includes a program for converting document data to be printed into PDL format print data, a print setting program, and various data. One of the data is a drawing command processing time. It has a table 18. The drawing command processing time table 18 covers the average processing time when rasterizing (converting into image data) various drawing commands described in the printer description language by the image forming apparatus 1 and the average processing time by form feed. It is a list.
[0026]
For example, the drawing command 1 in the drawing command processing time table 18 takes 2 ms on average to be rasterized by the image forming apparatus 1, the drawing command 2 takes 4 ms, and the drawing command 3 is a form feed command. It takes 3000 msec, and the drawing command 850 takes 6 msec. As described above, since the average processing time of all the drawing commands that can be processed by the image forming apparatus 1 is included in the drawing command processing time table 18 as data, as described above, the information processing apparatus 3 transmits the PDL format print data. Is transmitted to the image forming apparatus 1, the total sum of the processing time for the image forming apparatus 1 to process all the drawing commands included in the print data can be calculated in advance. The result is sent to the image forming apparatus 1 together with the print data as print time data. Such processing and the drawing command processing time table 18 are referred to as a drawing command processing time calculation unit 14a.
[0027]
The configuration of the print controller 15 of the image forming apparatus 1 that receives the print data in the PDL format output as described above and the data of the print time will be schematically described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 5.
[0028]
The image forming apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 2 receives a print controller 15 to which print data and print time data are input via the network 7, and receives image data or a form feed command rasterized by the print controller 15 to receive an actual image. And a print engine 17 for forming and printing an image on paper. As will be described later in detail, the print controller 15 has a job print time notifying unit 16 for notifying the information processing apparatus 3 of the print completion time of the print job included in the print queue.
[0029]
FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of main electrical components of the image forming apparatus 1 including the print controller 15. The print controller 15 has an internal bus 29 and controls the print controller 15, a ROM 20 in which a program and control data for causing the CPU 20 to operate the print controller 15 are stored. RAM 22 for storing the application data, a font ROM 23 in which font data is stored in order to convert the font data into image data when the font data is designated, and the print data from the information processing device 3 as described above. An input buffer memory 24 in which print time data is sequentially input and stored, and a page memory 25 in which the print data is converted into image data for printing and temporarily stored are connected.
[0030]
Further, a network I / F (interface) 26 for connecting the image forming apparatus 1 to the network 7 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and an operation unit I / F for communicating with an operation unit (not shown) of the image forming apparatus 1. F27 and a print engine I / F 28 that receives image data and form feed commands converted for printing from the page memory 25 and sends them to the print engine 17 are also connected to the internal bus 29, and are connected to other internal components. Perform communication.
[0031]
The job printing time notification unit 16 described with reference to FIG. 2 is a process performed by the print controller 15 based on a program stored in the ROM 21. The print data in the PDL format and the print time data sent from the information processing device 3 are input to the print controller 15 via the network I / F 26. At the same time as the print data and the print time data are input, they are stored in the input buffer memory 24 in the order of input as one print job to form a print queue.
[0032]
The print data is not rasterized in the state of the print queue, but the print time related to the print data is read from the print queue if there is an inquiry from the information processing device 3, and the print time is changed during the print process. To the information processing apparatus 3 together with the print time of all the jobs in the print queue including the print job and the print time of the other print jobs added to the print queue earlier than the print data. Is done.
[0033]
Referring to FIG. 6, the print queue information of image forming apparatus 1 notified to information processing apparatus 3 will be specifically described. FIG. 6 is an example of print queue information notified to the information processing apparatus 3 from the image forming apparatus 1 and displayed. When the information processing apparatus 3 acquires the print queue information of the image forming apparatus 1, the print queue browser 19 provided as the print waiting time display means 9a (FIG. 2) to the printer driver 12a is displayed on the information processing apparatus 3. Upon activation, a request is issued from the information processing apparatus 3 to notify the image forming apparatus 1 of the print queue information, and the print queue information by the print queue browser 19 is displayed on a display device (not shown) of the information processing apparatus 3. Is done.
[0034]
Items displayed on the print queue browser 19 include, from the left of the figure, “document name”, “state” indicating its printing state, “user” indicating owner, “number of pages”, and print data of the document. Accepted “Reception time”, “Print time” for printing only the document, “Wait time” from the first document in the print queue to the end of printing of the document, and “End” when printing of the document ends Time ".
[0035]
Now, in the image forming apparatus 1, four documents of job 1 to job 4 are in a print queue, and the documents displayed on the upper side are the documents added to the print queue earlier, and the documents lower on the lower side. Document added to the print queue. Jobs 1 and 3 are documents whose print data has been sent out by the information processing device 4, and jobs 2 and 4 are documents whose print data has been sent out by the information processing device 3. The number of pages of the document and the date and time when the print data was received are as illustrated.
[0036]
In this case, the print time of the job 1 is the print time calculated by the information processing apparatus 4 and transmitted to the image forming apparatus 4 together with the print data of the job 1 as described above. The printing times of the jobs 2 to 4 are the same printing times, which are calculated by the illustrated information processing apparatuses. The waiting time is obtained by the image forming apparatus 1 accumulating the printing time of each document. The end time is obtained by adding the printing time of the document to the end time of the document added to the print queue immediately before by the image forming apparatus 1.
[0037]
Now, paying attention to the document that the information processing apparatus 4 has requested to print, that is, Job 1 and Job 3, Job 1 has been received by the image forming apparatus 1 at 13:00, and Is 2 minutes, the waiting time when added to the print queue is 2 minutes, and the printing end time is set to the image forming apparatus because the processing is started immediately after being added to the print queue. 1 adds the printing time of 2 minutes to the reception time and calculates 13:02. The job 3 is received by the image forming apparatus 1 at 13:00:40, the printing time calculated by the information processing apparatus 4 is 1 minute, and when the job 3 is added to the print queue, the waiting time of the job 1 and the job 2 Since the times were 2 minutes and 3 minutes, respectively, 1 minute of the printing time of job 3 is added to the total, and the waiting time of job 3 is 6 minutes. Further, the print end time is the document added to the print queue one time before, that is, the result of the image forming apparatus 1 adding the print time of job 3 to the end time of job 2 at 13:05. Therefore, 13:06 is displayed.
[0038]
With respect to the above-described operation of the image forming apparatus 1, a procedure related to a process at the time of an inquiry from the information processing apparatus 3 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 7 is a flowchart relating to a process of notifying the information processing apparatus of a print queue state of the image forming apparatus 1. In S11, the image forming apparatus 1 checks whether there is an input of print data and print time data from the information processing apparatus 3, or whether there is an inquiry about a print queue state. When print data and print time data are input, the process branches to S12, and when an inquiry is made, the process branches to S15. When the flow branches to S12, the reception time is added to the input print data and the data of the print time. Then, in S13, the print data, the print time data, and the reception time are stored in the input buffer memory 24 (FIG. 5), set as a print queue, and the process returns to S11.
[0039]
If there is an inquiry about the print queue status in S11, and the process branches to S15, the data in the print queue status shown in FIG. 6 is totaled, the data is transmitted to the information processing device 3 in S16, and the process returns to S11. . When the data is totalized in S15, the data of the order, the reception time, and the printing time of each document in the print queue are obtained from the input buffer memory 24. In the input buffer memory 24, the first print data in the print queue is subjected to printing processing such as rasterization in S14. In this printing processing, the print data in the input buffer memory 24 is printed. Until it disappears, it is performed continuously in parallel with other procedures.
[0040]
In the above-described embodiment, an example has been described in which documents from the information processing apparatuses 3 and 4 are subjected to print processing by the image forming apparatus 1. However, the information processing apparatus uses a printer driver for printing by the image forming apparatus 1. As long as the information is provided, any of the information processing apparatuses 3 to 6 (FIG. 1) can transmit print data and inquire of print queue information. The image forming apparatus 2 (FIG. 1) has the same configuration as the image forming apparatus 1. If the information processing apparatuses 3 to 6 include the printer driver of the image forming apparatus 2, as in the case of the image forming apparatus 1, It is possible to transmit print data and make an inquiry about print queue information.
[0041]
【The invention's effect】
In the present invention, the image forming apparatus 1 only needs to calculate the waiting time and the end time from the reception time of each print data and the printing time of the print data sent from the information processing apparatus. Need not be performed by the image forming apparatus, it is possible to immediately respond to an inquiry about the printing state from the information processing apparatus.
[0042]
Further, since the information processing apparatus calculates the print time of each print job as described above, even when the print job is concentrated on one image forming apparatus, transmission of the print job and print queue There is no need to centrally perform the tallying process in the image forming apparatus in response to the status inquiry. Therefore, compared with the case where the image forming apparatus performs the aggregation processing intensively, the time of the CPU of the image forming apparatus allocated to the print processing increases, and the print processing can be performed in a short time.
[0043]
Furthermore, the image forming apparatus can notify the information processing apparatus of the print waiting time and the end time only by a simple aggregation process, so that the user of the information processing apparatus can print the print job of another information processing apparatus. There is no need to estimate the printing time, and the image forming apparatus can notify the printing wait time and the end time relatively accurately from the image forming apparatus. In an environment in which a plurality of similar image forming apparatuses can be used, the same print data is sent to a plurality of image forming apparatuses that are considered to have a low print waiting time, and other image forming apparatuses except the one with the earliest end time are sent. By canceling the print data sent to the printer, urgent printing can be performed quickly.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a network including an information processing apparatus and an image forming apparatus.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic internal configuration of the information processing apparatuses 3, 4 and the image forming apparatus 1 as an example.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating print data processing performed by the information processing apparatus 3;
FIG. 4 is an example of a drawing command processing time table included in the printer driver 12a.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of main electrical components of the image forming apparatus 1 including the print controller 15;
FIG. 6 is an example of print queue information notified to the information processing apparatus 3 from the image forming apparatus 1 and displayed.
FIG. 7 is a flowchart relating to a process of notifying a print queue state of the image forming apparatus 1 to the information processing apparatus.
FIG. 8 shows an example of a print queue state displayed on a conventional print queue browser.
[Explanation of symbols]
1, 2 Image forming apparatus 3 to 6 Information processing apparatus 7 Network 9a, 9b Print waiting time display means 10a, 10b OS
11a, 11b Applications 12a, 12b Printer Drivers 13a, 13b Print Spoolers 14a, 14b Drawing Instruction Processing Time Calculation Unit 15 Print Controller 16 Job Printing Time Notification Unit 17 Print Engine 18 Drawing Instruction Processing Time Table 19 Print Queue Browser 20 CPU
21 ROM
22 RAM
23 Font ROM
24 input buffer memory 25 page memory 26 network I / F
27 Operation unit I / F
28 Print Engine I / F
29 Internal bus

Claims (6)

In an image forming apparatus management system including an image forming apparatus and an information processing apparatus equipped with a printer driver program for performing printing by the image forming apparatus via a network,
The information processing apparatus includes a PDL (page description language) format print data to be printed by the image forming apparatus, and a print time required for processing the print data by the image forming apparatus and ending printing. Data to the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus receives the print data and the print time data, and prints the print data and the print time data as one print job in a print queue. In response to a request from the information processing device, the time until each print job included in the print queue is completed printing is tabulated based on the print time data included in each print job. And a notification to the information processing apparatus. 2. The print data according to claim 1, wherein the print data is constituted by a plurality of drawing commands, and the printing time data is data of a sum of processing times in which each of the drawing commands is processed by the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus management system according to claim 1. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the printer driver program includes, as data, the plurality of drawing commands and respective processing times in which the plurality of drawing commands are processed by the image forming apparatus. Equipment management system. The time required for each print job included in the print queue to complete printing is determined by the waiting time for each print job until the print job is processed by the image forming apparatus and the printing is completed, and 4. The image forming apparatus management system according to claim 1, further comprising a print end time that is processed by the forming apparatus and printing is completed. The printer driver program includes a browser program that displays a list of times until completion of printing of a print job included in the print queue notified by the image forming apparatus for each print job. The image forming apparatus management system according to claim 1. The image forming apparatus management system according to claim 5, wherein the request from the information processing apparatus is sent to the image forming apparatus by activating the browser program on the information processing apparatus.

Images