JP2005148831A - Printing device control program and printing controller - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily perform printing by giving colors to a specific character string in a document without affecting data of a document. <P>SOLUTION: This printing device control program for making a computer perform print data generation processing to read plotting data, and to generate print data outputted to a printing device is configured to make the computer perform character string designation accepting processing to accept the designation of a character string and color designation accepting processing to accept the designation of colors for the accepted character string. The print data generation processing is characterized by, when the designated character string is included in the plotting data, generating print data by giving the information of colors designated for the character string. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing apparatus control program, and more particularly to a printing apparatus control program that causes a computer to execute a process for printing a specific character string with a specified color.

  Laser printers are widely used for various purposes including the purpose of printing documents and the like in companies and the like. Conventionally, laser printers have been mainly monochrome printers that print using only black toner, and the documents to be printed have been premised on monochrome printing. For this reason, many document data (files) of documents that are supposed to be printed by a laser printer do not include color information. This tendency is particularly noticeable in so-called business documents.

  In recent years, color laser printers that print using a plurality of toners have begun to spread. However, when printing already created documents, there are many that do not contain color information. Despite being used, monochrome printing is mainly performed.

  Even if the same document is printed in color, the expressive power is richer than when printed in monochrome. In particular, if a character or the like to be emphasized in a document can be colored, the reader's attention can be drawn. For this reason, even if a document is premised on monochrome, it is convenient if a specific character string can be printed with a color.

  In this case, it may be possible to edit a monochrome document and add color information using a document creation application or the like. However, operations such as character search and format conversion are required, and the processing becomes complicated. Also, when printing with a monochrome laser printer, it is not desirable to edit the document and add color information.

  An object of the present invention is to make it possible to easily perform printing in which a specific character string in a document is colored without affecting the document data.

In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention,
A printing apparatus control program for causing a computer to execute print data generation processing for reading drawing data and generating print data to be output to a printing apparatus,
A character string specification acceptance process that accepts a character string specification;
Further causing the computer to execute color designation acceptance processing for accepting color designation for the accepted character string,
In the print data generation process, when the specified character string is included in the drawing data, the print data is generated by adding information of the color specified for the character string. A device control program is provided.

  In the present invention, designation of a character string and a color can be accepted by processing based on the printing apparatus control program, and editing of a document becomes unnecessary when a color is added to a specific character string.

In addition, since color information is added when print data is generated by processing based on the printing apparatus control program, it is possible to print a specific character string with a color without affecting the original document. The character string designation process acceptance process can accept designation for a plurality of character strings,
In the color designation receiving process, it is desirable to receive a color designation for each of a plurality of character strings for which the designation has been accepted.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an outline of a hardware configuration of a printing system to which the present invention is applied.

  As shown in the figure, the printing system includes a computer 30 for realizing various processes using application software, a printing process using a printer driver, and the like, and a printer 10 connected to the computer 30. In the present embodiment, the computer 30 functions as a printer host that generates print data and transmits it to the printer 10. The printer 10 functions as a printing apparatus that performs printing based on the received print data. The configuration of the printing system is not limited to this.

  The computer 30 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 31 that executes various programs, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 32 that temporarily stores data and programs, various data and various programs for controlling the computer 30, and the like. A ROM (Read Only Memory) 33 that is stored in a nonvolatile manner and an interface 34 that controls transmission / reception of data to / from a peripheral device such as the connected printer 10 are provided.

  The computer 30 includes a display device 21 such as a color display, an input device 22 such as a mouse and a keyboard, a media reading device 23 that reads data from a recording medium such as a CD-ROM, and a built-in or external auxiliary storage device 24. Connected. Of course, the configuration of the computer 30 is not limited to this. For example, a communication control device for connecting to a computer network such as the Internet may be provided.

  The printer 10 is, for example, a laser type color page printer. A laser type color page printer includes a plurality of cartridges filled with toner in a housing, and performs printing by transferring the toner to a printing medium such as printing paper. The toner is, for example, black, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and various colors can be expressed by combining these colors.

  However, the printing method of the printer 10 is not limited to this. For example, an inkjet serial color printer or a color printer using another printing method may be used.

  The printer 10 includes an interface 11 that controls transmission / reception of data to / from the computer 30, a CPU 12 that executes various programs, a RAM 13 that temporarily stores print data and the like, various data that controls the printer 10, various programs, and the like that are nonvolatile. The print engine 15 includes a ROM 14, a toner cartridge, a photosensitive drum, a laser beam irradiation mechanism, a paper feed mechanism, and a paper supply / discharge mechanism for performing a print medium supply / discharge process. Of course, the configuration of the printer 10 is not limited to this.

  Next, functional configurations realized in the computer 30 and the printer 10 by the printing system will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG.

  As shown in the figure, an operating system unit 300, an application unit 310, and a printer driver unit 320 are constructed on the computer 30.

  The operating system unit 300 is so-called basic software of the computer 30 that provides system management of the computer 30 and a basic user operating environment.

  The application unit 310 has a function for causing the computer 30 to perform processing for creating and editing a document. The CPU 31 executes a word processor program, a graphics processing program, and the like read by the RAM 32, thereby executing the processing on the computer 30. Built in.

  The printer driver unit 320 performs processing for controlling the printer 10 to execute printing. Specifically, when a print instruction is received from the user, the drawing data of the document generated by the application unit 310 is read and converted into print data in a format that can be interpreted by the printer 10 according to the print settings. Transmit to the printer 10. Here, the drawing data is data described in the specifications defined in the operating system unit 300, and the print data is described in a page description language, for example, and includes a command group that controls the printer 10. .

  For this reason, the printer driver unit 320 includes a user interface unit 321 for receiving print instructions, print settings, and the like from a user, and a print processing unit 322 for processing generation, management, transmission, and the like of print data.

  In the present embodiment, when the user interface unit 321 receives a character string and color designation from the user, the print processing unit 322 prints the designated color for the designated character string included in the document to be printed. Such print data is generated.

  The printer driver unit 320 is constructed on the computer 30 by the CPU 31 executing a printer driver program read by the RAM 32. The printer driver program for this purpose can be distributed by recording it on a portable recording medium such as a CD-ROM. The printer driver program can be installed in the computer 30 by reading the recording medium with the media reader 23. It can also be installed via a computer network such as the Internet.

  In FIG. 2, a print control unit 110 and a print execution unit 120 are constructed on the printer 10.

  The print control unit 110 interprets the print data transmitted from the computer 30 and performs control for causing the printer 10 to perform printing based on the print data. Specifically, print image data based on the print data is generated, and an instruction is sent to the print execution unit 120 to print this print image data.

  The print execution unit 120 executes printing by the print engine 15 on a print medium such as print paper in accordance with an instruction from the print control unit 110.

  Next, processing of the printer driver unit 320 in this embodiment will be described.

  Here, a document that is being processed by the user in the application unit 310 will be described as a print target. In general, a document includes text data, bitmap data, draw data, and the like. These data can include color information, but it is assumed that the document handled in this embodiment is a document that does not include color information created on the assumption of a monochrome printer. However, it may be a document including color information.

  The user can call the user interface unit 321 of the printer driver unit 320 and perform print settings while the application unit 310 is processing a document.

  In the print setting, in addition to the conventional paper setting, resolution setting, number of copies setting, etc., in this embodiment, it is possible to specify a character string and a color for the character string.

  The user interface unit 321 accepts this designation from the user, for example, by displaying a character string setting screen 500 as shown in FIG.

  As shown in the figure, the character string setting screen 500 includes a column 501 for designating a character string and a column 502 for designating a color. Character strings and colors are specified as a set, and five sets can be specified on this screen. Of course, the number of sets that can be specified is not limited to five.

  The user can input a character string printed with a color in a column 501 for designating a character string. Then, a color assigned to the character is designated in a column 502 for designating a corresponding color. For example, when the user wants to print the character string “confidential matter” in the document in red, the user inputs “confidential matter” in the column 501 for specifying the character string, and “red” in the column 502 for specifying the color. "Is specified.

  For example, when the user interface unit 321 receives a click on a column 502 for specifying a color, the user interface unit 321 displays a small screen 503 for specifying a color in which a plurality of colors are displayed as samples, and receives a color specification from the user. . However, the method of accepting color designation is not limited to this. For example, an input of a value indicating a color such as RGB may be accepted, or a color designation may be accepted from a palette that displays a color space two-dimensionally.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing when the printer driver unit 320 receives a print execution command from the user.

  Upon receiving a print execution command from the user (S101), the print processing unit 322 of the printer driver unit 320 acquires document drawing data from the application unit 310 (S102). At this time, it may be acquired via the operating system unit 300.

  Then, the acquired drawing data is converted into print data. At this time, if no character string is designated on the character string setting screen 500 (S103: N), a conventional print data conversion process is performed (S104).

  On the other hand, if a character string is specified on the character string setting screen 500 (S103: Y), it is determined whether or not the specified character string is included in the text data constituting the drawing data of the document. Convert to print data while searching. When a designated character string is detected, color information is added to the character string so that the designated color is added and printed by the printer 10, and the character string is converted into print data. (S105). When a plurality of character strings are specified on the character string setting screen 500, the color information specified for each character string is added and converted to print data.

  Here, the color information is added based on the specification of the control language adopted by the printer 10, for example, by adding a command for adding a designated color or adding it as a character string attribute. Can be done.

  When the drawing data of the document is converted into the print data, the print data is output to the printer 10 (S106).

  When a character string is designated on the character string setting screen 500 by the printer 10 executing printing based on the print data, a print result with a designated color for the designated character string is displayed. Will be obtained.

  In addition, in some inkjet printers and the like, the printer driver unit 320 develops image data and outputs the image data to the printer. In this case, the printer driver unit 320 uses a specified color for a specified character string. Expand to image data.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, the printer driver unit 320 generates print data with color information added thereto, thereby adding a color to a specific character string without affecting the document data. Can be printed.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining a hardware configuration of the printing system. FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining a functional configuration of the printing system. The figure of a character string setting screen. FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining processing of a printer driver unit.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Printer, 11 ... Interface, 12 ... CPU, 13 ... RAM, 14 ... ROM, 15 ... Print engine, 21 ... Display device, 22 ... Input device, 23 ... Media reader, 24 ... Auxiliary storage device, 30 ... Computer 31 ... CPU, 32 ... RAM, 33 ... ROM, 34 ... interface, 110 ... print control unit, 120 ... print execution unit, 300 ... operating system unit, 310 ... application unit, 320 ... printer driver unit, 321 ... user interface , 322... Print processing unit

Claims (4)

A printing apparatus control program for causing a computer to execute print data generation processing for reading drawing data and generating print data to be output to a printing apparatus,
A character string specification acceptance process that accepts a character string specification;
Further causing the computer to execute color designation acceptance processing for accepting color designation for the accepted character string,
The print data generation process includes generating print data by adding color information specified for the character string when the specified character string is included in the drawing data. Device control program. In the printing apparatus control program according to claim 1,
The character string designation process accepting process can accept designation for a plurality of character strings,
The printing apparatus control program, wherein the color designation receiving process receives a color designation for each of a plurality of character strings for which the designation is accepted.   A computer-readable recording medium on which the printing apparatus control program according to claim 1 is recorded. Application means for processing documents;
A print control device comprising printer driver means for reading drawing data of a document and generating print data to be output to a printing device,
The printer driver means includes
Accepts the specification of the character string and the color of the specified character string,
A print control apparatus that generates print data by adding information of a color designated for a character string when the designated character string is included in the drawing data.

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