JP2006007487A - Distributed printing method and printer - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simply issue a distributed printing indication and moreover to shorten a printing time. <P>SOLUTION: The printer is equipped with the function of recognizing the number of connected machines of the same type or compatible machines usable on a network, and the function of allotting a printing job to each of the printers. How many machines of the same type as that of the master side printer or compatible machines are there, and how many of them can work are grasped from printer information acquired from the slave printer side. Thereafter, the number of distributed printing machines is calculated from the acquired number of job waiting printers, and distribution of printing pages (the number of printing sheets and a printing start page) for distributed printing is carried out to each slave printer. A printing command of m pages and n sets is received from a terminal apparatus 12 side. As a result of analysis at the master printer 16 side, if distributed printing is to be controlled to be carried out by p machines, one printer takes charge of printing of m/p pages and n/p sets. Thus the printing time is ideally shortened to 1/p. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a distributed printing method and a printer having a distributed printing function that can efficiently operate a plurality of printers connected to a network.

  Specifically, when a plurality of printers that can serve as masters are connected to a network, a network that enables efficient distributed printing for each printer after understanding which printers can perform distributed printing from the master printer. The present invention relates to a distributed printing method used and a printer thereof.

  In recent years, a terminal device using a computer such as a personal computer can easily connect a plurality of printers on a network connected by a LAN cable or the like. In such a configuration in which a plurality of printers are connected to a network, print data created by application software in the terminal device can be distributed and output to each printer, and the overall printing time can be shortened.

  For example, if you want to print three copies of a document created by application software, you can theoretically print three copies in the time required to print one copy by distributing the copies to three printers. I can do it. Alternatively, when there are a large number of pages to be printed, the printing time is theoretically reduced to about 1 / n by performing distributed processing on n printers as compared to printing using one printer. it can.

      However, when distributing printing processing using a plurality of printers connected to the network in this way, for example, a print dialog box used in the printing application software is opened, and which printer is selected from the print dialog box. In addition to sequentially setting whether or not to output, distributed printing processing is performed by designating the number of copies and the number of copies for each printer.

  For example, when 300 copies of a single copy are printed by a printer, the user normally sets and assigns how many copies are to be printed from the terminal device to the printer to be used. At this time, if the number of allocated units is large, it is necessary to specify the printer and to specify (set) the print work contents (number of copies, number of print pages, print start page, etc.) for the specified printer. As described above, when the number of printers to be used increases, the setting work for each printer takes a lot of trouble.

  In addition, if the printer is allocated to a printer that is not visible to the user, there may be a time loss such that printing is finally started after waiting for a while because another document is being printed.

  As a method for eliminating such complexity, Patent Document 1 or Patent Document 2 is known. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561 discloses a configuration in which a print job is automatically distributed by a printer itself. Patent Document 2 discloses a print server in which a virtual printer (V_Printer in FIG. 2) configured by a plurality of printers is set, and a virtual printer automatically distributes a print job.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-141975 JP 2002-55795 A

  By the way, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561, since the print job is automatically distributed by the printer itself, setting work such as the number of copies and the number of prints is not required on the user side. Therefore, there is an advantage that the setting work can be saved and the setting time can be shortened. However, since the connection of a plurality of printers is a daisy chain configuration as shown in FIG. 1 of Patent Document 1, the configuration is suitable when the printers are arranged in one place. . However, because of the daisy chain configuration, it is difficult to distribute a plurality of printers on the network.

  In addition, because of the daisy chain configuration, all of the printers connected to the daisy chain function as master printers and the remaining printers cannot be controlled, so the printer designated as the master printer is fixed. Therefore, when this master printer is in use, it is inconvenient because it is necessary to wait for the distributed printing process until it becomes available.

  On the other hand, in Patent Document 2, since it is necessary to set a virtual printer composed of a plurality of printers as shown in FIG. 2, it is necessary to purchase a virtual server and the setting on the virtual printer is troublesome. There's a problem.

  Accordingly, the present invention solves such a conventional problem, and in particular, by providing each of a plurality of printers connected to a network with a function for distributed processing, distributed printing processing is possible. The present invention proposes a distributed printing method capable of grasping printers and automatically allocating them to these printers and simplifying the setting process of distributed printing, and a printer having this distributed printing processing function. is there.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, a distributed printing method according to the present invention described in claim 1 includes a step of receiving a distributed printing instruction information from a terminal device and a computer for executing distributed printing, and the received distributed printing. Function of analyzing printer information acquired from a plurality of printers connected to a network based on instruction information, and transmitting print page information to a printer capable of distributed printing based on the acquired printer information It is characterized by.

  According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printer according to the present invention, comprising: means for receiving distributed print instruction information from a terminal device; and printers acquired from a plurality of printers connected to a network based on the received distributed print instruction information And a means for analyzing information and a means for transmitting print page information to a printer capable of distributed printing based on the acquired printer information.

  The present invention targets a plurality of printers connected to a network. The plurality of printers may be installed on the same floor or on different floors. The printers are preferably of the same model (same model or compatible), but there is no particular problem even when a plurality of different models are connected.

  Using the terminal device (personal computer PC) that generated the print page information, print application software is started. An arbitrary printer among a plurality of printers connected to the network is designated from a printing dialog box displayed by the application software. At the same time, distributed print instructions such as setting for performing distributed print processing, and specifying the number of copies to be printed and the number of copies to be printed are performed. After the designation, by instructing the execution of the setting contents, the information is transferred to the designated printer.

  The designated printer functions as a master printer, and the other printers function as slave printers (slave printers). When multiple printers are connected to the network, these printers may be the same manufacturer and the same model as the designated master printer, the same manufacturer may be a different model, or a different manufacturer but a master printer May be a compatible model (compatible machine), or may be a printer that is completely incompatible with the master printer.

  Therefore, the master printer first determines whether a plurality of printers connected to the network are models capable of distributed printing based on printer information received from each printer.

  If the printer is capable of distributed printing, it is determined whether the printer is currently printing or waiting, and the number of printers waiting (busy) is determined. This printer capable of distributed printing becomes a substantial slave printer.

  If the number of slave printers is known, arithmetic processing such as the number of pages to be distributed and the print start page including the own machine (master printer) is performed, and the information is stored as distributed printing information. When the number of print pages is not divisible, one of the slave printers, for example, the printer that prints the last page can be configured to handle.

  Thereafter, based on the print page information transmitted from the terminal device, the corresponding print page for each slave printer is developed on the page data on the master printer side and transferred (transmitted) to each slave printer.

  Each time printing of page data is completed from the slave printer, an end command (printing end information) is sent. By receiving this, the next page data is transferred and the specified number of pages are printed out. The

  On the other hand, information on slave printers capable of distributed printing is transmitted to the terminal device side. This makes it possible to grasp which printer is used for distributed printing. When printing for all pages is completed, a print end command is generated and transmitted to the terminal device, so that the end of distributed printing can be grasped. Thereafter, by collecting the printed pages, it is possible to efficiently perform distributed printing in a short time.

  Although general-purpose distributed printing software can be set to perform distributed printing regardless of the printer manufacturer, it requires labor for initial setting instead. In the case of the present invention, only the information of the printer of the same machine or compatible machine (that is, the printer of the same manufacturer or affiliated company) can be recognized. However, since detailed printer information can be acquired, the user makes troublesome initial settings. There is no need.

  The present invention relates to a distributed printing method and a printer thereof, which can perform distributed printing with good workability even from general-purpose application software when performing distributed printing processing on a network.

  According to this, since the printer automatically distributes printing, the trouble of sequentially selecting the printer from the printing dialog box of the application software and allocating the number of copies is eliminated, and the printing time can be shortened. Since this is a distributed printing process for a printer connected to a network, it can be applied to a case where printers are arranged in a distributed manner, unlike the daisy chain configuration.

  With the daisy chain configuration, not all of the printers connected to the daisy chain can function as master printers, and the printer designated as the master printer is fixed. For this reason, when this master printer is in use, it is necessary to wait for the distributed printing process until it becomes available, which is inconvenient and cannot be used efficiently. According to the present invention, all printers connected to the network can function as master printers, and even if several printers are in use, the remaining printers can be used for distributed printing, which enables efficient operation. It can be secured.

  Next, preferred embodiments of a distributed printing method and a printer having a distributed printing processing function according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing an outline of a distributed printing system 10 to which a printer according to the present invention is applied.
The distributed printing system 10 is connected to a LAN cable 14 of a LAN system which is a local network in this example in which at least one terminal device, for example, a personal computer PC12 functions as a network. In this example, three terminal devices 12 </ b> A to 12 </ b> C are connected to the LAN cable 14.

  Furthermore, a plurality of printers 16 (16A, 16B,... 16N) are connected to the LAN cable 14 to construct a distributed printing system 10. The plurality of printers 16 are preferably the same model, but in reality, the same or the same model of the same manufacturer, and compatible machines that are compatible with each other but are different are often connected.

  It is assumed that a processing program for distributed printing processing is installed so that each of the plurality of printers 16 also functions as a master printer. Therefore, when one printer among a plurality of printers 16 is designated, the printer functions as a master printer, and a printer of the same model as the master printer or a compatible machine functions as a slave printer. A print processing system will be constructed. As a result, depending on the model of the printer designated first, the printer functioning as the slave side may be different.

  FIG. 2 is a system diagram showing an outline of the printer 16 according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the printer 16 is connected to the LAN cable 14 by an interface 22 provided on the printer 16 side, and controls the operation of the printer 16 based on an instruction from the terminal device 12 or the LAN cable 14. Data can be exchanged with other printers 16 connected to the.

  The interface 22 is connected to an internal bus 24. As is well known, the internal bus 24 has a CPU 30 functioning as a control unit for controlling the entire printer, memory means for storing various processing programs such as a ROM 32, a work piece, and the like. A memory means such as a RAM 34 is connected to be used as an area or to temporarily store calculation data using distributed print information.

  Furthermore, a reception buffer 36 for storing information from the terminal device 12, a page buffer 38 for expanding print page information into page data page by page, and a printing unit 40 are provided.

  The reception buffer 36 includes at least page information to be printed created by the terminal device 12, distributed print instruction information for distributed printing, and the like. The distributed printing instruction information is the number of copies to be printed, the number of printed sheets, and the like. The page buffer 38 is a buffer for storing page data obtained by expanding received print page information in units of pages. In the normal print mode, page data to be printed next is generated, whereas in the distributed print mode, page data is generated by the number of printers to be distributed printed. However, it is obvious that the generated print page differs depending on the printer to which the page data is to be transferred.

  Although the details are omitted, the printing unit 40 has all the mechanism units that can print the received print page information in units of pages.

  The ROM 32 stores a distributed printing processing program in the distributed printing mode in addition to various processing programs for realizing the function as a printer as described above. This distributed printing function is designated first by the terminal device 12 so that the designated printer functions as a master, and the master printer analyzes the distributed printing instruction information and operates other printers as slave printers. It has a control function to make it.

  That is, for each of the printers 16 connected to the LAN cable 14 that is a network, a function for recognizing the number of the same type or compatible machines that can be used on the network, and a print job for each recognized printer. Each printer 16 has a function of allocating.

  Next, main processing examples in the distributed printing system 10 constructed in this way will be described below.

(A) Processing on the terminal device 12 side (1) On the terminal device 12 side, page information to be printed is generated and stored. For example, print page information for n pages is stored.

  (2) Start up the application software and use the print dialog box to select a printer to be used as a master for performing distributed printing. Which printer is selected is arbitrary. In this print dialog box, it is possible to set the number of copies to be printed and the print page. At the same time, the distributed printing mode is selected.

  (3) Since the appearance of the print dialog box is determined by the application software to be used, the distributed print mode is instructed by clicking on the click field provided on the printer property setting screen (not shown). be able to. For this reason, in this embodiment, a click field for specifying the distributed printing mode is specially provided on the printer property setting screen.

  (4) The selected printer that has received the distributed printing instruction information performs processing for distributed printing as a master printer.

(B) Processing on the Printer (Master Printer) 16 Side (1) The print page information to be printed and the distributed print instruction information are stored in the reception buffer 36.

  (2) Communication with a plurality of printers connected to the LAN cable 14 (communication using a TCP / IP communication protocol) is performed, and printer information for printers capable of communication is acquired.

  The printer that can communicate with the master printer is the same type as the master printer or a compatible machine, and such a printer functions as a slave printer. Other printers cannot be slave printers even if they are connected to the LAN cable 14 and a network is constructed.

  (3) The printer information received from the slave printer is analyzed. The printer information includes specification information of the printer and status information (print job information) indicating whether the printer is waiting.

  Since the master printer can grasp how many of the same type or compatible machine as the master printer from the acquired printer information and how many of them can operate, calculate the number of distributed prints from the number of printers waiting for jobs, Assign to slave printers for distributed printing.

  When receiving a print command of m pages and n copies from the terminal device 12 side and controlling the master printer 16 to perform distributed printing as a result of analysis on the master printer 16 side, m / p pages are used for one printer. The printing time is ideally reduced to 1 / p.

  (4) The printer information used as a slave printer and the print end information of all pages are transmitted to the terminal device 12 side. As a result, the user can easily grasp how many printers and which printers are used to print and the print job has already been completed, so that the printed pages can be collected smoothly after the printing is completed.

  (5) The printer information acquired from the slave printer may include information such as the printer manufacturer name, model number, printer printing environment (specification), whether the job is in progress, or waiting for a job. The printer's printing environment includes the size of the loaded paper, image quality (dpi), printing speed (printing speed), borderless printing, color or monochrome only, 4 colors (YMCK) for color, and other It is assumed that printer attribute information such as “K” is included.

  Next, an example of distributed printing processing of the printer according to the present invention will be described with reference to a flowchart with reference to FIG.

  When the distributed print processing program is activated, the print job reception standby state is set (step 41). The print job here is a print instruction command from the terminal device 12 side.

  When the print job information is received, the print page information received from the terminal device 12 is stored in the reception buffer 36 (step 42). Here, the information to be stored includes, in addition to print data (for all pages), the number of copies to be distributed, the number of prints, and the like, which are distributed print instruction information.

  As a result of analyzing the distributed printing instruction information, when the printing is not the distributed printing instruction but the normal printing, that is, the printing using only the designated printer 16 (for example, 16A), the normal printing process is executed (step 43). , 44).

  On the other hand, when it is determined that the instruction is a distributed printing instruction (step 43), the printer 16A selected by the terminal device 12 becomes the master, and all control for the distributed printing is performed by the master printer 16A. First, communication is performed with a plurality of printers 16 on the network, and printer information from each is obtained (step 45). Since only the printer that has acquired the printer information can be controlled by the master printer 16A, this printer functions as a slave printer. The printers that can communicate with each other are the printers subject to distributed printing control, and the number of printers that can be distributed printed. The printer that can communicate is the same type as the master printer or a compatible machine.

  The printer information includes status information indicating whether or not the slave printer is currently empty (print standby state), printer specification information, and the like. In this example, distributed printing is performed from the acquired status information. Set (specify) the actual slave printer and save the information.

  Next, printer designation information indicating which slave printer has been designated as a printer for distributed printing is returned to the terminal device 12 (step 46). Accordingly, the operator can grasp which printer connected to the LAN cable 14 is used as a slave printer by referring to the printer designation information displayed on the terminal device 12. As the printer designation information, the printer identification number (set by the user), the IP address of the printer, and the like can be considered.

  Subsequently, the obtained printer information is further analyzed, and distributed print information for each slave printer is calculated from the number of slave printers that are currently available, that is, the number of printable printers, and the calculated information is stored (step 47). . Here, the distributed print information is the number of print pages (number of prints), the print start page, and the like.

  For example, when the number of distributed prints is three and all three are available, for example, one copy of 400 pages, three slave printers 16B, 16C and 16D, and one master printer 16A. When distributed printing is performed with a total of four units, 100 pages are distributed per unit. For example, if the master printer 16A prints from page 1 to page 100, the slave printer 16B is allocated from page 101 to page 200, and similarly, the slave printer 16C is from page 201 to page 300 and the remaining slaves. The printer 16D is allocated from page 301 to the last 400 pages.

  There may be a case where the number of pages to be distributed cannot be divided by the number of available distributed prints in an empty state. In that case, the slave printer (slave printer 16D in this example) that prints the last page can be configured to handle the fraction. Of course, the master printer 16A can handle fractional printing.

  When the calculation of the distributed print information is completed in this way, next, the page data for printing corresponding to the print number is expanded (step 48). In the above-described example, four pages of one page, 101 page, 201 page, and 301 page are sequentially generated as page data and stored in the page buffer 38. Each page data obtained by the expansion is transferred to the corresponding slave printers 16B to 16D (step 49). Each of the slave printers 16B to 16D executes printing for one page based on the received page data. At the same time, the first page data is sent to the printing unit 40 to the master printer 16A, and printing for one page is executed.

  After the page data is transferred, the standby mode for receiving the print end commands from the master printer and the slave printer is set (step 50). When a print end command is received from a specific printer (master printer or slave printer), the process returns to step 48 to perform data expansion processing for generating page data of the next page to be printed by the printer, and the corresponding page. Data is transferred to the corresponding printer (steps 51, 48, 49).

  Such page data expansion processing, page data transfer processing for one expanded page, and print end command reception standby processing are executed for each corresponding slave printer. For print pages, the job log is managed for each slave printer. The same applies to the number of copies to be printed.

  The reception timing of the print end command differs depending on the slave printer model and printer specifications. For example, the printing speed is different depending on whether all slave printers including the master printer are of the same type or compatible machines.

  When all the print pages assigned to all the slave printers 16B to 16D and the master printer 16A have been completed (step 52), the print end information is transferred to the terminal device 12 so that all the distributed printing processes are performed. The process ends (step 53).

  When the print page information received from the terminal device 12 is for color, and the print data is R, G, B primary color data, in step 48, the print data is converted to Y (yellow), for example. , M (magenta color), C (cyan color), and K (black color), and then processing to develop the page data.

  In the above example, page data expanded in units of pages is transmitted to the slave printer, so that the operation of expanding the page data is unnecessary on the slave printer side, so the processing load on the slave printer side is reduced. There are benefits.

  In the embodiment described above, the print page information is expanded for each page on the master printer side, and the page data is transferred to the corresponding slave printer side. However, the print page information before being expanded to page data is slaved. It is also possible to configure such that printing is started after transmission to the printer 16 side and development into page data on the slave printer 16 side.

  The present invention can be applied to a distributed printing system capable of executing distributed printing for a plurality of printers connected on a network.

1 is a system diagram showing a construction example of a distributed printing system to which a printer according to the present invention is applied. It is a systematic diagram of the principal part of the printer concerning this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of the distributed printing method which concerns on this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Distributed printing system, 12 ... Terminal device, 14 ... LAN cable, 16 ... Printer, 22 ... Interface, 30 ... CPU, 36 ... Reception buffer, 38 ... .Page buffer, 40 ... printing section

Claims (10)

Computer to perform distributed printing,
Receiving distributed print instruction information from the terminal device;
Analyzing printer information acquired from a plurality of printers connected to the network based on the received distributed printing instruction information;
Transmitting print page information to a printer capable of distributed printing based on the acquired printer information;
A distributed printing method using a network, characterized in that it functions as a network. The step of analyzing the printer information further includes a step of determining whether the model is capable of distributed printing from the information included in the printer information;
Setting a printer for distributed printing based on information on whether or not busy is included in the printer information;
2. The distributed printing method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of setting a distributed print number for each printer in accordance with the number of distributed prints. The step of analyzing the printer information includes
The distributed printing method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of transmitting information related to a printer capable of distributed printing to the terminal device. 2. The distributed printing method according to claim 1, wherein the print page information is information in page units. 2. The distributed printing method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of transmitting new print page information by receiving print end information from the printer capable of distributed printing. 2. The distributed printing method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of transmitting to the terminal device information indicating that all of the number of printed sheets included in the distributed printing instruction information has been completed. Means for receiving distributed printing instruction information from the terminal device;
Means for analyzing printer information acquired from a plurality of printers connected to the network based on the received distributed printing instruction information;
Means for transmitting print page information to a printer capable of distributed printing based on the acquired printer information;
A printer having a distributed printing function. In the means for analyzing the printer information,
Based on the information included in the printer information, it is determined whether the model is capable of distributed printing, and based on the information included in the printer information whether the printer is busy or not, a printer for distributed printing is specified, and the specified number of distributed printing units 8. The printer according to claim 7, wherein processing for setting the number of distributed prints for each printer is performed in accordance with the printer. 8. The printer according to claim 7, wherein the means for analyzing the printer information further has a function of transmitting information relating to a printer capable of distributed printing to the terminal device. 8. The printer according to claim 7, further comprising means for transmitting to the terminal device information indicating that all of the number of printed sheets included in the distributed printing instruction information has been completed.

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