JP2006236204A - Image processor and image formation program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent a page from being printed in an overlapped state even if a failure occurs in the page in the middle of printing. <P>SOLUTION: This image processor for transmitting print data to a printer is provided with a print data generating means for generating print data from application data, a spooling means for spooling the print data generated by the print data generating means, a transmitting means for transmitting the print data spooled by the spooling means to the printer, a failure occurrence detecting means for detecting the occurrence of a failure in the printer, the number of output completed pages acquiring means for acquiring the number of pages whose output is completed in the printer when the failure occurrence detecting means detects the occurrence of a failure in the printer, and a retransmission control means for skipping the number of pages whose output is completed acquired by an output-completed page number acquiring means and retransmitting print data from the next page to the printer through the transmitting means. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image forming program.

Conventionally, when a user performs a print operation on a host PC, if a failure occurs on the printing device side during print data transmission, a spool error is detected by the spooler, and transmission is in progress after a certain period of time. The print data is retransmitted. Further, as a conventional technique, a technique has been proposed in which retransmission of print data is requested to the host PC side at the timing when the failure is cleared from the printing apparatus side (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2002-196916 A

  However, in the prior art, when a failure occurs on a page in the middle, the print data is retransmitted, including pages that have already been printed before the failure occurs, so the pages are printed redundantly on the printing device side. There is.

  The present invention has been made in consideration of such circumstances, and an image processing apparatus capable of preventing duplicate pages from being printed even when a failure occurs on a halfway page. An object is to provide an image forming program.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, the present invention provides an image processing apparatus that transmits print data to a printing apparatus, the print data generating unit that generates print data from application data, and the print data generating unit. Spool means for spooling the print data, transmission means for sending the print data spooled by the spool means to the printing apparatus, failure occurrence detection means for detecting occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus, and failure occurrence detection means When the occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus is detected by the above, the output completion page number acquisition means for acquiring the number of output completion pages in the printing apparatus and the output completion page number acquired by the output completion page number acquisition means are skipped. And retransmission control for retransmitting print data from the next page to the printing apparatus via the transmission means. Characterized by comprising a stage.

  The present invention includes a job identifier adding unit that handles each print data as one job and adds a job identifier for identifying each job to the print data, and the output completion page number acquiring unit includes the job identifier Based on the job identifier added by the adding means, the print data interrupted due to the occurrence of the failure is specified, and the number of output completed pages for the specified print data is acquired.

  The present invention is an image forming program for transmitting print data to a printing apparatus, a print data generation step for generating print data from application data, a spool step for spooling the generated print data, and the spooled data A transmission step for transmitting print data to the printing device, a failure detection step for detecting occurrence of a failure in the printing device, and the detection of occurrence of a failure in the printing device obtains the number of output completion pages in the printing device. The output completion page number acquisition step to be executed and the retransmission control step of skipping the output completion page number and retransmitting the print data from the next page to the printing apparatus are executed by the computer.

  The present invention further includes a job identifier adding step for handling each print data as one job and adding a job identifier for identifying each job to the print data, and the output completion page number acquiring step includes Based on the job identifier, print data interrupted due to the occurrence of a failure is specified, and the number of output completed pages for the specified print data is acquired.

  According to the present invention, when the occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus is detected, the number of output completion pages is acquired, the acquired number of output completion pages is skipped, and the print data from the next page is retransmitted to the printing apparatus. As a result, even if a failure occurs in the middle page, it is possible to prevent the pages from being printed repeatedly.

  Hereinafter, an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a host PC 1 is a so-called personal computer and outputs print data created by various applications by a user's print operation. The printer 2 prints the print data from the host PC 1 on a paper medium and outputs it. The host PC 1 and the printer 2 may be directly connected via a USB / LPT cable or may be connected via a LAN.

  Next, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the host PC 1 according to the present embodiment. The host PC 1 includes a printer driver 1-1, a spooler 1-2, a printer monitor 1-3, and a job monitor 1-4 as printing functions. The printer driver 1-1 creates print data from data created by the application and supplies the print data to the spooler 1-2.

  The spooler 1-2 temporarily holds (spools) print data that is generally transmitted to the low-speed printer 2 in order to release the host PC 1 side as soon as possible. The print data is spooled in units of jobs, and a plurality of jobs can be spooled sequentially.

  The print monitor 1-3 includes a language monitor 1-3-1 and a port monitor 1-3-2. The language monitor 1-3-1 assigns a job identifier for identifying the job for each job. In general, print data is given a job name by a printer job. In this case, a plurality of the same job names may be registered. Therefore, the job is identified by the job identifier to cope with the retransmission processing when a failure occurs on the printer 2 side. Details of this will be described later.

  The language monitor 1-3-1 activates a job monitor 1-4, which will be described later, in units of jobs, and transmits print data from the spooler 1-2 to the printer 2 in units of jobs. In addition, when a failure occurs on the printer 2 side, the language monitor 1-3-1 sets the job at the time of the failure as a retransmission job, skips the page printed out immediately before the occurrence of the failure, and then the page at the time of the failure. A job identifier is added as a new job, and the job monitor 1-4 is activated to execute printing. The port monitor 1-3-2 monitors the port.

  The job monitor 1-4 reads the performance of the printer 2 (maximum printable number per minute), and the job monitor 1-4 is activated for each job as described above, and the operation status (jobs) in the printer 2 is Status). In particular, in the present embodiment, when a failure occurs during the output of print data by the printer 2, the number of pages that have been output in the job is acquired in response to a request from the language monitor 1-3-1.

  Next, the operation of the above-described embodiment will be described. Here, FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the present embodiment. When a print request is generated from the user, the language monitor 1-3-1 generates a job identifier and adds it to the head of the print job (S1 to S4). The language monitor 1-3-1 starts the job monitor 1-4, starts transmission of the job A to the printer 2, and starts monitoring the job status being transmitted (S <b> 5 to S <b> 10).

  Note that the maximum value of the interval between S8 to S11 is determined from the maximum number of printable sheets per minute. For example, if it is 60 sheets / minute, it will become 1 second interval. The maximum number of printable sheets is the maximum speed at which blank sheet data is sent out, and is actually delayed according to the image processing time. Therefore, it is sufficient to monitor at intervals of 1 second.

  Next, when a communication error occurs between the host PC 1 and the printer 2, a port error occurs in the spooler 1-2 (S11 to S14). After a certain period of time has elapsed after the user or the spooler 1-2 (S16: after canceling the error), the print job being transmitted is restarted (S18). Since the language monitor 1-3-1 monitors the job status on the spooler 1-2, when the “restart” status is detected, the job monitor 1-4 registers the job as a retransmission job. The spooler 1-2 is notified that the job A has been completed (S19 to S21).

  When the resending of job A starts, the language monitor 1-3-1 confirms whether or not the resending job is registered with the already existing job monitor 1-4. The job identifier is acquired, and information indicating how many pages have been discharged by the printer 2 is acquired (S22 to S26). Also, the status monitoring of the job before resending which has been continuously performed is terminated (S27).

  In the resending job, data is re-sent from the first page. Therefore, for example, when the printer 2 has already discharged two pages, the language monitor 1-3-1 skips (reads skipping) the page. And a new job is transmitted to the printer 2 from the third page. At this time, a new job identifier is added to the head of the retransmission job so that the job status can be monitored by the job monitor 1-4 (S28 to S31). When the job monitor 1-4 detects that the output of the retransmission job has been normally completed, the language monitor 1-3-1 notifies the spooler 1-2 of the completion of the printing of the retransmission job (S32 to S37). .

  According to the above-described embodiment, since pages that have already been printed and discharged before the occurrence of an error are not transmitted to the printer 2, they are not printed redundantly, so that excess paper output can be suppressed. it can. Further, since the above-described processing is processing on the host PC 1 side, the printer 2 can be used as it is without modifying the existing one.

  In this way, print data is generated from the application data by the print data generation means, the generated print data is spooled by the spool means, and the spooled print data is transmitted to the printing apparatus by the transmission means. When the detection unit detects a failure in the printing apparatus, the output completion page number acquisition unit acquires the output completion page number in the printing apparatus, and the retransmission control unit skips the acquired number of output completion pages. Since the print data from the next page is retransmitted to the printing apparatus, it is possible to prevent the pages from being printed redundantly even when a failure occurs on the intermediate page. .

  A program for realizing the functions of the processing unit in FIG. 1 is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, and the program recorded on the recording medium is read by a computer system and executed to perform a printing process. May be. Here, the “computer system” includes an OS and hardware such as peripheral devices. The “computer-readable recording medium” refers to a portable medium such as a flexible disk, a magneto-optical disk, a ROM, and a CD-ROM, and a storage device such as a hard disk built in the computer system. Further, the “computer-readable recording medium” refers to a volatile memory (RAM) in a computer system that becomes a server or a client when a program is transmitted via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line. In addition, those holding programs for a certain period of time are also included.

  The program may be transmitted from a computer system storing the program in a storage device or the like to another computer system via a transmission medium or by a transmission wave in the transmission medium. Here, the “transmission medium” for transmitting the program refers to a medium having a function of transmitting information, such as a network (communication network) such as the Internet or a communication line (communication line) such as a telephone line. The program may be for realizing a part of the functions described above. Furthermore, what can implement | achieve the function mentioned above in combination with the program already recorded on the computer system, and what is called a difference file (difference program) may be sufficient.

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows the schematic structure of host PC1 by this embodiment. It is a sequence diagram for demonstrating the operation | movement of this embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Host PC, 1-1 ... Printer driver, 1-2 ... Spooler, 1-3 ... Print monitor, 1-3-1 ... Language monitor, 1-3-2 ..Port monitor, 1-4 ... job monitor, 2 ... printer

Claims (4)

An image processing apparatus that transmits print data to a printing apparatus,
Print data generation means for generating print data from application data;
Spool means for spooling print data generated by the print data generation means;
Transmitting means for transmitting print data spooled by the spool means to a printing apparatus;
A failure occurrence detecting means for detecting occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus;
When detecting the occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus by the failure occurrence detection means, an output completion page number acquisition means for acquiring the number of output completion pages in the printing apparatus;
A retransmission control unit that skips the output completion page number acquired by the output completion page number acquisition unit and retransmits print data from the next page to the printing apparatus via the transmission unit. An image processing apparatus. Job identifier adding means for handling each print data as one job and adding a job identifier for identifying each job to the print data,
The output completion page number acquisition unit specifies print data interrupted due to the occurrence of a failure based on the job identifier added by the job identifier addition unit, and acquires the number of output completion pages for the specified print data. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1. An image forming program for transmitting print data to a printing apparatus,
A print data generation step for generating print data from application data;
A spool step for spooling the generated print data;
A transmission step of transmitting the spooled print data to a printing apparatus;
A fault occurrence detection step for detecting a fault occurrence in the printing apparatus;
Upon detecting the occurrence of a failure in the printing apparatus, an output completion page number obtaining step for obtaining the number of output completion pages in the printing apparatus;
An image forming program which causes a computer to execute a retransmission control step of skipping the number of output completed pages and retransmitting print data from the next page to the printing apparatus. A job identifier adding step of handling each print data as one job and adding a job identifier for identifying each job to the print data;
4. The output completion page number acquiring step specifies print data interrupted due to the occurrence of a failure based on the job identifier, and acquires the number of output completion pages for the specified print data. Image forming program.

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