JP2007018224A - Driver program, data transmission method and print system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a driver program for making a host device perform processing for generating print data, and for transmitting the print data to a printer for shortening a time until the completion of print. <P>SOLUTION: In this driver program for making a host device execute processing for transmitting print data configured of a paper feed command for making a printer feed paper and a print data command including the data of an image to be printed by the printer to the printer, when the printer generates the print data corresponding to the predetermined range of print processing successively in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command, the print data in the predetermined range is transmitted to the printer with the paper feed command at a predetermined packet size or less, and the print data command is successively transmitted at the predetermined packet size after transmitting the paper feed command. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a driver program that causes a host device to execute processing for generating print data and transmitting it to a printing apparatus, and more particularly to a driver program that can shorten the time until printing is completed.

  Usually, in a printing system including a host device such as a personal computer and a printer, print data for the printer is generated by the host device and transmitted to the printer, and the printer receives and interprets the print data. The printing process is executed based on the result.

  Here, when the printer is of an ink jet type, printing is performed while a head unit having a nozzle for ejecting ink moves with respect to a print medium such as paper. When the printing medium moves from one end to the other in one direction, that is, when one pass (scanning) is completed, the printing medium moves in a direction orthogonal to the movement of the head unit for the next pass printing. Then, printing by the head unit is performed. Therefore, in this type of printer, a so-called paper feeding operation is required for each pass. Therefore, the above-described print data for the printer is composed of a paper feed command for performing the paper feed operation for one pass and a print data command including image data to be printed.

  Conventionally, in such a printing system, transmission of the print data for one pass from the host device to the printer is sequentially performed for each predetermined packet size from the beginning of the print data starting with the paper feed command. It was. Recently, in order to make full use of the capability of a communication port with improved transfer performance, the packet size sent in one transfer is increasing.

Several techniques for performing packet communication of a predetermined size in this way have been proposed. For example, the following Patent Document 1 shows that data packets are periodically transmitted with the same packet size, and the following Patent Document 2 discloses a predetermined division when sending compressed data by packet communication. The point of transmission with the data length is shown.
JP 11-188953 A JP 2003-60650 A

  In the conventional print data transmission method including the paper feed command described above, the size of the paper feed command is very small with respect to the packet size to be used. The packet size data composed of commands is transmitted to the printer. Then, the printer performs a paper feeding operation by a paper feeding command included in the data.

  Therefore, the printer cannot perform the paper feeding operation until at least the print data command transmitted together with the paper feed command is generated on the host device side. In particular, if the print data command cannot be transmitted to the printer side unless all the print data commands for one pass have been generated, the printer side performs the paper feeding operation until the generation of the print data command for one pass is completed. Will not be able to.

  Normally, the print data command generation processing in the host device and the paper feeding operation on the printer side are time-consuming processes. In the conventional data transmission method, these two processes requiring time are performed in parallel. It can be said that there is no state. Therefore, it can be said that this is one problem in reducing the time required from the print request on the host device side to the completion of the print processing in the printer.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a driver program for causing a host device to execute processing for generating print data and transmitting it to a printing apparatus, and to provide a driver program that can shorten the time until completion of printing. It is.

  To achieve the above object, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided print data including a paper feed command for feeding a printing apparatus and a print data command including image data to be printed by the printing apparatus. In the driver program for causing the host device to execute processing to be transmitted to the printing device, the print data corresponding to a predetermined range of print processing in the printing device is generated in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command. Occasionally, transmission of the predetermined range of print data to the printing device transmits the paper feed command with less than a predetermined packet size, and sequentially transmits the print data command with the predetermined packet size after the transmission. , Is to be done by.

  Furthermore, in the above invention, a preferred aspect is characterized in that the paper feed command for the predetermined range of print data is transmitted before the generation of the corresponding print data command is completed.

  Furthermore, in the above invention, a preferred aspect is that when print data corresponding to the predetermined range is generated, a dummy command indicating a command delimiter is generated after the paper feed command, and the print data in the predetermined range is generated. The paper feed command is transmitted together with the dummy command.

  Furthermore, in the above invention, according to one aspect, the generation of the print data command of the print data corresponding to the predetermined range is performed after the generation of the print data command is completed. The transmission is performed so that transmission is possible.

  In order to achieve the above object, another aspect of the present invention provides print data comprising a paper feed command for causing a printing apparatus to feed paper and a print data command including image data to be printed by the printing apparatus. In the data transmission method for transmitting to the printing apparatus, the generation of the print data corresponding to the predetermined range of the printing process in the printing apparatus is performed in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command. Transmission of print data to the printing apparatus is performed by transmitting the paper feed command with a size smaller than a predetermined packet size, and sequentially transmitting the print data command with the predetermined packet size after the transmission. It is.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to still another aspect of the present invention, a host device that generates and transmits print data including a paper feed command and a print data command including image data to be printed, and the transmitted In the printing system having a printing device that receives print data and executes printing based on the print data, the host device sends the print data corresponding to a predetermined range of print processing in the printing device to the paper feed command , Generating the print data commands in order, transmitting the print data in the predetermined range, transmitting the paper feed command with less than a predetermined packet size, and after the transmission, transmitting the print data command to the predetermined packet size The printing apparatus sends the sent paper feed command for the predetermined range of print data. When signal, regardless of the reception of the print data corresponding commands, is to perform a feeding operation based on the paper feed command.

  Further objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the embodiments of the invention described below.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. However, such an embodiment does not limit the technical scope of the present invention. In the drawings, the same or similar elements are denoted by the same reference numerals or reference symbols.

  FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram according to an embodiment of a printing system to which the present invention is applied. A printing system 1 shown in FIG. 1 is a printing system to which the present invention is applied. Regarding transmission of print data for one pass, first, only a dummy command indicating a separation between a paper feed command and a command is less than a predetermined packet size. Transmitting to the printer 3 and starting the paper feeding operation in the printer 3 earlier than before, generating the print data command in the host computer 2 and the paper feeding operation in the printer 3 in parallel to shorten the time until the printing is completed. It is about to try.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system 1 in the present embodiment includes a host computer 2 and a printer 3.

  The host computer 2 is a host device that transmits print data to the printer 3 to make a print request, and is configured by, for example, a personal computer. As shown in FIG. 1, the host computer 2 includes an application 21, a printer driver 22, a data buffer 25, and the like.

  The application 21 is, for example, a print request source such as document creation software, and passes drawing data to be printed to the printer driver 22 in a predetermined format.

  The printer driver 22 is a part that receives print requests from the application 21, generates print data to be sent to the printer 3, and transmits the print data to the printer 3. As shown in FIG. 1, the printer driver 22 includes a command generation unit 23 that is a part that generates the print data and a command transmission unit 24 that is a part that transmits the generated print data to the printer 3. . The printer driver 22 is characterized by a method of transmitting print data for one pass composed of a paper feed command and a print data command, and specific processing contents will be described later. The printer driver 22 can be configured by a program for instructing a processing procedure and a control device that executes processing according to the program. Further, the program is provided in the host computer 2 by installing a program stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM or by downloading it from a predetermined site via a network such as the Internet.

  Next, the data buffer 25 is data storage means for temporarily storing the generated print data, and is constituted by a memory provided in the host computer 2.

  The printer 3 is a printing device in the printing system 1 and is, for example, an ink jet printer that receives print data from the host computer 2 and executes printing based on the print data. Although not shown, the printer 3 includes a portion for interpreting received print data and issuing a print instruction, a portion for executing print processing in accordance with the instruction, and the like. The portion that executes the printing process includes a head unit that includes a plurality of nozzles that eject ink onto a printing medium such as paper, and printing is performed while the head unit moves on the printing medium. In addition, a paper feeding device that supplies a printing medium such as paper is provided, and performs an operation of moving the printing medium to a predetermined printing position. With respect to a single print medium, the paper feed from the paper feed tray or the paper feed cassette that is performed first and the movement to the print position that is performed for each scan of the head unit are performed. The paper feeding operation by the paper feeding device is executed based on the paper feeding command included in the print data.

  As described above, the printing system 1 according to the present embodiment having the above-described configuration is characterized by the transmission of print data to the printer 3. Hereinafter, the processing of the printing system 1 will be described focusing on this point. The procedure will be described. First, print data for one pass generated by the host computer 2 and transmitted to the printer 3 will be described. FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining print data for one pass and its transmission method. FIG. 2A is a diagram schematically showing print data for one pass (a in the figure). At the top, there is a paper feed command b for executing the paper feed operation in the printer 3 described above, followed by a print data command d including data of an image to be printed. A dummy command c indicating a command delimiter is inserted between. The size of the print data a varies depending on the object to be printed, but the sizes of the paper feed command b and the dummy command c are considerably smaller than the print data command d.

  Hereinafter, the processing procedure in each part of the printing system 1 will be described sequentially. Here, processing of print data for one pass of the head unit in the printer 3 will be described. First, the command generation unit 23 of the printer driver 22 generates a paper feed command that is the head portion of print data for one pass, adds a dummy command to the paper feed command, and passes the command to the command transmission unit 24. Thereafter, the command generation unit 23 generates a print data command and passes the generated print data command to the command transmission unit 24.

  Next, when receiving the paper feed command and the dummy command from the command generation unit 23, the command transmission unit 24 first transmits them to the printer 3. This is a point that is greatly different from the conventional method. Instead of waiting for the next print data command to be received and making the packet size and transmitting it to the printer 3 so as to have a predetermined packet size, Transmission is performed in a state of a paper feed command and a dummy command that are less than the packet size. Thereafter, the print data commands passed from the command generation unit 23 are sequentially received and stored. When the stored print data commands reach the packet size, the stored print data commands are transmitted to the printer 3 with the packet size. This is repeated until the transmission of the print data of the pass is completed.

  FIG. 2B illustrates a transmission method by the command transmission unit 24. First, the command transmission unit 24 uses the printer 3 as the first transmission of the paper feed command b and the dummy command c for the path. Send to. Thereafter, the print data command d is sequentially received from the command generation unit 23 and transmitted to the printer 3 every time a predetermined packet size (for example, 16 kbytes) is reached (second and third times in the figure). In this example, the transmission of the print data “a” of the pass is completed by the fourth transmission.

  FIG. 2C illustrates a case where print data of the same pass is transmitted by the conventional method. As shown in the figure, conventionally, transmission is performed in a predetermined packet size (for example, 16 kbytes), so that it is not transmitted immediately after receiving the paper feed command b, but waits for the print data command d. When the accumulated amount reaches the packet size, transmission to the printer is performed (first time in the figure). Thereafter, transmission is performed every time the amount of data received and accumulated reaches the packet size (second time in the figure). In this example, transmission for the path is completed with the third transmission.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure performed by the command transmission unit 24. FIG. 3A shows command reception processing performed by the command transmission unit 24. In this reception processing, first, a command transmitted from the command generation unit 23 is accepted (step S11). Then, the received command is spooled (stored) in the data buffer 25 (step S12). Thereafter, it is checked whether or not all commands have been spooled for one path (step S13). If all spooling has not been completed (No in step S13), the processing from step S11 is repeated. That is, after the next command transmission from the command generation unit 23, the spooling is performed in the same manner.

  On the other hand, if all the spooling has been completed (Yes in step S13), the command transmission process described later is notified that the spooling of all commands has been completed (step S14). As a result, the reception process for the command for one pass is completed.

  FIG. 3B shows a command transmission process performed by the command transmission unit 24. In this transmission process, the data buffer 25 is first checked (step S21). If all commands have already been transmitted to the printer 3 for the path being processed (Yes in step S22), the transmission process for the path is terminated.

  On the other hand, if all the commands have not been transmitted to the printer 3 (No in step S22), the size of the command stored in the data buffer 25 and not transmitted to the printer 3 is equal to or larger than the predetermined (transfer) packet size. It is checked whether or not (step S23). If the packet size is equal to or larger than the packet size (Yes in step S23), the command stored in the data buffer 25 and not transmitted to the printer 3 is transmitted to the printer 3 with the packet size (step S26). Thereafter, the process returns to step S21 described above.

  On the other hand, if it is not larger than the packet size (No in step S23), it is checked whether there is a dummy command in the commands stored in the data buffer 25 and not transmitted to the printer 3 (step S24). If there is a dummy command (Yes in step S24), the command stored in the data buffer 25 and not transmitted to the printer 3 is transmitted to the printer 3 (step S26). Thereafter, the process returns to step S21 described above.

  On the other hand, if there is no dummy command (No in step S24), it is checked whether or not the spooling in the reception process of all commands for the path has been completed (step S25). If spooling has been completed for all commands (Yes in step S25), that is, if the notification in step S14 has been made, commands that have been accumulated in the data buffer 25 and not transmitted to the printer 3 are displayed. The data is transmitted to the printer 3 (step S26). Thereafter, the process returns to step S21 described above.

  On the other hand, if spooling has not been completed for all commands (No in step S25), that is, if the notification in step S14 has not been made yet, the process returns to step S21 described above.

  In this way, the processing is repeated until all commands have been transmitted to the printer 3 for the path being processed (Yes in step S22).

  In the example shown in FIG. 2B, when the paper feed command b and the dummy command c are received, not all commands have been transmitted for the path (No in S22), and the transfer packet size is satisfied. Although there is no (No in S23), since there is a dummy command (Yes in S24), the first transmission to the printer 3 is performed. Thereafter, the process from step S21 to step S25 is repeated while receiving the print data command d, and when the accumulated and untransmitted print data command d exceeds the transfer packet size (Yes in S23), 2 The second transmission is performed. Similarly, the third transmission is performed. Finally, when spooling is completed for all commands (Yes in S25), the fourth transmission is performed.

  This completes the processing on the host computer 2 side. Finally, the printer 3 first receives a paper feed command and a dummy command for the target path. The presence of the dummy command allows the printer 3 to recognize that the paper feed command has been completed, and thus starts a paper feed operation based on this paper feed command. That is, the paper feeding operation is started before receiving the print data command for the pass.

  Thereafter, print data commands are sequentially received, the commands are interpreted, and the printing operation is started. However, the paper feeding operation for that is already completed, and the printing operation can be started immediately.

  In this way, processing for one pass in the printing system 1 is performed.

  As described above, in the printing system 1 according to the present embodiment, when print data for one pass is transmitted from the host computer 2 to the printer 3, the paper feed command generated at the beginning of the print data A dummy command indicating a command delimiter is first transmitted with a size smaller than a predetermined packet size, and then a print data command is sequentially transmitted with the predetermined packet size. Accordingly, regardless of whether or not a print data command is generated, transmission of a paper feed command to the printer 3 and a paper feed operation by the printer 3 based on the paper feed command are performed, and it takes time in the processing. The generation of the print data command and the paper feeding operation can be executed in parallel, and the time from the print request to the completion of printing can be shortened.

  In particular, if the print data command for one pass cannot be generated in order for each part, in other words, if the print data command cannot be determined unless all the passes are generated, In the method in which the paper feed command and the print data command are transmitted together, the paper feed command cannot be transmitted to the printer unless all the print data commands for one pass are generated. Naturally, the paper feed operation cannot be started in the printer. In contrast, the paper feeding operation can be started earlier by the time required to generate all the print data commands for one pass.

  In the first pass process for the print medium (paper), the paper feed operation includes a process of transporting the print medium from a paper feed tray or the like. In this case, the above-described process can be similarly applied. The same effect can be obtained.

  The protection scope of the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but covers the invention described in the claims and equivalents thereof.

1 is a configuration diagram according to an embodiment of a printing system to which the present invention is applied. It is a figure for demonstrating the printing data for 1 pass, and its transmission method. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure performed by a command transmission unit 24.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printing system, 2 Host computer, 3 Printer, 21 Application, 22 Printer driver, 23 Command generation part, 24 Command transmission part, 25 Data buffer

Claims (6)

A driver program that causes a host device to execute processing for sending print data including a paper feed command for feeding paper to the printing device and print data commands including image data to be printed by the printing device. There,
When generation of the print data corresponding to a predetermined range of print processing in the printing apparatus is performed in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command,
The transmission of the predetermined range of print data to the printing apparatus transmits the paper feed command with a packet size less than a predetermined packet size, and sequentially transmits the print data command with the predetermined packet size after the transmission. A driver program characterized by being executed by In claim 1,
The driver program, wherein transmission of the paper feed command for the predetermined range of print data is performed before generation of the corresponding print data command is completed. In claim 1 or claim 2,
When print data corresponding to the predetermined range is generated, a dummy command indicating a command delimiter is generated next to the paper feed command,
The driver program, wherein transmission of the paper feed command for the predetermined range of print data is performed together with the dummy command. In any one of Claim 1 thru | or 3,
The generation of the print data command of the print data corresponding to the predetermined range is performed such that the transmission of the print data command is enabled after the generation of the print data command is completed. A driver program. A data transmission method for transmitting print data comprising a paper feed command for causing a printing apparatus to feed paper and a print data command including image data to be printed by the printing apparatus, to the printing apparatus,
When generation of the print data corresponding to a predetermined range of print processing in the printing apparatus is performed in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command,
The transmission of the predetermined range of print data to the printing apparatus transmits the paper feed command with a packet size less than a predetermined packet size, and sequentially transmits the print data command with the predetermined packet size after the transmission. The data transmission method characterized by being performed by. A host device that generates and transmits print data including a paper feed command and a print data command including image data to be printed, and a printing device that receives the transmitted print data and executes printing based on the print data A printing system comprising:
The host device generates the print data corresponding to a predetermined range of print processing in the printing device in the order of the paper feed command and the print data command, and transmits the print data in the predetermined range to the paper feed command. Is transmitted with less than a predetermined packet size, and after the transmission, the print data commands are sequentially transmitted with the predetermined packet size.
When the printing apparatus receives the transmitted paper feed command for the predetermined range of print data, the printing apparatus performs a paper feeding operation based on the paper feed command regardless of reception of the corresponding print data command. Characteristic printing system.

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