JP2007062242A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing system which prevents a misprint caused by an error in setting or the like of the printing condition from occurring, and has a constitution provided at a low cost. <P>SOLUTION: The printing system comprises: a host computer 10 in which a printer driver 15 for forming and transmitting printing data containing preview image data for making a user determine whether a printing is made (for making the user confirm an existence of the setting mistake of the printing condition) is installed; and a printer 20 having a function which makes the user specify whether the printing is made by displaying the preview image data included in the printing data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing system including a printer and a host computer.

  As is well known, in recent years, some commercially available printers are provided with digital camera photographs (image data such as JPEG and TIFF) on the memory card when the memory card is attached to the printer. There is one that can be displayed on an LCD and a photograph to be printed can be selected (for example, see Patent Document 1).

  All existing printers having the functions described above are designed to perform printing only when print data is received from the host. However, in order to prevent misprints due to mistakes in setting print conditions, etc. It is also conceivable to configure the printer so that a preview image of the print result is displayed upon reception.

JP 2004-241199 A

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a printing system that can prevent misprinting due to a printing condition setting error or the like and that can be realized at low cost.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, in the present invention, a print data generation / transmission program is installed in the present invention, which generates print data including preview image data representing a print result of the printer of its own data and transmits it to the printer Host computer, display means for displaying image, operation means capable of performing print start instruction operation and print stop instruction operation, receiving means for receiving print data from host computer, received by receiving means Display control means for displaying on the display means the image indicated by the preview image data included in the print data, and the print data received by the receiving means when a print start instruction operation is performed on the operation means The generation of the printed matter with the content according to the start was started, and the operation stop instruction operation was performed on the operation means. Expediently, keep as including a printer having a discarding print execution means to print data received by the receiving means (apparatus capable of performing printing based on the print data).

  That is, in the printing system of the present invention, preview image data for making the user decide whether or not to perform printing (making the user confirm whether there is a setting error in the printing conditions, etc.) is created on the host computer side (printer). (Not created on the side). A printer that does not have a function of generating preview image data from print data can be manufactured at a lower cost than a printer that has a function of generating preview image data from print data. Even if the process of generating data is performed, no problem occurs. For this reason, it can be said that the printing system of the present invention is a system that can prevent misprinting due to a printing condition setting error or the like and that can be realized at low cost.

  When realizing the printing system of the present invention, the printing execution means of the printer is printed by the receiving means so that the printing is started immediately when a printing start instruction operation is performed on the operating means. When data is received, it is desirable to provide a means for starting a process for preparing data necessary for generating a printed matter having contents corresponding to the print data.

  Further, when realizing the printing system of the present invention, the print data generation / transmission program causes the user to set the character information specification information for specifying the character information to be displayed in the preview image and manage the character information specification. Preview that represents an image that has the information management function and displays the character information specified by the character information specification information managed by the character information specification information management function on the image that represents the print result of the printer of its own data It can be a program that generates image data and sends it to a printer.

  Further, when realizing the printing system of the present invention, in order to simplify the contents of processing that must be performed by the display control means of the printer (the display control means can be realized at low cost), The print data generation / transmission program is desirably a program for generating / transmitting print data including preview image data having the number of pixels that can be displayed as it is on the display unit of the printer.

  Hereinafter, the best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  First, an outline of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system according to the present embodiment includes one or more (in the figure, one) host computer (“host” in the figure) 10 and a printer 20 that are connected by a parallel cable or the like. It is a connected system.

  A host computer 10 constituting the printing system is a computer in which a printer driver 15 is installed.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the printer 20 includes an operation panel 30, a CPU, various I / F circuits (“NW”, “parallel”, “USB” in the figure), IO control ASIC, memory control ASIC, SDRAM, ROM , An image processing ASIC, a print engine, and the like. The print engine used in the printer 20 performs printing by attaching toner of each color to a photoreceptor using laser light. As shown in FIG. 3, the operation panel 30 includes a color liquid crystal display 31 (hereinafter also referred to as LCD 31), a cancel switch 32, a print switch 33, and the like.

  Based on the above, the configuration and operation of the printing system according to the present embodiment will be described more specifically below.

  First, the operation of the host computer 10 (function of the printer driver 15) will be described.

  The property dialog box displayed by the printer driver 15 includes a preview display setting tab 40 as shown in FIG. 4 (having a plurality of tabs).

  The option button 41 on the preview display setting tab 40 is an item for designating whether or not to display a preview image (see FIG. 7; details will be described later) on the LCD 31 before actual printing.

  The option buttons 42 to 45 respectively display whether the number of printed sheets (number of pages), resolution, paper size, and user information (character string set in the text box 46) are displayed in the preview image (on the LCD 31). Is an item for specifying. In the screen example display area 47, an image showing the configuration of the preview image displayed on the LCD 31 according to the current setting (option buttons 42 to 45, setting contents of the text box 46, an image showing the presence / absence of assignment, etc.) It is an item displayed inside. These items (option buttons 42 to 45, text box 46, screen example display area 47) are items that function only when the option button 41 is on.

  The printer driver 15 is a program that executes the processing of the procedure shown in FIG. 5 when an instruction to start printing is given.

  That is, the printer driver 15 instructed to start printing first determines whether or not the preview display is on (a setting operation for turning on the option button 41 is performed by the user) (step S1). S101).

  If the preview display is not turned on (step S101; NO), the printer driver 15 creates normal format print data (print data that does not include preview image data described later) and sends it to the printer 20. After performing the process to transmit (step S102), the process of this figure is complete | finished.

  On the other hand, when the preview display is turned on (step S101; NO), the printer driver 15 displays information set for the preview display (setting values of the option buttons 42 to 45 and the text box 46) and the print target. Then, a process of creating preview image data from the electronic data (step S103) is performed. More specifically, in step S103, the printer driver 15 directly performs the enlargement / reduction (change of the number of pixels) on the LCD 31 in the RGB format representing the printing result of the first electronic data to be printed. A process of creating image data that can be displayed (even if it is not performed) and a process of processing the image data into information that indicates character information (such as the number of printed sheets) according to information set for preview display ( The processing result of this processing is preview image data).

  Then, the printer driver 15 that has created the preview image data performs a process of creating print data including the preview image data and transmitting it to the printer 20 (step S102), and then ends the process of FIG.

  Next, the operation of the printer 20 when receiving print data will be described.

  As shown in FIG. 6, in the printer 20 that has received the print data, first, a process of storing the print data in the SDRAM (step S201) is performed. This process is performed by DMA transfer.

  Next, a process of determining whether preview image data (PV data in the figure) is included in the received / stored print data is performed (step S202).

  If the print data does not include the preview image data (step S202; NO), the print control process is started (step S203). Here, the print control process is a process for causing the print engine to generate a printed matter having contents corresponding to the print data. This print control process is a process (hereinafter referred to as a process for generating data of a predetermined format (data supplied to the print engine) by analyzing the contents of the print data, similar to what is performed in a general color laser printer. Data analysis processing) and processing (hereinafter referred to as data supply processing) that sequentially supplies data generated by the data analysis processing to the print engine (data analysis processing and data supply processing are parallel) To be executed automatically).

  After the process of step S203, the process of this figure is complete | finished and the printer 20 will be in the state which is performing the printing control process (The state which is printing the received print data).

  On the other hand, when preview image data is included in the print data (step S202; YES), a process of DMA-transferring the preview image data on the SDRAM (preview image data included in the print data on the SDRAM) to the LCD 31 ( Step S204) is performed. That is, when the process of step S204 is performed, the printer 20 is in a state where a preview image is displayed on the LCD 31, as schematically shown in FIG.

  Thereafter, the data analysis process is started (step S205). Next, a process (step S206) for monitoring whether the cancel switch 32 or the print switch 33 (see FIGS. 3 and 7) is operated (pressed) is started.

  When the print switch 33 is operated (step S206; printing), the data supply process is started (step S207), and then the process shown in FIG. In this case, the printer 20 is in a state of executing a print control process (data analysis process started in step S205 and data supply process started in step S207).

  On the other hand, when the cancel switch 32 is operated (step S206; cancel), a process of stopping the data analysis process (step S208) is performed, and then the process shown in FIG. Then, the printer 20 is in a state of monitoring reception of print data (a state in which print control processing is not performed).

  As described above, in the printing system according to the present embodiment, the preview image data for allowing the user to determine whether or not to perform printing (allowing the user to check whether there is a setting error in the printing conditions) is stored in the host computer. The system is created on the 10 side (not created on the printer 20 side). A printer 20 that does not have a function of generating preview image data from print data can be manufactured at a lower cost than a printer that has a function of generating preview image data from print data. Further, the performance of recent computers (computers used as the host computer 10) does not cause any problems even if processing for generating preview image data is performed. For this reason, it can be said that the printing system according to the present embodiment is a system that can prevent a misprint due to a printing condition setting error or the like and has a configuration that can be realized at low cost.

<Deformation>
The printing system described above can be variously modified. For example, the printing system can be modified so that the number of printed sheets cannot be displayed on the LCD 31. Further, in order to simplify the firmware, the printer 20 is a device that starts the print control process when the print start is instructed after receiving the print data including the preview image data (immediately after receiving the print data). Can be modified to a device for starting the data analysis process. However, such a printer 20 is an apparatus that takes time until the sheet is actually ejected after instructing the start of printing. Therefore, it is desirable to adopt the configuration of the embodiment.

  Alternatively, the printer driver 15 can create preview image data having a larger number of pixels than the number of pixels of the LCD 31, and the printer 20 can scroll the preview image.

  In addition, the configuration of the dialog box (preview display setting tab 40) for making settings related to the preview display, which is the hardware configuration of the printer 20, may be different from the above. Of course.

1 is a configuration diagram of a printing system according to an embodiment. 1 is a configuration diagram of a printer according to an embodiment. FIG. FIG. 3 is an external view of an operation panel included in the printer according to the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a preview display setting tab displayed by the printer driver according to the embodiment. 5 is a flowchart of processing executed by the printer driver according to the embodiment when print data is created. 6 is a flowchart of processing executed by the printer according to the embodiment when print data is received. FIG. 3 is an external view of an operation panel for explaining the operation of the printer according to the embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

10 host computer, 15 printer driver, 20 printer 30 operation panel, 31 color liquid crystal display (LCD)
32 Cancel switch, 33 Print switch, 40 Preview display setting tabs 41 to 45 Option button, 46 Text box, 47 Image example display area

Claims (4)

A printing system including a host computer and a printer,
In the host computer,
A print data generation / transmission program for generating print data including preview image data representing a print result of the data by the printer and transmitting the print data to the printer is installed.
The printer is
Display means for displaying an image;
An operation means capable of performing a print start instruction operation and a print stop instruction operation;
Receiving means for receiving print data from the host computer;
Display control means for causing the display means to display an image indicated by the preview image data included in the print data received by the receiving means;
When the print start instruction operation is performed on the operation unit, generation of a printed matter having contents corresponding to the print data received by the reception unit is started, and the print stop instruction is issued to the operation unit. A printing system comprising: a print execution unit that discards print data received by the reception unit when an operation is performed. The print execution means of the printer is
2. The printing according to claim 1, wherein when printing data is received by the receiving unit, the unit starts processing for preparing data necessary for generating a printed matter having contents corresponding to the printing data. system. The print data generation / transmission program is
A character information designation information management function for managing character information designation information for designating character information to be displayed in a preview image by allowing the user to set the character information on an image representing a print result of the printer by the printer; A program for generating preview image data representing an image showing character information designated by character information designation information managed by an information designation information management function and transmitting the preview image data to the printer. The printing system according to claim 1 or 2. The print data generation / transmission program is
The program according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the program generates and transmits print data including preview image data having a number of pixels that can be displayed as it is on the display unit of the printer. Printing system.