JP2007152898A - Printing processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To normally execute printing processing by automatically changing a printing mode with respect to unauthorized drawing not intended by a user, drawing incapability, and drawing delay. <P>SOLUTION: In a display list generation unit 24 in a printer 2, the printing mode is determined by acquiring unauthorized drawing, drawing incapability, and drawing processing time, and then the printing mode is changed in accordance with a specified printing mode. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a print processing apparatus and a print data control method for performing printing from a drawing command in a print processing system.

  Conventionally, in a print processing method in a print processing system, even when a printer has a plurality of print modes, for example, a PDL mode (among others, various emulation PDLs) and an image mode, the print mode used at the time of printing is selected. The user only used the print mode selected on the print setting screen.

  In the PDL mode, print data generated by the host device is PDL converted and transferred to the printer, and the printer side interprets the received PDL to create print data and prints it out. The advantage of the PDL mode is that it can print at a high speed with a light load printing process, such as a character printing process and a simple graphic printing process. The data size to be transferred can be relatively suppressed compared to the image mode described later. Even if the gradation is changed, there is no extreme change in the data size. Disadvantages of the PDL mode include the problem of performing complicated graphic processing, clip processing, etc., and receiving a large amount of drawing objects, consuming a large amount of memory, reducing the processing speed, and slowing down the printer throughput.

  In the image mode, print data is binarized by the host device and raster data is sent, and the printer expands the received raster data in a frame buffer and prints it out. The advantage of the image mode is that raster data is transferred, so that there is no drawing improper or illegal drawing that may occur when a page is generated on the printer side. Since there is an upper limit on the data size in units of pages, there is no unpredictable speed reduction that is caused by processing a large number of drawing objects. The disadvantage of the image mode is that it places a load on the network due to the large data size to be transferred. In PDL mode, it takes time to process data that can be expressed in characters and graphics. However, throughput has become faster because host computers can perform high-speed processing and transfer at high speed due to recent improvements in PC performance and transfer speed.

There is a processing apparatus that automatically sets printing conditions for such a technique. (See Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2)
A processing apparatus for automatically setting printing conditions, which is a conventional technique, will be described below.

In this technique, the print mode of a printer that has received the command is determined according to a printer control command (PDL command) generated on the printer driver. Specifically, in the mode selected by the user, the printing throughput of the printer and the printing throughput suitable for the print data are not selected, so that the printing throughput of each page is drawn by the printer driver of the host device. By calculating the processing time required for processing for each print mode that can be specified and specifying a print mode with a shorter print processing time, the optimal print mode can be selected regardless of the print mode set by the user. The print throughput is improved by automatically specifying each page.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-129583 JP 2002-55791 A

  In the print processing apparatus as described above, the host-side driver performs processing processing for each page and determines the print mode. When the PDL mode is selected, depending on the printer device configuration (CPU, memory, etc.), the host-side driver When the printer receives and processes PDL data, it does not have enough memory capacity or does not have a hardware accelerator that smoothly processes PDL data. There was a problem of causing drawing delay (the time required for drawing processing on the printer side was slow).

  In the print processing apparatus of the present invention, in a print processing apparatus that receives print data from a host device via an input / output interface and performs print processing, the print processing apparatus converts the PDL data into an intermediate language, and the conversion means Management means for managing usable memory usage, output means for outputting an error when the memory usage exceeds a predetermined capacity by the management means, and predictive calculation of drawing processing time for drawing processing of PDL data A calculating means; a comparing means for comparing the drawing processing time with a drawing processing time in another printing mode; a determining means for determining a printing mode from information on results of the output means and the comparing means; and the determining means. Notification means for notifying the determined print mode to a host device having a printer driver.

  By applying the present invention, a printer with a weak device configuration capability (low memory capacity and not equipped with an optimal hardware accelerator) automatically renders rendering impossible, rendering fraud, and rendering delay unpredictable by the user. There is an effect to avoid.

  The present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a printer system according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the basic configuration of the system is that a host computer (host device or host) 1 and a printer 2 are connected through a communication line, and the host device 1 and the printer 2 are connected via a communication line. Send and receive information such as orders. The host device 1 includes an application 11 for creating print data such as a word processor or spreadsheet, a graphic engine 12 for loading a printer driver, a printer driver 13 prepared for each model, and an input / output interface 17. The printer driver 13 includes a PDL data generation unit 14 that generates PDL data, a spool file 16 that stores PDL data, and a drawing processing unit 15 that rasterizes PDL data. The printer 2 includes a controller 21 and an engine 30. The controller 21 generates a display list that stores the PDL data in an intermediate language as a PDL interpretation unit 23 that interprets the PDL data generated by the input / output interface 22 and the PDL data generation unit 14 of the host device 1 and stores it in the display list 28. A drawing processing unit 29 that renders an intermediate language (display list) stored in the unit 24 and the display list 28. The display list generation unit 24 includes a PDL error interpretation unit 25 that detects an error during display list generation, a drawing processing time prediction unit 26 that predicts a processing time in the drawing processing unit 29 based on the number of objects and the device configuration, and a PDL error interpretation unit. A print mode determination unit 27 that determines the print mode from the error interpreted in 25 and the calculation result in the drawing processing time prediction unit 26.

  The flow of print data in this system will be schematically described. Print data generated by the application 10 is converted into PDL data by the PDL data generation unit 14 of the printer driver 13. The converted PDL data is temporarily stored in the spool file 16 and passed to the PDL interpretation unit 23 of the printer 2 via the input / output interfaces 17 and 22. A display list is generated by the display list generation unit 25 based on the interpreted PDL data. If the determination result of the print mode determination unit 27 is satisfactory, the display list is stored in the display list 28, and the display list is used. The data is rasterized by the drawing processing unit 29 and transferred to the engine 30. If the print mode determination unit 27 has a problem, the drawing processing unit 15 acquires PDL data from the spool file 16 via the input / output interfaces 22 and 17, and rasterizes the drawing processing unit 15 to obtain the input / output interfaces 17 and 17. 22 to the engine 30.

  The print mode determination unit 27 will be described in detail based on the results of the PDL error interpretation unit 25 and the drawing processing time prediction unit 26 as described above. Errors of the PDL error interpretation unit 25 include errors due to processing of complicated graphic path data and its clip data among graphics, characters, and images mainly constituting PDL data, errors due to memory overflow of characters and images, and the like. When the error occurs, there is a problem in the print mode determination unit 27. In the drawing processing time prediction unit 26, the processing time of the drawing processing unit 29 is obtained by obtaining information on the device configuration (CPU, memory, hardware accelerator) for each printer and performing prediction calculation processing. Since the processing time of the raster data rasterized by the drawing processing unit 15 depends on the data amount, the coefficient is compared with the prediction calculation processing result, and if there is a problem, the print mode determination unit 27 processes that there is a problem.

  By applying the present invention, a printer with a weak device configuration capability (low memory capacity and not equipped with an optimal hardware accelerator) automatically renders rendering impossible, rendering fraud, and rendering delay unpredictable by the user. Can be avoided.

  2 is a flowchart showing an overall operation procedure of the print processing apparatus including the print mode determination, FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the host apparatus, FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the host apparatus, and FIG. Printer printing mode determination 1 and FIG. 6 are printer printing mode determination 2.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a print processing apparatus according to the present invention. The flowchart which shows the operation | movement procedure of the whole print processing apparatus containing printing mode determination. FIG. 1 is a flowchart of the host device. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the host device. Printer print mode determination 1. Printer print mode determination 2.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Host computer 2 Printer 11 Application 12 Graphic engine 13 Printer driver 14 PDL data generation part 15 Drawing process part 16 Spool file 17 Input / output interface 21 Controller 22 Input / output interface 23 PDL interpretation part 24 Display list generation part 25 PDL error interpretation part 26 Drawing processing time prediction unit 27 Print mode determination unit 28 Display list 29 Drawing processing unit 30 Engine

Claims (1)

  In a print processing device that receives print data from a host device via an input / output interface and performs print processing, the print processing device converts PDL data into an intermediate language, and memory usage that can be used in the conversion device. Management means for managing, output means for outputting an error when the memory usage exceeds a predetermined capacity by the management means, calculation means for predicting and calculating a drawing processing time for drawing processing of PDL data, and the drawing Comparing means for comparing processing time with drawing processing time in another printing mode, determining means for determining a printing mode based on information of the output means and the comparing means, and a printing mode determined by the determining means for the printer driver And a notifying means for notifying the host device.

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