JP2007230029A - Suffix symbol character issuing apparatus in printer - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a suffix symbol character issuing apparatus in a printer, which apparatus enables printing issue and in which vitamins B1, B12 or the like are not provided beforehand, creation of these is enabled by edit when performing printing issue, and external character registration or the like is not performed. <P>SOLUTION: The apparatus is characterized in that when suffixes are attached in a case of vitamin B group or the like, when judging that there are "1" and "12" after a "B" character, it is noted that edit is performed so that a suffix may be printed small in a stage of edit of printing issue; and whether there is a suffix symbol character in printing data memorized in a printing data memory section is judged, when a suffix symbol character is in the printing data, a body of a character is edited into a half size of character and printing is made possible by a printing section, a suffix symbol is made into a half height and a half size or one fourth size according to the figure length and edited so as to be made attached to a body of character, and the printing is made possible by a printing section. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer, and more particularly to a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer that prints print data including a suffix symbol character having a suffix symbol such as vitamin B1 or vitamin B12.

Traditionally, the content label that displays the content of various foods sold in the retail industry has been based on the Food Sanitation Law, including the name of the food, ingredients, additives, manufacturer's name and address, It is obliged to display various other information depending on the type.
Of these various types of information, especially for displaying raw materials and additives, a suffix symbol having a suffix symbol attached to the main body of the character, such as characters representing vitamin B1, vitamin B12 and other vitamin B groups, for example. It may be necessary to print print data including characters.

Conventionally, these suffix characters are, for example, “B” in “B1” is a single-byte character (character width 1/2), and “1” of “B” is basically high in the Food Sanitation Law. The size must be printed as half and half-width characters. The same applies to vitamins B2, B3, B5, and B6. In the case of vitamin B12, the height is halved, and “12” is within a half-width (ie, “1” and “2” are quarters, respectively). It is necessary to print within one corner.
However, in order to perform printing with such a suffix, the conventional printer has a problem that it is necessary to store (register) vitamin symbol characters as external characters in the main body memory.
Furthermore, in order to have such a suffix symbol character installed in the printer as a standard, there is a problem that a memory area in the flash ROM that requires a large storage capacity or another memory area depending on the mechanism is required. There is.

    Of course, there is a possibility that the same problem may occur in the case of similar characters with a suffix symbol, not limited to the display of vitamin B group.

JP-A-6-198966

    The present invention has been considered in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer that does not require a large memory area even if there is a suffix symbol character.

    The present invention also provides a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer that can be created by editing at the time of printing issuance, rather than preparing in advance a suffix symbol character such as characters representing vitamin B1, vitamin B12, and other vitamin B groups. This is the issue.

    In addition, the present invention provides a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer that makes it possible to issue a print by judging from the print data of the suffix symbol character without saving it in a memory for the suffix symbol character or registering an external character. The task is to do.

    That is, according to the present invention, for example, when there is a suffix symbol letter attached with a suffix among vitamins, particularly the B group, “1” or “12” as a suffix symbol is added after the “B” character as the character body. Print data that includes a suffix symbol character that has a suffix symbol attached to the main body of the character. A print unit for printing the print data, a print data input unit for inputting the print data to be supplied to the print unit, a print data storage unit for storing the print data input by the print data input unit, and the print A printer having a data storage unit, the printing unit, and a control unit for controlling the printing data input unit. The suffix symbol character issuing device, wherein the control unit determines whether or not the suffix data is included in the print data stored in the print data storage unit, and the suffix data is included in the print data. In addition, the character body is edited in half-width so that it can be printed by the printing unit, and the suffix symbol is made half height and half-width or quarter-width according to the number of digits, and the character body A suffix symbol character issuing device for a printer, wherein the suffix symbol character issuing device is configured to be edited so that it can be printed by the printing unit.

    The suffix symbol character may be a character representing the vitamin B group.

    If the number of digits of the suffix symbol is one digit, the control unit can edit the suffix symbol in half-width, and if it is two digits, each digit character of the suffix symbol can be edited in quarter-width. it can.

    The print data input unit can input the print data relating to the suffix symbol character stored in the print data storage unit in full-width.

    The print data storage unit may have a suffix symbol character storage area for storing the suffix symbol character input by the print data input unit.

In the suffix symbol character issuing device in the printer according to the present invention, when there is a suffix symbol character in the print data, for example, vitamin B or the like, the character body “B” can be edited in half-width and printed by the printing unit. In addition, the suffix symbol is set to half the height and half or a quarter according to the number of digits, and is edited so that it is attached to the character body so that it can be printed by the printing unit. Thus, it is not necessary to register external characters or to store them in advance as character data in a ROM or the like, so that the memory capacity can be saved.

    In the present invention, as a printer that prints a suffix symbol character, the suffix symbol is created in an appropriate size at the editing stage of printing issuance without preparing an external character registration or a dedicated memory area. A suffix symbol character issuing device has been realized for printers that do not require a memory area for characters.

Next, a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 1 is a schematic side view of a printer 1 (for example, a thermal printer). FIG. 2 is a circuit configuration diagram of the thermal printer 1. The thermal printer 1 includes a printing paper supply unit 2, a paper detection unit 3, and printing. The unit 4 includes a print data input unit 5, a print data storage unit 6, and a control unit 7 that controls these units.

    The print paper supply unit 2 holds a label, a tag, or any other form of print paper 8 in a roll shape, and allows the print paper 8 to be fed out in a belt shape in the direction of the paper detection unit 3 and the print unit 4.

    The paper detection unit 3 includes a detection sensor 9 using an LED or the like, and detects the position of the printing paper 8 with respect to the printing unit 4.

The printing unit 4 includes a thermal head 10 and a platen roller 11, and the platen roller 11 is rotationally driven by a motor 12 so that the printing paper 8 can be transferred and various printing data can be printed on the printing paper 8 by the thermal head 10. To do.
As will be described later, the print data may include a suffix symbol character having a suffix symbol attached to the character body, such as a vitamin symbol character.

    The print data input unit 5 includes a key 13, a display 14, and a touch panel 15 if necessary, and can input print data to be supplied to the print unit 4.

The print data storage unit 6 has a RAM 16 and a memory card 17 if necessary, and stores the print data input by the print data input unit 5.
The print data storage unit 6 (RAM 16) has a suffix symbol character storage area 16A for storing a suffix symbol character input by the print data input unit 5.

    The control unit 7 (CPU) controls the whole according to various programs stored in the ROM 18.

    It is also possible to supply or control print data from an external computer (not shown) or the like by providing a wired or wireless communication system 19 connected to the control unit 7. Is possible.

    FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a content display tag 20 that is printed on the printing paper 8 and displays the content of various foods. For example, the product name, raw material, additive, content, expiry date, The storage method, the name and address of the manufacturer, the name and address of the seller, and a management barcode are printed as necessary.

For example, when there is vitamin in the display of the additive in the content display tag 20, the form of printing is different depending on the type.
In this embodiment, particularly when the suffix symbol character is, for example, a character (vitamin symbol character) representing the vitamin B group, the suffix symbol is created by editing.
FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing a printing issuance form of vitamin A having no suffix symbol, FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing a printing issuance form of vitamin B1 having a suffix symbol, and FIG. 6 is a vitamin B12 similarly having a suffix symbol. It is explanatory drawing which shows the printing issue form.
As shown in FIG. 4, when vitamin A is issued, the character width and height are 1/1 of the reference unit, and the character width is full-width.
As shown in FIG. 5, when vitamin B1 is issued, the character body “B” is set to a character width ½ (half-width) and the suffix symbol “1” is set according to the number of digits (one digit). Must be half height and half angle.
As shown in FIG. 6, when vitamin B12 is issued, the character body “B” is set to a character width ½ (half-width) and the suffix symbol “12” is set according to the number of digits (two digits). , "1" and "2" need to be half height and quarter corner respectively.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart for registering vitamin symbol characters (suffix symbol characters) when inputting print data by the print data input unit 5. In step S 1, print data including the print layout of the content display tag 20 is displayed. Set the input.
In this input operation, the print data input unit 5 enables full-width input of print data related to the suffix symbol character stored in the print data storage unit 6. That is, in this input operation stage, for vitamin B1 and the like, for each “B” and “1”, they are not judged whether they are the character body or the suffix symbol, or “B” and “1” are full-width characters. Alternatively, it is not necessary to judge and operate half-width characters one by one, and all characters can be simply entered as character codes.

When “vitamin ...” is input by such an input operation, there is a possibility that a suffix symbol is attached. Therefore, the suffix symbol character input by the print data input unit 5 for this vitamin symbol character is converted to a full-width character. The character code is stored in the suffix symbol character storage area 16A of the print data storage unit 6.
Specifically, in step S2, the control unit 7 determines whether or not a vitamin symbol character (characters such as vitamin A or vitamin B1 or vitamin B12) has been input (set), and if there is, step S3. This vitamin symbol character is registered in the suffix symbol character storage area 16A.
If no vitamin symbol character is set in step S2, it is determined in step S4 whether the setting registration is completed, and in step S5, a setting completion key (not shown) is pressed to complete the registration.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the editing process of vitamin symbol characters when the thermal printer 1 actually prints and issues the printing paper 8 (content display tag 20). In step S11, the printing layout on the printing paper 8 is shown. And edit processing of print data.
In step S12, it is determined whether or not there is a vitamin symbol character in the print data. In step S13, it is determined whether or not the character body (character code) is “B”.
If the character code is “B”, it is determined in step S14 whether the next character code is “0” to “9”, and if so, it is determined that there is a suffix symbol following vitamin B, In step S15, it is determined whether the next character code is “0” to “9”.

    If there is no next character code in step S15, one-character editing processing of vitamin symbol characters is performed in step S16. That is, as shown in FIG. 5, the character body “B” is edited in half-width and can be printed by the printing unit 4, and a suffix symbol, for example, “1” is set to a half height according to the number of digits (one digit). In addition, the print part 4 can be printed and edited so as to be attached to the character body “B”.

    If there is a next character code in step S15, a two-character editing process for vitamin symbol characters is performed in step S17. That is, as shown in FIG. 6, the character body “B” is edited in half-width so that it can be printed by the printing unit 4, and the suffix symbol, for example, “12” is set to a half height according to the number of digits (two digits). In addition, the print part 4 is made editable so as to be attached to the character main body “B” and can be printed.

Finally, in step S18, the presence / absence of editing data is confirmed, and printing issuance is terminated.

In the present invention, a character having a suffix symbol can be edited, and can be used for editing any character other than the vitamin symbol characters described above.
Furthermore, when there is an arbitrary suffix character, the character body can be full-width or half-width, and only the suffix symbol can be half-width.
Also, when there are three or more suffix symbols, each suffix symbol can be attached to the character body and can be edited and printed in half-width or quarter-width as in the embodiment described above.

1 is a schematic side view of a printer 1 (for example, a thermal printer) equipped with a suffix symbol character issuing device in a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. 2 is a circuit configuration diagram of the thermal printer 1. FIG. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the content display tag 20 printed on the printing paper 8 and displaying the content about various foodstuffs similarly. It is explanatory drawing which shows the printing issue form of the vitamin A which does not have a suffix symbol similarly. It is explanatory drawing which shows the printing issue form of vitamin B1 which has a suffix symbol similarly. It is explanatory drawing which shows the printing issue form of vitamin B12 which has a suffix symbol similarly. FIG. 5 is a flowchart for registering vitamin symbol characters (suffix symbol characters) when inputting print data by the print data input unit 5. FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing vitamin symbol character editing processing when the thermal printer 1 actually prints and issues the printing paper 8 (content display tag 20).

Explanation of symbols

1 Thermal printer (Fig. 1, Fig. 2)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 2 Print paper supply part 3 Paper detection part 4 Print part 5 Print data input part 6 Print data storage part 7 Control part 8 Print paper 9 Detection sensor 10 Thermal head 11 Platen roller 12 Motor 13 Key 14 Display 15 Touch panel 16 RAM
16A RAM 16 suffix symbol character storage area 17 memory card 18 ROM
19 Communication interface 20 Content display tag (Fig. 3)

Claims (5)

A printing unit for printing print data including a suffix symbol character having a suffix symbol attached to the character body on a printing paper;
A print data input unit for inputting the print data to be supplied to the print unit;
A print data storage unit for storing the print data input by the print data input unit;
A control unit that controls the print data storage unit, the print unit, and the print data input unit;
The controller is
It is determined whether or not the suffix symbol character is present in the print data stored in the print data storage unit, and when the suffix symbol character is present in the print data,
Editing the character body in half-width and enabling printing by the printing unit,
According to the number of digits, the suffix symbol has a half height and half or a quarter, and is edited so as to be attached to the character main body so that printing can be performed by the printing unit. Suffix symbol character issuing device. The suffix symbol character issuing device for a printer according to claim 1, wherein the suffix symbol character is a character representing a vitamin B group. The controller is
The suffix symbol is edited in half-width if the number of digits of the suffix symbol is one digit, and each digit character of the suffix symbol is edited in quarter-width if it is two digits. The suffix symbol character issuing device in the printer according to 1. The print data input unit
2. The suffix symbol character issuing device for a printer according to claim 1, wherein the print data relating to the suffix symbol character stored in the print data storage unit can be input in full-width. The print data storage unit
2. The suffix symbol character issuing device for a printer according to claim 1, further comprising a suffix symbol character storage area for storing the suffix symbol character input by the print data input unit.

Images