JP2008009593A - Printing control device, printing system, method for controlling printing device, driver program, and recording medium with program recorded - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing control device, a printing system, a method for controlling a printing device, a driver program, and a recording medium with the program recorded that can start printing at an earlier timing when printing data described in a markup language such as XML. <P>SOLUTION: An XML interpretation part 222 of an XML parsing part 220 identifies the description part of a priority rendering instruction having a rendering area in a leading band of an XML document, and passes a line number notification of the description part to another XML interpretation part 221. The XML interpretation part 221 interprets the description on the lines corresponding to the line number notification to acquire the priority rendering instruction, and passes the priority rendering instruction to a control part 210. A rendering part 230 performs rendering according to the priority rendering instruction received via the control part 210 to generate band data on the leading band. The control part 210 sends the band data to a printer to start printing. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention generates image data that can be processed by a printing apparatus from data described in a markup language such as XML, and controls a printing process performed in accordance with the image data. The present invention relates to a driver program and a recording medium on which the program is recorded.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an XML printer that can process data (hereinafter, also referred to as “XML document”) described in XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is one of markup languages, is known.

For example, in the technology described in Patent Document 1, a printer driver generates image data expressed in a language or bitmap format that can be interpreted by a printer by expanding the contents of an XML document.

In the technique described in Patent Document 2, when the address information on the network is included in the XML document, the data such as the object is acquired and communicated with the server to which the address information is specified on the network. Image data is generated by interpreting and rendering an XML document incorporating the acquired data.

Here, in order to save a memory area required for processing by the printer, an image may be processed for each band divided by a predetermined height. In order to handle an XML document with such a printer, it is necessary to divide an image generated from the XML document into bands and sequentially supply image data for each band (hereinafter referred to as “band data”) to the printer.

For example, as shown in FIG. 11, in the case where an image on which a plurality of figures are drawn is handled as a print target in response to a plurality of drawing commands obtained by interpreting an XML document, the paper transport direction (Y direction at the time of printing) ) Are divided into a plurality of bands so as to divide the image at predetermined heights (number of pixels) from the upper end of), and processing is performed for each band. Specifically, when the divided bands are referred to by band 0, band 1,... In ascending order from the end, the printer driver transmits band data in order from band 0, and the printer Printing processing such as conversion processing and screen processing is performed for each band data. As a result, the entire image to be printed is printed so that the print contents of each band are printed one after another.

As described above, when the printer performs the printing process for each band, the printing process for each band is performed according to the band data for each band. Depends on the timing of receiving data. That is, when the printer receives the band data of the first band, the printing process corresponding to the XML document to be printed can be started.

JP 2000-330908 A JP 2002-91726 A

However, since the rendering commands described in the XML document are not always described in order according to the rendering position, the printer driver interprets all the rendering commands in the XML document in order to generate the first band data.・ It must be generated after waiting for expansion.

For example, when an XML document is interpreted and expanded in the order of description and three objects OB1, OB2, and OB3 are drawn in order as shown in FIG. 11, two objects OB are drawn.
1, OB3 is in the band area of the first band (band 0), so the object O
When B1 is drawn, the band data of the first band cannot be obtained. In order to obtain the band data of the first band, it is necessary to wait at least until the third object OB3 is drawn.

As described above, the order of drawing commands obtained by interpreting the XML document in the order of description has no relation to the drawing position, and therefore, the band data of the first band until all drawing commands described in the XML document are expanded. Cannot be determined. Because of this, the printer
There is a problem that the timing for starting the printing process is delayed according to the band data of the first band.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a print control apparatus, a printing system, a printing apparatus control method, and a driver program that can start printing at an earlier timing when printing data described in a markup language such as XML. And a recording medium on which the program is recorded.

In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention provides a print control apparatus that causes a printing apparatus to sequentially execute a printing process for each band in which an image to be printed is divided into predetermined heights. Input means for receiving input data described in a markup language, first interpretation means for interpreting the input data and obtaining a drawing command for drawing an image to be printed, interpreting the input data, The second interpreting means for searching for a priority drawing command having a drawing range applied to the first band, which is a band in which the print processing execution order is a predetermined number of bands from the first, and the priority drawing command are expanded to generate band data of the first band. Then, a developing means for expanding the drawing command to generate band data for the band after the first band, and when the band data is generated, print processing according to the band data is printed. Characterized in that it comprises a print control means for causing the location.

According to this configuration, the priority drawing command applied to the first band is expanded and the printing device performs printing processing for the first band, and then the drawing command acquired from the input data is expanded and the first band is displayed on the printing device. Print processing for subsequent bands is performed. The printing device starts printing for the first band at the timing when the band data of the first band is supplied without waiting for the development of the drawing command for the bands after the first band, so printing corresponding to the input data is started. The timing to do can be advanced. In addition, since the timing of the end of printing is also advanced, for example, the waiting time from when the user issues a print instruction until the end of printing can be shortened, and the convenience for the user can be further improved.

In the print control apparatus of the present invention, the second interpreting means includes:
It is preferable that the description corresponding to the priority rendering command is specified, and the first interpreter obtains the priority rendering command by interpreting the specified description with priority.

According to this configuration, the second interpreter specifies a description corresponding to the priority rendering command, and the first interpreter preferentially interprets the description corresponding to the priority rendering command in the input data and performs priority rendering. By acquiring the command, it is possible to perform processing with earlier timing of printing.

In the printing control apparatus of the present invention, when the second interpreting unit specifies a description corresponding to the priority rendering command, the first interpreting unit interprets the specified description and acquires the priority rendering command. It is preferable that the second interpretation means execute in parallel the process of searching for a description corresponding to the next priority rendering command.

According to this configuration, when the first interpretation unit interprets the description corresponding to the priority rendering command, the second interpretation unit specifies the description of the next priority rendering command so that 2 Since the two processes are processed in parallel, the processing efficiency is increased, and the print start timing can be further advanced.

In the printing control apparatus of the present invention, the markup language is XML, HTML, or X
It is preferably any one of HTML.

According to this configuration, printing corresponding to input data in the XML, HTML, or XHTML format can be started at an earlier timing.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing system comprising: a printing apparatus; and a printing control apparatus that causes the printing apparatus to sequentially execute printing processing for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height. The print control apparatus receives input data describing an image to be printed in a markup language, interprets the input data, and obtains a drawing command for drawing the image to be printed. 1 interpreting means, and second interpreting means for interpreting input data and searching for a priority rendering command having a rendering range applied to a leading band in which the order of execution of printing processing is a band from the top to a predetermined number of bands. And a printing device that expands a priority drawing command to generate band data of the first band, and then expands the drawing command to generate band data for bands after the first band. When the band data is generated, characterized in that it comprises a print processing unit for executing printing processing according to the band data.

According to this configuration, it is possible to obtain a highly convenient printing system in which the timing for starting printing is advanced.

The present invention can also be a method invention. That is, the present invention is a method for controlling a printing apparatus that causes a printing apparatus to sequentially perform printing processing for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height. An input process for receiving the input data described in 1), a first interpretation process for interpreting the input data to obtain a drawing command for rendering an image to be printed, and executing the printing process by interpreting the input data A second search for a priority drawing command having a drawing range that is applied to the first band, which is a band from the beginning to a predetermined number of bands.
A first expansion step of expanding the priority drawing command to generate band data of the first band, and a second expansion step of expanding the drawing command to generate band data for the bands after the first band And a print control step for causing the printing apparatus to perform a printing process in accordance with the band data when the band data is generated.

Furthermore, the present invention can be a program and a recording medium on which the program is recorded. The present invention relates to a driver program for causing a printing apparatus to sequentially execute a printing process for each band in which an image to be printed is divided into predetermined heights. An input means for receiving the input data described in 1), a first interpretation means for interpreting the input data and obtaining a drawing command for drawing an image to be printed; Second interpretation means for searching for a priority drawing command having a drawing range applied to the first band, which is a band up to a predetermined number from the first, and generating the band data of the first band by expanding the priority drawing command, and then drawing command Is expanded to generate band data for the first and subsequent bands, and when the band data is generated, the communication is performed via communication means for communicating with the printing apparatus. Sequentially supplying a band data to the printing apparatus, characterized in that to function printing process according the band data printing control means for causing the printing apparatus as a.

As a recording medium on which the driver program is recorded, a flexible disk, a CD-
Various media that can be read by a computer such as a ROM, a DVD-ROM, an IC card, or a memory card can be used.

  DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system 1 includes a host computer (printing control device) 2 and a printer (printing device) 3.

The host computer 2 is, for example, a general-purpose personal computer. As shown in FIG. 1, the CPU 20, ROM 21, RAM 22, hard disk (HD) 23, CD-RO
An M drive 24, a network interface (network I / F) 25, and a communication interface (communication I / F) 26 are provided. The communication I / F 26 is connected to the printer 3 via a cable, and the host computer 2 and the printer 3 can perform data communication with each other. The network I / F 25 is connected to the network server 4 via a LAN cable or the like, and the host computer 2 can be connected to the Internet by communicating with the network server 4 according to a predetermined protocol.

The CPU 20 is a part that controls each configuration of the host computer 2, and has a plurality of processing cores in parallel by having a technology corresponding to multithreading such as hyper-threading technology and a plurality of processor cores as processing units. The configuration is executable. As a result, the CPU 20 executes in parallel a process performed as a first XML interpretation unit, which will be described later, and a process performed as a second XML interpretation unit. However, the processing performed as the first XML interpretation unit and the second XML interpretation unit may be performed in parallel by adopting a configuration including two or more CPUs.

The ROM 21 is a non-volatile memory in which a predetermined program for controlling the host computer 2 is recorded, and the RAM 22 is a general-purpose memory used as a working memory.

The HD 23 records application programs and driver programs according to the present invention. The driver program may be recorded in advance on the HD 23 or a CD.
-The program is supplied in a form recorded on a recording medium such as the ROM 5, and the CPU 20 reads the program from the CD-ROM 5 by the CD-ROM drive 24.
23 may be recorded.

The application 100 functions when the CPU 20 executes the application program recorded in the HD 23 under a predetermined operation system, and the printer driver 200 functions when the driver program is read and executed (
(See FIG. 2).

The application 100 is a printer 3 such as document creation software or a web browser.
Print request source. The application 100 prints an XML document created by the document creation software, an XML document acquired from the Internet so that the web browser communicates with the network server 4, and a predetermined format including the print request and the XML document. Print data to the printer driver 2
Processing to transfer to 00 is performed.

When the printer driver 200 receives print data from the application 100, the printer driver 200
By interpreting the ML document (input data) and performing drawing processing, image data in a format that can be processed by the printer 3 is generated, and the image data for printing is transmitted to the communication I / F 26.
This is the part that transmits to the printer 3 via. In order to perform these processes, the printer driver 200 includes a control unit 210, an XML parsing unit 220, and a rendering unit 230, as shown in FIG.

The control unit 210 controls the XML parsing unit 220 and the rendering unit 230 to control the XML.
This is the part that performs various processing on the document. Therefore, the control unit 210 includes an XML document input unit (input unit) 211 that performs an input process on the XML document delivered from the application 100, an XML parsing unit 220, and a rendering unit 230.
A data control unit 212 that controls data transmission / reception, and a print control unit 213 that outputs band data to the printer 3 to perform print processing for each band.

The XML parsing unit 220 is a part that interprets the XML document, acquires a drawing command representing the drawing content of the XML document, and passes the drawing command obtained by the interpretation to the control unit 210. The XML parsing unit 220 includes a first XML interpretation unit 221 and a second XML interpretation unit 222.
And have.

The second XML interpretation unit 222 performs processing for specifying a description corresponding to a drawing command necessary for drawing the first band (band 0) among a plurality of drawing commands obtained by interpreting the XML document. Specifically, by interpreting the description of the XML document in order from the top and searching for a drawing command of the drawing range applied to the first band, the line number in which the drawing command necessary for drawing the first band is described. Process to identify. It should be noted that the drawing command necessary for drawing the head band searched here is hereinafter referred to as a “priority drawing command”.

The first XML interpretation unit 221 is a part that interprets the description of the XML document and acquires a drawing command. Therefore, first, the second XML interpretation unit 22 in the description of the XML document.
The processing of acquiring the preferential rendering command is performed by interpreting the description of the line number specified by 2. Then, when the first XML interpretation unit 221 acquires the drawing command for the first band and passes it to the control unit 210, in order to process the band after the first band, the first XML interpretation unit 221 sequentially interprets the description from the beginning of the XML document, A drawing command is acquired in the order of description, and is sequentially transferred to the control unit 210. Note that the drawing command acquired at this time is hereinafter referred to as a “normal drawing command” with respect to the “priority drawing command”.

The rendering unit 230 expands the rendering command passed from the XML parsing unit 220 via the control unit 210 into an object image in the bitmap format, and arranges the expanded object image so that the image data in the bitmap format Rendering process to generate is executed. Then, the generated image data is temporarily output to the printer 3 for the control unit 21.
Processing to pass to 0 is performed.

In addition, as described above, the XML parsing unit 220 delivers the normal drawing commands for the bands after the first band following the priority drawing command for the first band, and the rendering unit 230 receives these drawing commands. Are processed in the order received via the control unit 210. In other words, the rendering unit 230 generates the band data of the first band from the priority drawing command for the first band and delivers it to the control unit 210, and then generates the band data after the first band from the normal drawing command received continuously. The data is transferred to the control unit 210.

When the control unit 210 receives the band data from the rendering unit 230, the print control unit 21
3 outputs the band data to the printer 3 to cause the printer 3 to sequentially perform printing processing such as color conversion and screen processing according to the band data. As a result, the printer 3 prints the entire image to be printed described in the XML document by printing the first band and then printing the bands after the first band one after another.

Note that part of the printing process, for example, the color conversion process may be performed on the host computer side, and the band data after the color conversion may be output to the printer 3.

As described above, the printer driver 200 according to the present embodiment preferentially expands the priority drawing command for the first band and expands the band data of the first band before expanding the normal drawing command for the band after the first band. And the printer 3 is caused to perform printing processing for the first band. In other words, the processing for the leading band is performed with priority over the bands other than the leading band.

Next, detailed processing performed by the printer driver 200 when an XML document is input will be described in order according to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 to 7 with reference to FIG.
3 is a diagram showing data movement among the control unit 210, the XML parsing unit 220, and the rendering unit 230. FIG. 4 shows the control unit 210, FIG. 5 shows the second XML interpretation unit 222, and FIG. The first XML interpretation unit 221 and FIG. 7 show the processing procedure performed by the rendering unit 230.

When the control unit 210 receives the XML document from the application 100, the control unit 210 starts the processing illustrated in FIG. When the processing starts, first, in step S100, the XML document input unit 211 recognizes that the input data is an XML document and performs input processing (see FIG. 3A).

Next, in step S110, the data control unit 212 delivers the input XML document to the XML parsing unit 220 (see FIG. 3B).

Here, in actuality, after delivering the XML document, the control unit 210 performs the process of step S120 described later. For convenience of explanation, hereinafter, for the XML document delivered from the control unit 210, The processing performed by the second XML interpretation unit 222 of the XML parsing unit 220 will be described.

When the XML document is delivered from the data control unit 212 to the XML parsing unit 220, the second XML interpretation unit 222 starts the processing shown in FIG. When processing starts, step S
In 200, it is determined whether there is an unprocessed description among the descriptions constituting the delivered XML document. If there is an unprocessed description (step S200: Yes), the process proceeds to step S210. If there is no unprocessed description (step S200: No), step S2
Proceed to 50.

When the processing proceeds to step S210, the second XML interpretation unit 222 interprets (parses) the data of the XML document and acquires the drawing range of the drawing command. Note that the parsing performed here is processing performed in units of drawing commands, and when the description of the XML document is processed in order to acquire the drawing range for one drawing command, the process proceeds to step S220.

In step S220, the second XML interpretation unit 222 determines whether the drawing range of the drawing command to be determined is in the band area of the first band, using the acquired drawing command as a determination target.

The processing at this time will be described using the XML document shown in FIG. 8 and the drawing example shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 8, the XML document is configured by describing rendering contents in a tag described for each line and a portion surrounded by the tag. In the example of FIG. 8, according to the line number shown at the left end, the description of the drawing contents is included in the “3” and “4” lines and the “m” and “m + 1” lines.

Specifically, according to the XML document shown in FIG. 8, the drawing start position A (x = x1, y = y1) is specified by the description of the line number “3”, and the drawing start is described by the description of the line number “4”. Drawing that draws one object OB (4) consisting of a line that returns from the position A to the drawing start position A through the positions B (x2, y1), C (x2, y2), and D (x1, y2) in order. The content is acquired. Similarly, the drawing start position E (x3, y3) is designated by the description of the line number “m”,
From the drawing start position E according to the description of the line number “m + 1”, positions F (x4, y3), G (x4,
The drawing content for drawing one object OB (m + 1) consisting of a line passing through y4) and H (x3, y4) in order and returning to the drawing start position E is designated. Therefore, for the Y direction,
The drawing range of the object OB (4) is “y1 to y2”, and the drawing range of the object OB (m + 1) is “y3 to y4”.

Here, the paper conveyance direction is the short side direction (X direction) or the long side direction (Y direction) of the paper.
Assuming that the paper transport direction is the Y direction, the band area is divided into a certain band width BH in the Y direction, and the range of the leading band (band 0) is “0 to BH” in the Y direction.

In the determination in step S220, the second XML interpretation unit 222 determines whether the range of the leading band is over the drawing range of the drawing command to be determined, that is, whether there is some overlapping range. To do. For example, as shown in the example of FIG.
4>BH> y3 ”, the object OB in the Y-direction drawing range“ y3 to y4 ”
(M + 1) partially overlaps the range of the first band in the range of “y3 to BH”. At this time, it is determined that the drawing range of the drawing command for the object OB (m + 1) is over the band area of the leading band. On the other hand, since the drawing range “y1 to y2” of the object OB (4) does not overlap with the range of the leading band, the drawing range of the drawing command of the object OB (4) does not cover the band region of the leading band. To be judged. Thus, if the drawing range is applied to the first band (step S220: Yes), the process proceeds to step S230. If the drawing range is not applied to the first band (step S220: No), the process returns to step S200 to return to the next included in the XML document. Processes the description of the drawing command.

8 and 9, an example of drawing a graphic object has been described. However, the drawing content of an XML document is not limited to this, and may be an image such as text or bitmap format. .

When the process proceeds to step S230, the second XML interpretation unit 222 sets the drawing command to be determined as the priority drawing command. In the example of FIGS. 8 and 9, the object OB with overlapping drawing ranges is used.
The description of the “m” and “m + 1” lines, which is the description part of (m + 1), corresponds to the priority rendering command.

When the priority rendering command is set, the process proceeds to step S240, and the line number of the description corresponding to the priority rendering command is notified to the first XML interpretation unit 221 (see FIG. 3 (3)). Then, the process returns to step S200 to process the next description included in the XML document.

In step S200, when all the descriptions of the received XML document have been processed (step S200: No), the process proceeds to step S250, where the second XML document is processed.
The interpretation unit 222 notifies the first XML interpretation unit 221 of the end of the search, and ends the process shown in FIG.

Next, processing performed by the first XML interpretation unit 221 will be described. When the XML document is transferred from the data control unit 212 to the XML parsing unit 220, the first XML interpretation unit 221 is used.
Starts the process shown in FIG. When the process is started, first, in step S300,
The first XML interpretation unit 221 determines whether or not the data from the second XML interpretation unit 222 has been received. If data has not been received from the second XML interpretation unit 222 (step S30).
0: No), after a predetermined time elapses, the determination in step S300 is performed again, and the data reception is continuously monitored.

If data is continuously monitored and received from the second XML interpreter 222 (step S).
300: Yes), the process proceeds to step S310, and the first XML interpretation unit 221 determines whether or not the received data is a line number notification.

If the received data is a line number notification (step S310: Yes), the priority drawing command is acquired by interpreting the description of the corresponding line number for the XML document, and the priority drawing command is stored in the RAM 22 (step S320). FIG. 3 (4)).

Next, in step S330, the priority drawing command is transferred to the control unit 210 (see FIG. 3 (5)). The data transferred here is in a data format in which a flag indicating a priority drawing command is added to address information indicating a storage destination of a drawing command that is a priority drawing command.

Since the first XML interpretation unit 221 determines a description portion that is not processed in the processing for the band after the first band described later, the line number of the description from which the priority rendering command is acquired is the processed line. The data is recorded in a table on a predetermined storage area of the RAM 22 and managed. In addition, for the drawing command whose drawing range is applied to the first band and other bands other than the first band, it is necessary to process the drawing command in the processing of other bands.
Even if the first band is processed, it is managed as unprocessed on the table.

In step S310, if the data received by the first XML interpretation unit 221 is not a line number notification (step S310: No), the process proceeds to step S340, and the first
The XML interpretation unit 221 determines whether the received data is a search end notification. If it is not a search end notification (step S340: No), there is a possibility of further receiving a line number notification from the second XML interpretation unit 222, so the process returns to step S300 and continues to monitor the received data.

If the received data is a search end notification (step S340: Yes), step S340
Proceeding to 350, thereafter, the first XML interpreting unit 221 performs processing for interpreting all descriptions of the XML document.

Specifically, in step S350, the first XML interpretation unit 221 determines whether there is an unprocessed description for the XML document with reference to the above-described table for managing processed line numbers. If there is unprocessed data (step S350: Yes), the process proceeds to step S360 to parse and acquire a normal drawing command and store it in the RAM 22 (FIG. 3 (
6)). In step S370, the acquired normal drawing command is sent to the control unit 21.
After transferring to 0 (see FIG. 3 (7)), the process returns to step S350.

When all the data of the XML document is processed so that the drawing commands obtained by parsing are sequentially transferred, there is no unprocessed data in the determination of step S350, and the process proceeds to step S380 (No in step S350).

When the process proceeds to step S380, the first XML interpretation unit 221 displays the XML parsing unit 220.
It is determined whether or not the data end notification has been received from the control unit 210, and if not received (step S380: No), there is a possibility that data of the XML document may be received. Return to. If a data end notification has been received, it is determined that a drawing command for all data of the XML document has been acquired, the process proceeds to step S390, the data end notification is delivered to the control unit 210, and the processing shown in FIG. finish.

In this way, in the XML parsing unit 220, first, the second XML interpretation unit 222
A description part of a drawing command having a drawing range related to the first band from the ML document is specified. Then, the first XML interpretation unit 221 acquires a priority drawing command necessary for drawing the first band from the specified description, and passes it to the control unit 210 in an address designation format. Then, an unprocessed description of the XML document is interpreted to acquire a normal drawing command, and when the normal drawing command is transferred, a data end notification is transferred to the control unit 210.

Next, returning to the flowchart of FIG. 4, a processing procedure performed when the control unit 210 receives data from the XML parsing unit 220 will be described.

The control unit 210 starts the process of step S120 at the timing when the XML document input process (steps S100 and S110) is completed. In step S120, the data control unit 212 continues to determine whether data has been received from the XML parsing unit 220 by monitoring the data delivered from the XML parsing unit 220. If data has not been received (step S120: No), step S12 is performed again.
Monitoring is continued by performing the process of 0. When data is received from the XML parsing unit 220 (step S120: Yes), the process proceeds to step S130.

When the process proceeds to step S130, the data control unit 212 determines whether the received data is a drawing command. If the received data is a drawing command (that is, a priority drawing command or a normal drawing command) (step S130: Yes), the process proceeds to step S140. If it is not a drawing command (step S130: No), the process proceeds to step S150.

When the process proceeds to step S140, the data control unit 212 accesses the address-designated RAM 22 indicated by the drawing command, reads the actual data of the drawing command (see FIG. 3 (8)), and the actual data of the drawing command. Is transferred to the rendering unit 230 (see FIG. 3 (9)).

When the drawing command is transferred to the rendering unit 230 in step S140, the data control unit 212 continues to monitor the data transmitted from the XML parsing unit 220 next so that the process returns to step S120.

If the data received in the process of step S130 is not a drawing command (step S130: No), the process proceeds to step S150 to determine whether the received data is a data end notification. If the received data is not a data end notification (step S1)
50: No), the process returns to step S120 to continue monitoring the data. If it is a data end notification (step S150: Yes), the process proceeds to step S160 to notify the rendering unit 230 of a data end notification indicating that the transmission of the rendering command for the XML document has ended. Terminate the process.

As described above, the control unit 210 performs a process of sequentially transferring the address-designated drawing commands received from the XML parsing unit 220 one after another to the rendering unit 230 by replacing the actual data. Since the order of drawing commands received from the XML parsing unit 220 is the normal drawing command after the priority drawing command, the normal drawing command is next sent to the rendering unit 230 after the delivery of the priority drawing command is completed. Is delivered to the rendering unit 230. When all drawing commands have been delivered, the data end notification is delivered to the rendering unit 230.

Next, the processing procedure performed by the rendering unit 230 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When the processing shown in FIG. 7 is started, in step S400, the rendering unit 230 determines whether or not data has been received from the control unit 210. If no new data has been received (step S400: No), a predetermined time period is reached. After the elapse of time, the determination in step S400 is performed again, and if new data has been received, the process proceeds to step S410 (step S4).
00: Yes).

When the process proceeds to step S410, the rendering unit 230 determines whether the received data is a priority rendering command. Specifically, a determination is made according to the flag given to the priority rendering command, and if it is a priority rendering command (step S410: Yes), the process proceeds to step S420. If it is not a priority drawing command (step S410: No), the process proceeds to step S430.

When the process proceeds to step S420, the rendering unit 230 expands the received drawing command. Then, the developed object image is arranged at the drawing start position of the received drawing command, and processing for embedding the object image in the bitmap format image data is performed. By this rendering process, image data reflecting the priority drawing command to be processed is obtained.
When the rendering process is performed, the process returns to step S410 to perform the process for the next received data, and sequentially perform the rendering process for the priority rendering commands that are successively transferred.

In step S410, the received data is not a priority drawing command (step S410).
410: No), the process proceeds to step S430 to generate band data of the first band. That is, since rendering processing has been performed for all the priority rendering commands necessary for developing the leading band, the rendering unit 230 extracts the leading band region from the generated image data so as to extract the leading band region. Generate data.

Next, in step S440, the rendering unit 230 outputs the band data of the first band. Specifically, the first band data is transferred to the control unit 210, and the print control unit 213 of the control unit 210 transmits the first band data to the printer 3 via the communication I / F 26. As a result, the host computer 2 causes the printer 3 to start print processing of the leading band.

Next, a process for a normal drawing command received thereafter is performed. For this reason, the rendering unit 230 proceeds to step S450, and the rendering unit 230 determines whether or not the data received next is a normal drawing command. If it is a normal drawing command (step S
450: Yes), the process proceeds to step S460, where the rendering process according to the normal drawing command is performed, and the received normal drawing command is reflected in the image data. When the rendering process is performed for the rendering command to be processed, the process returns to step S450, and the processing for the next received data is performed, and the rendering process is sequentially performed for the normal rendering commands that are successively transferred.

If the data received in step S450 is not a normal drawing command (step S450: No), the process proceeds to step S470, and the rendering unit 230 determines whether it is a data end notification. If it is not a data end notification (step S470:
No), returning to step S450, the next received data is processed.

If the received data is a data end notification (step S470: Yes), the control unit 2
Since the rendering processing in step S460 is sequentially performed on the drawing commands received one after another from 10, the image data corresponding to the entire XML document has already been generated.
Proceeding to step S480, the image of the generated image data is divided for each band, and band data to be performed for each band after the first band is generated. Then, the band data generated in step S490 is successively transferred to the control unit 210, and when the transfer is completed, the processing illustrated in FIG. The print control unit 213 of the control unit 210 transmits the passed band data to the printer 3 one after another via the communication I / F 26, so that the host computer 2 prints to the printer 3 for each band after the first band. The process is performed one after another. As a result, print processing for all bands is performed, and printing corresponding to the XML document is performed.

In addition, the process of step S100 and step S110 is an input process, step S300 ~
The process in step S390 is the first interpretation process, the process in steps S200 to S250 is the second interpretation process, the processes in steps S420 and S430 are the first development process, and the processes in steps S460 and S480 are the second. The unfolding process and the processes in steps S440 and S490 correspond to a print control process.

As described above, in this embodiment, prior to normal drawing command expansion, the priority drawing command necessary for drawing the first band is expanded, and the band data of the first band is obtained from the image data obtained from the priority drawing command. And the printer 3 starts the print processing of the first band (
Step S440). Then, after generating the band data of the first band, a normal drawing command is expanded so that the band data after the first band are sequentially sent to the printer 3 (
Step S490).

  Hereinafter, effects of the present embodiment will be described.

(1) Since the printer 3 can start the printing process at the timing of step S440 in which the band data of the first band is received before the normal drawing command is expanded, all the drawing commands obtained from the description of the XML object are transmitted. Compared to the conventional processing method that needs to generate band data after development, the timing for starting the print processing of the first band can be advanced. In addition, while the printer 3 is executing the printing process for the first band, the printer driver 200 starts a process for developing normal drawing commands and generating band data after the first band. Can be completed at an earlier timing. As a result, the waiting time until the printing is completed for the user is shortened, and the convenience for the user is improved.

(2) When the second XML interpretation unit 222 detects the line number of the priority rendering command having the rendering range for the first band, the first XML interpretation unit 221 receives this line number and interprets the corresponding description. At this time, since the process performed by the first XML interpreter 221 and the process performed by the second XML interpreter 222 are executed in parallel, the second XML is also processed during the process of the first XML interpreter 221.
The L interpretation unit 222 searches for the next drawing command applied to the first band. As a result, the processing efficiency increases, and printing can be started at an earlier timing.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to such an embodiment, and can be implemented in various forms without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Hereinafter, a modification will be described.

(Modification 1) In the above embodiment, the printer driver 200 on the host computer side as the print control apparatus performs the parsing and rendering processing, but the present invention is not limited to this mode. For example, a parsing process may be performed on the host computer side and a rendering process may be performed on the printer side. That is, as shown in FIG. 10A, the printing system 1 includes a host computer 2 including a printer driver 200 having a control unit 210 and an XML parsing unit 220, a rendering unit 230, a print processing unit 300, and a print engine. And a printer 3 having 310.

In the printing system 1, the control unit 210 passes the priority drawing command acquired by the XML parsing unit 220 to the printer 3 through the communication I / F 26, and the rendering unit 230 on the printer 3 side performs rendering processing according to the received priority drawing command. To generate band data of the first band. When the band data of the first band is transferred to the print processing unit 300 and the print process is started, the band data of each band is generated by sequentially performing the rendering process according to the normal drawing command received next from the host computer 2 The print processing unit 300 performs print processing according to the band data. The print processing unit 300 converts the band data into an image signal corresponding to the print engine 310, and the print engine 310 performs printing according to the image signal. As a result, the timing at which the print processing unit 300 starts the printing process is advanced, and the waiting time until the printing is completed can be shortened.

Further, a system having a configuration of a print control apparatus on the printer side may be used. That is,
As shown in FIG. 10B, the printer 3 includes an XML parsing unit 220 and a rendering unit 23.
0, a print processing unit 300, and a print engine 310. The host computer 2 transmits print data including an XML document to the printer 3 so that the printer 3 having the XML parsing unit 220 and the rendering unit 230 performs parsing and rendering in the order of a priority drawing command and a normal drawing command. May be.

(Modification 2) In the above embodiment, one top band is processed as the top band.
A predetermined number of bands from the top of the processing order of the printing process may be processed as the top band. At this time, a drawing command applied to a plurality of bands from the top may be handled as a priority drawing command, and the same processing as in the above embodiment may be performed.

(Modification 3) In the embodiment described above, in the example of FIG. 9, band 0 is set as the first band because a part of the object is drawn in band 0. However, printing processing is performed for a band in which no object is drawn. Since there is no such thing, the first band including the object should be the first band. For example, objects are not drawn in bands 0 to n-1,
When an object is drawn in band n for the first time, it is preferable to process band n as the leading band. At this time, since it is not necessary to perform the rendering process for the band before the first band, in the process of step S440, in addition to the band data of the first band, the band before the first band where no object is drawn is displayed. The band data may be transferred to the control unit 210 and output to the printer 3.

(Modification 4) The data format after expansion is not limited to the bitmap format. For example, in the case of a printing system that delivers intermediate code data indicating a drawing command for drawing content for each band, the rendering unit 230 expands the drawing command into intermediate code data (image data). At this time, the printer 3 may process the received intermediate code data by sequentially performing printing processing such as rendering processing, color conversion processing, and screen processing.

(Modification 5) In the above embodiment, an example of processing data in XML format has been described. However, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup La
nguage) and other data described in a markup language may be processed.

(Modification 6) The present invention is not limited to a printer, but can be applied to a copying machine or a fax machine.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment. The block diagram which showed the functional structure of the host computer. Explanatory drawing explaining the movement of the data in a printer driver. The flowchart which showed the process sequence which a control part performs. The flowchart which showed the process sequence which a 2nd XML interpretation part performs. The flowchart which showed the process sequence which a 1st XML interpretation part performs. The flowchart which showed the process sequence which a rendering part performs. The figure which showed an example of the XML document. The figure which showed the example of drawing according to a drawing command. Explanatory drawing for demonstrating a 1st modification, (a), (b) is a figure showing an example of a modification. Explanatory drawing for demonstrating a band.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Printing system, 2 ... Host computer as printing control apparatus, 3 ... Printer as printing apparatus, 4 ... Network server, 5 ... CD-ROM as recording medium, 20 ... C
PU, 21 ... ROM, 22 ... RAM, 23 ... hard disk, 24 ... CD-ROM drive, 25 ... network interface, 26 ... communication interface, 100 ... application, 200 ... printer driver, 210 ... control unit, 211 ... as input means XML document input unit, 212... Data control unit, 213... Print control unit as print control unit, 220... XML parsing unit, 221... First XML interpretation unit as first interpretation unit,
222... 2nd XML interpreter as second interpreter, 230... Render as expander, 300... Print processor, 310.

Claims (8)

A printing control apparatus that causes a printing apparatus to sequentially execute a printing process for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height,
Input means for receiving input data describing the image to be printed in a markup language;
First interpretation means for interpreting the input data and obtaining a drawing command for drawing the image to be printed;
A second interpreter that interprets the input data and searches for a priority rendering command having a rendering range applied to a leading band in which the execution order of the printing processing is a band from the leading to a predetermined number;
Expanding means for expanding the priority drawing command to generate band data of the first band, and then expanding the drawing command to generate band data for bands after the first band;
When the band data is generated, the printing control apparatus includes a printing control unit that causes the printing apparatus to perform a printing process according to the band data. The print control apparatus according to claim 1,
The second interpreting means identifies a description corresponding to the priority rendering command among the descriptions of the input data,
The print control apparatus, wherein the first interpretation unit obtains the priority drawing command by preferentially interpreting the specified description. The print control apparatus according to claim 2,
When the second interpreting means specifies a description corresponding to the priority rendering command, the first interpreting means interprets the specified description and obtains a priority rendering instruction; and the second interpreting means A print control apparatus that executes a process for searching for a description corresponding to the next priority rendering command in parallel. In the printing control apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the markup language is one of XML, HTML, and XHTML. A printing system comprising: a printing apparatus; and a printing control apparatus that causes the printing apparatus to sequentially execute a printing process performed for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height.
The print control device includes:
Input means for receiving input data describing the image to be printed in a markup language;
First interpretation means for interpreting the input data and obtaining a drawing command for drawing the image to be printed;
Second interpretation means for interpreting the input data and searching for a priority rendering command having a rendering range for a leading band in which the execution order of the printing processing is a band from the leading to a predetermined number of bands,
The printing apparatus includes:
Expanding means for expanding the priority drawing command to generate band data of the first band, and then expanding the drawing command to generate band data for bands after the first band;
A printing system comprising: a print processing unit that executes a print process according to the band data when the band data is generated. A printing apparatus control method for causing a printing apparatus to sequentially perform printing processing for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height,
An input step of receiving input data describing the image to be printed in a markup language;
A first interpretation step of interpreting the input data and obtaining a drawing command for drawing the image to be printed;
A second interpreting step of interpreting the input data and searching for a priority rendering command having a rendering range applied to a leading band in which the order of execution of the printing process is a band from the leading to a predetermined number;
A first expansion step of expanding the priority drawing command to generate band data of the leading band;
A second expansion step of expanding the drawing command to generate band data for the bands after the first band;
A printing apparatus control method comprising: a printing control step for causing the printing apparatus to perform a printing process according to the band data when the band data is generated. A driver program for causing a printing apparatus to sequentially execute a printing process for each band obtained by dividing an image to be printed into a predetermined height,
Computer
Input means for receiving input data describing the image to be printed in a markup language;
First interpretation means for interpreting the input data and obtaining a rendering command for rendering the image to be printed;
A second interpreter that interprets the input data and searches for a priority rendering command having a rendering range that is applied to a leading band in which the execution order of the printing processes is a band from the leading to a predetermined number;
Expanding means for expanding the priority drawing command to generate band data of the first band, and then expanding the drawing command to generate band data for bands after the first band;
When the band data is generated, print control is performed such that the band data is sequentially supplied to the printing apparatus via a communication unit that performs communication with the printing apparatus, and the printing apparatus performs a printing process according to the band data. A driver program that functions as means. A computer-readable recording medium on which the driver program according to claim 7 is recorded.

Images