JP2009233947A - Image forming apparatus, image forming system, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make the printing directions of pages be matched with one another when a printing process is executed using a printing instruction containing output control information can specify a paper type for each page. <P>SOLUTION: On the basis of the output control information contained in a print job received by a print job receiving part 31 and information (tray information) of paper stored in a paper feed device 41, a printing paper determination section 36 determines the printing direction of printing paper used in a printing process. When there is any page the printing direction of which is different from the printing direction of pages determined by the printing paper determining section 36, a printing direction changing section 37 changes the printing direction of the page to the printing direction of the other pages. A paper replacement instructing section 38 instructs to replace paper with paper for executing the printing process in the printing direction changed by the printing direction changing section 37. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and a program.

  Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-151867 discloses a technique for searching for a device-side state based on attributes specified at the time of transmission and selecting a sheet intended by the user as much as possible when there is no tray having the attributes specified on the transmission side. ing.

JP 2003-252466 A

  According to the present invention, when a print process using a print instruction (print job) including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page is executed, the print direction of each page can be adjusted. An object is to provide an apparatus, an image forming system, and a program.

[Image forming system]
The present invention according to claim 1 includes a printing device, a paper feeding device that supplies paper to the printing device, and an image processing device that processes an image printed by the printing device,
The image processing apparatus includes:
Receiving means for receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
A print direction for printing each page included in the print instruction is determined based on output control information included in the print instruction received by the receiving unit and information on a sheet stored in the paper feeding device. A decision means to
An image forming system comprising: a changing unit that changes a printing direction of a page to a printing direction of another specific page when there is a page having a different printing direction among the printing directions of the pages determined by the determining unit. .

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, when the cover is designated by the output control information, the change unit changes the print direction of the body page to match the print direction of the cover page. This is an image forming system.

  The present invention according to claim 3 further includes instruction means for instructing the sheet feeding device to replace a sheet so that the sheet is replaced with a sheet for executing a printing process according to the printing direction changed by the changing means. Or an image forming system according to 2;

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the image forming system according to any one of the first to third aspects, further comprising a rotating unit that rotates image data of a page whose printing direction has been changed by the changing unit.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the image forming system according to the fourth aspect, further comprising a notifying unit for notifying that the image data has been rotated by the rotating unit.

The present invention according to claim 6 is an image output means for outputting an image based on the image data rotated by the rotating means;
A post-processing device that performs post-processing on the image output by the image output means;
The image forming system according to claim 4 or 5, further comprising:

[Image forming apparatus]
The present invention according to claim 7 includes an image output unit, a paper feed unit that supplies paper to the image output unit, and an image processing unit that processes an image output by the image output unit,
The image processing unit
Receiving means for receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
A print direction for printing each page included in the print instruction is determined based on output control information included in the print instruction received by the receiving unit and information on the paper stored in the paper feeding unit. A decision means to
An image forming apparatus comprising: a changing unit that changes a printing direction of a page to a printing direction of another specific page when there is a page having a different printing direction among the printing directions of the pages determined by the determining unit. .

[program]
The present invention according to claim 8 is a step of receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
Determining a printing direction for printing each page included in the print instruction based on the output control information included in the received print instruction and the information on the paper stored in the paper feeding device;
When there is a page having a different print direction among the determined print directions of the respective pages, the program causes the computer to execute a step of changing the print direction of the page to the print direction of another specific page.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, when executing a printing process using a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page, an image in which the printing direction of each page can be adjusted. A forming system can be provided.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect obtained by the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming system capable of matching the printing direction of the body page with the printing direction of the cover page. be able to.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect obtained by the first or second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to provide an image forming system that can instruct the user to replace the paper.

  According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect obtained by the invention according to any one of the first to third aspects, the image data of the page for changing the printing direction to the printing direction of another page is rotated. It is possible to provide an image forming system that can be used.

  According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effect obtained by the fourth aspect of the present invention, it is possible to provide an image forming system capable of notifying the user of a page whose printing direction has been changed.

  According to the present invention of claim 6, in addition to the effect obtained by the invention of claim 4 or 5, an image forming system capable of performing post-processing on the output image is provided. it can.

  According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, when executing a printing process using a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page, an image in which the printing direction of each page can be matched. A forming apparatus can be provided.

  According to the eighth aspect of the present invention, when executing a printing process using a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page, a program capable of adjusting the printing direction of each page. Can be provided.

[background]
First, in order to help understanding of the present invention, its background and outline will be described.

  In a print job (print instruction) for instructing execution of print processing, a drawing command for composing an image and designation of post-processing such as selection of a tray to be used, specification of paper size, presence / absence of staples, etc. are performed. Device control commands (output control information). However, in general, this device control command can set only the same content for one print job. Therefore, in this case, only one type of printing paper can be designated for the entire print job.

  In contrast to such a conventional print job, a print job in which a device control command can be set for each page (page) is used. By using such a print job, different output control can be performed for each page of one print job. For example, the first page can be printed using a printing paper with a paper size of A4, and the second and subsequent pages can be printed using a printing paper with a paper size of B4. It is also possible to execute the printing process using a thick printing paper for the first page, and to execute the printing process using a normal printing paper for the second and subsequent pages.

  In the embodiment of the present invention described below, an image forming system that executes print processing using a print job in which such device control commands can be set for each page will be described.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes an image forming system 10 and a terminal device 20 connected to each other via a network 30. The image forming system 10 includes a printing device 43, a paper feeding device 41 that supplies paper to the printing device 43, and a post-processing device 42 that performs post-processing on an image printed by the printing device 43. Yes. The terminal device 20 generates print data and transmits the print data generated via the network 30 to the image forming system 10. The image forming system 10 receives print data transmitted from the terminal device 20 and outputs an image corresponding to the print data on a sheet. The printing device 43 may be a so-called multifunction device having a plurality of functions such as a printing (printing) function, a scanning function, a copying (copying) function, and a facsimile function.

Next, FIG. 2 shows a hardware configuration of the printing apparatus 43 in the image forming system 10 of the present embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 2, the printing device 43 communicates with the CPU 11, the memory 12, the storage device 13 such as a hard disk drive (HDD), and the like to transmit and receive data to and from an external device via the network 30. It has an interface (IF) 14, a user interface (UI) device 15 including a touch panel or a liquid crystal display and a keyboard, a scanner 16, and a print engine 17. These components are connected to each other via a control bus 18.

  The CPU 11 controls the operation of the printing device 43 by executing predetermined processing based on a control program stored in the memory 12 or the storage device 13.

  In the present embodiment, the CPU 11 has been described as reading and executing a control program stored in the memory 12 or the storage device 13, but the program is stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM and stored in the CPU 11. It is also possible to provide.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the printing apparatus 43 realized by executing the control program.
As shown in FIG. 3, the printing apparatus 43 according to the present embodiment includes an image processing device 35, an image output unit 34, and a display device 39. The image processing device 35 is a device for processing an image to be printed by the printing device 43, and includes a print job receiving unit 31, a decomposer 32, a rotation processing unit 33, a printing paper determination unit 36, and a printing direction change. A unit 37 and a paper replacement instruction unit 38.

  The print job receiving unit 31 receives a print instruction including output control information that can specify a paper type for each page. The decomposer 32 performs image processing for expanding the image data included in the print job received by the print job receiving unit 31 into a print image.

  The rotation processing unit 33 rotates the image data of the page whose printing direction has been changed by the printing direction changing unit 37. When there is no instruction to change the printing direction by the printing direction changing unit 37, the rotation processing unit 33 transmits the image data developed by the decomposer to the image output unit 34 as it is.

  The image output unit 34 outputs an image based on the image data after the rotation processing is performed by the rotation processing unit 33. The post-processing device 42 performs various post-processing such as stapling, punching, cutting, folding processing, and bookbinding on the image output from the image output unit 34.

  The print paper determination unit 36 is used for print processing based on output control information included in the print job received by the print job reception unit 31 and paper information (tray information) stored in the paper feeding device 41. Determine the printing paper to be used. Here, the determination of the printing paper includes determining the paper size, paper quality, and printing direction (portrait, landscape) of the paper used for printing. That is, the print paper determination unit 36 determines not only the paper size and paper quality for printing each page included in the print job, but also the print direction.

  When there is a page with a different print direction among the print directions of each page determined by the print paper determination unit 36, the print direction change unit 37 changes the print direction of the page to the print direction of another specific page. For example, when the cover is specified by the device control command, the print direction changing unit 37 changes the print direction of the body page to match the print direction of the cover page. In addition, when the orientation of the image data included in the print job is different from the orientation of the printing paper selected by the printing paper determination unit 36, the printing direction changing unit 37 matches the orientation of the image data with the orientation of the printing paper. Instructed to the rotation processing unit 33.

  The paper replacement instruction unit 38 issues a paper replacement instruction to the paper feeding device 41 so as to replace the paper for executing the printing process according to the printing direction changed by the printing direction changing unit 37. In addition, when the rotation processing unit 33 performs a rotation process on image data, the sheet replacement instruction unit 38 also functions as a notification unit that notifies the user to that effect.

  The display device 39 displays the sheet replacement instruction performed by the sheet replacement instruction unit 38 so that the user can visually recognize it.

  Next, the operation of the image forming system 10 of this embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  Here, a case where a print job 61 as shown in FIG. 4 is received and executed will be described. As shown in FIG. 4, the print job 61 includes a front cover, a body, and a back cover print instruction. The front cover print instruction includes output control information with a paper size of A4 and paper quality as tab paper, and the text print instruction includes output control information with a paper size of A4 and paper quality as plain paper. The back cover printing instruction includes output control information in which the paper size is A4 and the paper quality is tab paper.

  In the following description, the case where such a print job 61 is executed by the image forming system 10 of the present embodiment will be described. Further, as shown in FIG. 5, the paper tray of the paper feeding device 41 of the image forming system 10 includes A4 size, portrait, plain paper, letter size, landscape, plain paper, and so on. It is assumed that A4 size, landscape, tab paper printing paper and A3 size, portrait, plain paper printing paper are set. Here, landscape refers to Long Edge Feed in which the long side of the paper is set to be orthogonal to the sub-scanning direction. Here, landscape refers to the short side of the paper. This means vertical paper feed (Short Edge Feed) in which is set to be orthogonal to the sub-scanning direction.

First, an operation for executing a cover cover print instruction is shown in the flowchart of FIG.
When a print job 61 as shown in FIG. 4 is transmitted from the terminal device 20 to the image forming system 10, the print job 61 is received by the print job receiving unit 31. Then, the decomposer 32 performs a decompression process for the front cover image included in the print job 61 (step S101).

  Then, the print paper determination unit 36 selects the print paper to be used based on the tray information related to the print paper set in the paper feeding device 41 and the paper information specified by the cover cover print instruction. (Step S102). Here, since the printing paper as shown in FIG. 5 is set in the paper feeding device 41 and the printing instruction is A4 size and tab paper, the printing paper determination unit 36 sets the A4 size, landscape orientation, and tab paper. Select printing paper.

  If the orientation of the printing paper selected by the printing paper determination unit 36 and the orientation of the image data included in the print job are different (step S103), the rotation processing of the image data decompressed by the rotation processing unit 33 is performed. Performed (step S104). With this process, the lateral feed is selected as the cover cover printing direction.

  Next, an operation in the case of executing a body text print instruction is shown in the flowchart of FIG.

  The decomposer 32 performs a decomposing process on the body image included in the print job 61 (step S201).

  Then, the print paper determination unit 36 selects the print paper to be used based on the tray information related to the print paper set in the paper feeding device 41 and the paper information specified by the text print instruction ( Step S202).

  Here, since the printing paper as shown in FIG. 5 is set in the paper feeding device 41 and the printing instruction is A4 size, plain paper, the printing paper determination unit 36 sets the A4 size, portrait (vertical feed). Paper) and tab sheet printing paper are selected (step S202).

  However, since the front cover printing is designated here (step S203), it is determined whether or not the text printing direction and the front cover printing direction are different (step S204).

  Then, since the front cover printing direction is horizontal paper feeding and the main body printing direction is vertical paper feeding, it is determined that the printing direction is different and the main body printing direction matches the front cover printing direction. Changes are made. Specifically, the paper replacement instruction unit 38 issues a paper replacement instruction for instructing to set A4 size, landscape, plain paper (step S205). Then, the rotation processing unit 33 performs a process of rotating the image data of the decomposed text (step S206).

  This rotation process differs depending on the print data format. In the page print mode where the print processing is performed in units of pages, the bitmap data is rotated. In the banding print mode where the print processing is performed in units of bands, the intermediate language is displayed in the band area after the rotation. Combine with clip processing and draw while rotating.

  The operation to execute the back cover print instruction is the same as the process to execute the front cover print instruction shown in the flowchart of FIG.

  In this way, paper selection is performed so that the front cover, the body, and the back cover have the same print direction, and the image output unit 34 obtains a print result as shown in FIG. From the printing result shown in FIG. 8, it can be seen that the printing is executed so that the front cover 81, the body 82, and the back cover 83 have the same printing direction. Therefore, post-processing such as stapling and punching can be performed.

  In the above description, the case where a cover sheet is added to the print result is described. However, in the image forming system 10 of the present embodiment, even when a slip sheet is inserted in the middle of the print result, The print result is output in a state where the print direction of the body is matched.

  The operation of the image forming system 10 of this embodiment when inserting slip sheets in the middle of the text is shown in the flowchart of FIG.

  If the slip sheet is set, first, the decomposer 32 performs a decompression process on the text before the slip sheet (step S301). Then, a tray for printing a text image is selected (step S302). Then, the decomposer 32 performs a decomposing process on the slip sheet image (step S303), and selects a tray for printing the slip sheet image (step S304).

  Then, it is determined whether or not the print direction of the interleaf for the text is different (step S306). If the print directions are different, a paper replacement instruction (step S306) is used to change the print direction of the text. A rotation process (step S307) of the image data of the decomposed text is performed. Finally, a decomposing process is performed on the image of the body text behind the slip sheet (step S308).

  In this embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to the image forming system 10 in which the paper feeding device 41 and the printing device 43 are independent has been described. However, the paper feeding unit and the image output unit are described. The present invention can be similarly applied to an image forming apparatus in which is configured in one apparatus.

1 is a diagram illustrating a system configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a block diagram which shows the hardware constitutions of the printing apparatus 43 of one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the function structure of the printing apparatus 43 of one Embodiment of this invention. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the image forming system 10 according to the first exemplary embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a diagram for describing a sheet set in a sheet tray of a sheet feeding device 41. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement in the case of performing the printing instruction | indication of a front cover. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation when a body text print instruction is executed. It is a figure which shows an example of a printing result. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation when a print instruction is executed when a slip sheet is inserted into a text.

Explanation of symbols

10 Image forming system 11 CPU
12 Memory 13 Storage Device 14 Communication Interface (IF)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 15 User interface (UI) apparatus 16 Scanner 17 Print engine 18 Control bus 20 Terminal apparatus 30 Network 31 Print job receiving part 32 Decomposer 33 Rotation processing part 34 Image output part 35 Image processing apparatus 36 Printing paper determination part 37 Printing direction change part 38 Paper replacement instruction section 39 Display device 41 Paper feed device 42 Post-processing device 43 Printing device 61 Print job 81 Front cover 82 Body 83 Back cover S101 to S104 Step S201 to S206 Step S301 to S308 Step

Claims (8)

A printing apparatus, a paper feeding apparatus that supplies paper to the printing apparatus, and an image processing apparatus that processes an image printed by the printing apparatus,
The image processing apparatus includes:
Receiving means for receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
A print direction for printing each page included in the print instruction is determined based on output control information included in the print instruction received by the receiving unit and information on a sheet stored in the paper feeding device. A decision means to
Changing means for changing the printing direction of the page to the printing direction of another specific page when there is a page of a different printing direction among the printing directions of each page determined by the determining means;
An image forming system.   2. The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein when the cover is designated by the output control information, the changing unit changes the printing direction of the body page to match the printing direction of the cover page.   3. The image forming system according to claim 1, further comprising an instruction unit that instructs the sheet feeding device to replace a sheet so that the sheet is replaced with a sheet for executing a printing process according to the printing direction changed by the changing unit.   4. The image forming system according to claim 1, further comprising a rotating unit that rotates image data of a page whose printing direction has been changed by the changing unit.   The image forming system according to claim 4, further comprising notification means for notifying that the image data is rotated by the rotation means. Image output means for outputting an image based on the image data rotated by the rotation means;
A post-processing device that performs post-processing on the image output by the image output means;
The image forming system according to claim 4, further comprising: An image output unit; a paper supply unit that supplies paper to the image output unit; and an image processing unit that processes an image output by the image output unit;
The image processing unit
Receiving means for receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
A print direction for printing each page included in the print instruction is determined based on output control information included in the print instruction received by the receiving unit and information on the paper stored in the paper feeding unit. A decision means to
Changing means for changing the printing direction of the page to the printing direction of another specific page when there is a page of a different printing direction among the printing directions of each page determined by the determining means;
An image forming apparatus. Receiving a print instruction including output control information capable of designating a paper type for each page;
Determining a printing direction for printing each page included in the print instruction based on the output control information included in the received print instruction and the information on the paper stored in the paper feeding device;
A program for causing a computer to execute, when there is a page having a different print direction among the determined print directions of each page, changing the print direction of the page to the print direction of another specific page.

Images