JP2010046890A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reuse component data included in printing data without pressuring a storage region of a memory means. <P>SOLUTION: The image forming apparatus includes a storage part 52, a receiving means which receives an XPS file 30 described by a page description language together with a printing command and supplies the XPS file 30 into a printer controller 51, a reuse part 51B which is present inside the printer controller 51 and extracts an image object file 40 if the file is in the supplied XPS file 30, a reuse storage control part 51C which stores the extracted image object file 40 as a reused component in the storage part 52, and an access control part 53 which controls the storage part 52 to access the image object. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that receives print data described in a page description language, converts the print data into bitmap data, and performs printing, and in particular, reuses component data included in the print data. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.

  Currently, print data created by an external device such as a PC (Personal Computer), that is, data in a page description language (PDL) format represented by PostScript (registered trademark) or PCL (Printer Control Language) Is received via a network such as a LAN, and the received data is temporarily converted into intermediate format data (intermediate data) and stored in the memory, and the intermediate data stored in the memory is sequentially read and bitmapped. 2. Description of the Related Art Image forming apparatuses such as network-type copying machines, printers, or MFPs (Multi Function Peripherals) that perform conversion after converting to data have become widespread.

  Here, as print data to be interpreted by the image forming apparatus, PDF (Portable Document Format), XPS (XML Paper Specification), and the like will become mainstream in the future, instead of print data in the above representative languages.

  A common feature of print data written in these page description languages is a hierarchical structure for each set of data. Print control commands, image object data, graphic object data, text drawing object data, fonts This is a collection of object data and other componentized data (hereinafter referred to as component data) (see Patent Document 1 below).

  In particular, the PDF and XPS have a hierarchical structure further than other page description languages, and their individual component data can be easily distinguished.

  Such component data can be used in other print jobs, and by reusing, it is possible to save the trouble of creating print data relating to the print job.

  Therefore, Patent Document 2 below discloses a configuration in which an image forming apparatus stores bitmap data obtained by converting print data described in a page description language in a storage unit and reuses the bitmap data. .

Similarly, in Patent Document 3 below, the image forming apparatus stores the print data in the print data storage unit for the specified storage period, verifies the user's authority to use print data based on the user information, and then performs the printing. A configuration for reusing data is disclosed.
JP2007-221604 JP2007-4683 JP2007-213408

  However, the invention of Patent Document 2 described above is a configuration that reuses bitmap data based on all print data in the page description language, and a configuration that reuses predetermined component data therein is disclosed. Absent. In particular, when reusing print data that has been converted to bitmap data, a plurality of component data are expanded and integrated in the bitmap data, so only predetermined component data is taken out and reused. It is difficult to use.

  Further, in principle, the amount of data of the bitmap data is larger than that of the print data of the page description language, and the storage area of the storage unit is compressed. Furthermore, since all the print data is saved, the storage area is compressed rather than saving only the component data.

  In the invention of the above-mentioned Patent Document 3, it is not certain whether the print data in the page description language is reused or the bitmap data after conversion is reused, but all the print data is reused.

  In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of easily reusing component data included in print data without squeezing a storage area of a storage unit. It is in.

In the first aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
Storage means;
Reusable extraction means for extracting an image object in the print data described and supplied in the page description language;
Reusable storage control means for storing the extracted image object in the storage means as a reusable part;
Read control means for controlling the storage means to read the image object;
It is characterized by providing.

In a second aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
Receiving means for receiving the print data together with a print command and supplying the print data to the reusable extraction means;
It is characterized by that.

In a third aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
The image object included in the print data has a file format,
The reusable storage control means stores the image object in the storage means in a file format.
It is characterized by that.

In a fourth aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
The storage means stores a management table of the image object,
When the reusable storage control means stores the image object in the storage means, the management table registers the identification name of the image object and information indicating the storage location in association with each other,
The read control means performs read control with reference to the management table.
It is characterized by that.

In a fifth aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
Instruction input means;
From the plurality of image objects stored in the storage means, those that are judged unnecessary based on a predetermined rule or those judged unnecessary based on the instruction input of the instruction input means are deleted from the storage means Erasing means to perform,
Is further provided.

In a sixth aspect of the image forming apparatus according to the present invention,
The storage means stores reusability execution enable / disable setting information,
The reusable extraction means and the reusable storage control means perform the above-described processes when the reusability execution enable / disable setting information indicates executable.
It is characterized by that.

  According to the configuration of the first aspect, in particular, “when there is an image object in the print data described and supplied in the page description language, the reusable extraction means for extracting the image object, and the extracted image object As a reusable part, a reusable storage control means for storing in the storage means, and a read control means for controlling the storage means to read the image object. For this reason, the storage means that can extract the part data from the print data in the page description language and can be read by the read control means, which has a small data size and can be easily distinguished by the part data unit before being expanded into the bitmap data Therefore, the component data included in the print data can be easily reused without squeezing the storage area of the storage means. Note that, as long as it is possible to read the component data stored in the storage means, it can be reused for various purposes thereafter.

  According to the configuration of the second aspect, since the printing data received together with the print command is further provided with “receiving means for receiving the print data together with the print command and supplying the print data to the reuse extraction means”. Such an image object can be reused.

  According to the configuration of the third aspect, “the image object included in the print data has a file format, and the reusable storage control unit stores the image object in the storage unit in a file format”. When searching for an image object from print data, it is easy to distinguish the image object from other data, and the reusable extraction means can quickly extract the image object. In addition, since it is stored in a file format, it becomes easier to distinguish between image objects stored in the storage means than in the case of storing by simple data formation, and the read control means can easily specify the image object by a file name. There is an effect that can be accessed. When the image object included in the print data has a data format, it is stored as a file.

  According to the configuration of the fourth aspect, “the management unit of the image object is stored in the storage unit, and the reuse storage control unit stores the image object in the storage unit when the storage unit stores the image object. In the management table, the identification name of the image object and information indicating its storage location are registered in association with each other, and the read control means performs read control with reference to the management table. When there is an access command for an image object with an identification name, the image object can be accessed directly by referring to information indicating the storage destination (storage destination start address or pointer pointing to it), and access control This has the effect of speeding up the process. This configuration is particularly necessary when the image object is not stored in the file format but is stored in the simple data format because the storage destination is unknown without such a management table.

  According to the configuration of the fifth aspect, “instruction input means and a plurality of image objects stored in the storage means that are determined to be unnecessary based on a predetermined rule, or input instructions to the instruction input means” And an erasing unit that erases from the storage unit what is determined to be unnecessary based on the storage unit, so that unnecessary or unneeded image objects are automatically or manually erased from the storage unit and compress the storage area of the storage unit. There is an effect that it can be prevented.

  According to the configuration of the sixth aspect described above, “the reusability execution enable / disable setting information is stored in the storage means, and the reusability extraction means and the reusability save control means When the setting information indicates that execution is possible, the above processing is performed. ”When the receiving unit receives the print data together with the print command, both the print processing and the reuse processing are performed, and only the print processing is performed. , Can be selected by the user. In this case, when printing print data including an image object that is unnecessary for reuse, if the reuse execution enable / disable setting information is set to not executable, the image object is not stored in the storage means as a reuse part. There is an effect that it is possible to prevent the storage area of the means from being pressed.

  Other objects, configurations and effects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an image forming system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.

  The image forming system 3 according to the first exemplary embodiment includes a host computer 5 and an image forming apparatus 10 that can communicate with each other.

  When a print job is instructed to execute, the host computer 5 transmits an XPS file described in a page description language and a structured language to the image forming apparatus 10 via the communication path 20.

  The image forming apparatus 10 has an XPS-compatible printer function, receives an XPS file together with a print command from the host computer 5, and temporarily converts the received XPS file into intermediate format data (intermediate data) by an internal printer controller. This is a network type MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) that converts and holds the data in a memory, sequentially reads intermediate data held in the memory, converts the data into bitmap data, and performs printing.

  The communication path 20 is, for example, a network cable such as the Internet, LAN (Local Area Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network) or wireless, or a serial interface or parallel interface.

  FIG. 2 shows the XPS file structure.

  The XPS file 30 is obtained by ZIP-compressing a plurality of files related to the one print job. When this is decompressed, it can be seen that the XPS file 30 is composed of a plurality of structured files (hereinafter referred to as component files) as shown in FIG.

  This file structure has an Images folder 35 when at least one image object is incorporated in the XPS file 30. The Images folder 35 includes, for example, image object files 40 of “test1.tif”, “test2.tif”, and “test3.gif”.

  FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the image forming apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

  In the image forming apparatus 10, an EEPROM 13 E 1, EEPROM 13 E 2, DRAM 13 D, HDD 14, operation panel 15, scanner 16 S, printer 16 P, NIC 17, facsimile modem 18, and compression / decompression ASIC 19 are coupled to the MPU 11 via an interface 12. In FIG. 1, a plurality of interfaces are shown as one block for simplification.

  The EEPROMs 13E1 and 13E2 are, for example, flash memories. The EEPROM 13E1 stores BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The EEPROM 13E2 stores an OS (Operating System), various programs operating on the OS, and various setting values.

  The DRAM 13D is for a work area, and the HDD 14 is for data file storage.

  The operation panel 15 is used for inputting a setting value or an instruction and displaying a setting screen or a state. In the first embodiment, a case where the operation panel 15 is configured by a combination of a touch panel and hardware keys will be described.

  The scanner 16S is used for image input in scanning, copying, and fax transmission. The printer 16P includes a print engine, a fixing device, a paper feed unit, a conveyance unit, and a paper discharge unit, and forms an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive drum of the print engine based on bitmap data developed on the DRAM 13D. This is developed with toner, transferred to a sheet, fixed, and discharged.

  The NIC 17 is for communicating with the host computer 5 on the communication path 20. The facsimile modem 18 is for facsimile transmission / reception.

  The compression / decompression ASIC 19 is used as a coprocessor of the MPU 11.

  FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of a part related to the present invention of the image forming apparatus 10. As shown in the figure, the image forming apparatus 10 mainly includes a receiving unit 50, a printer controller 51, a storage unit 52, and an access control unit 53 in addition to the printer 16P.

  The receiving unit 50 is, for example, the NIC 17 and plays a role of receiving the XPS file 30 from the host computer 5 or the like and passing it to the printer controller 51.

  The storage unit 52 is, for example, the EEPROM 13E2, the HDD 14, or another storage device (for example, a USB memory). The storage unit 52 has a reuse component folder 52A in the storage unit area, and is included in the XPS file 30 in the folder 52A. The image object file 40 is stored as a reuse part.

  The access control unit 53 controls the storage unit 52 to access (particularly read) the image object file 40 in the reuse component folder 52A. As long as the image object file 40 can be accessed, it can be reused. In the first embodiment, although there is no particular limitation to the reuse method, for example, there is the following method.

(1) Reading the image object file 40 from the storage unit 52 based on an instruction from the operation panel 15 and printing only that portion as it is.
(2) generating new print data by combining a plurality of image object files 40 in the storage unit 52 based on an instruction from the operation panel 15 and printing the print data;
(3) automatically overlaying the image based on the image object file 40 with the image of the print file newly received by the receiving unit 50;
(4) The image object file 40 in the storage unit 52 is passed to the host computer 5 via the communication path 20 or a removable storage medium such as a USB memory, and passed when the print data is created on the host computer 5 side. Use the image object file 40.

  The printer controller 51 includes an MPU 11, a predetermined program stored in the EEPROM 13E2, and a DRAM 13D. In addition to the known print processing unit 51A as a functional unit, the reuse extraction unit 51B, The utilization saving control unit 51C is newly provided in the first embodiment.

  The print processing unit 51A has a known interpreter function for interpreting the XPS file 30 and converting it into an intermediate language, a rasterizing function for developing this into bitmap data, and image processing of the bitmap data as appropriate to perform the printer 16P. Output function.

  The reuse extraction unit 51B acquires the XPS file 30 before the XPS file 30 received by the reception unit 50 is transferred to the print processing unit 51A, and reuses the image object file 40 included therein. For this purpose, a process of extracting and transferring this to the reuse storage control unit 51C is performed. Details of this process will be described later.

  The reuse storage control unit 51C stores the image object file 40 passed from the reuse extraction unit 51B in the reuse component folder 52A in the storage unit 52 as a reuse component.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the process of the reuse extraction unit 51B according to the first embodiment. In the following, the step identification codes in the figure are shown in parentheses.

  (S1) The XPS file 30 acquired from the receiving unit 50 is decompressed by ZIP.

  (S2) It is searched whether the Images folder 35 as shown in FIG. 2 exists in the expanded folder group.

  (S3) If the Images folder 35 exists, there is always at least one image object file 40 in the folder 35, so the process proceeds to the next step. If the Images folder 35 does not exist, the process proceeds to step S6.

  (S4) All the image object files 40 in the Images folder 35 are extracted. Note that “extracting” here means copying to the DRAM 13D while leaving the original file.

  (S5) All the extracted image object files 40 are transferred to the reuse storage control unit 51C.

  (S6) The entire XPS file 30 is transferred to the print processing unit 51A and a print processing request is made.

  As described above, according to the first embodiment, “the storage unit 52, the receiving unit that receives the XPS file 30 described in the page description language together with the print command, and supplies the XPS file 30 to the inside of the printer controller 51, the printer When there is an image object file 40 in the XPS file 30 that exists inside the controller 51 and is supplied, the reuse unit 51B for extracting the image object file 40 and the extracted image object file 40 as the reuse parts A reusable storage control unit 51C stored in the storage unit 52, and an access control unit 53 for performing control to access the image object to the storage unit 52. For this reason, the access control unit 53 can extract the part data from the XPS file 30 in the page description language, which has a small data size and can be easily distinguished in units of part data before being expanded into bitmap data. Since it can be stored in the storage unit 52, it is possible to easily reuse the parts and the image object file 40 included in the XPS file 30 without squeezing the storage area of the storage unit 52. There is an effect.

  In addition, since the print file is the XPS file 30, the image object included in the print file has a file format, and it is easy to distinguish the image object file 40 from other data included in the XPS file 30, and the reuse is possible. There is an effect that the extraction unit 51B can search the image object file 40 quickly. In the case of the PDF file described in Example 2 below, since the image object cannot be extracted unless the PDF file is read and the language included in the PDF file is interpreted, the search process is troublesome.

  Furthermore, since the reuse storage control unit 51C stores the extracted image object file 40 in the storage unit 52 in the same file format, it is stored in the storage unit 52 as compared with the case where data is stored simply by data formation. This makes it easy to distinguish the image object files 40 from each other, and the access control unit 53 can specify the image object file 40 by the file name, and can be easily accessed.

  In addition, Example 1 of this invention mentioned above is an illustration for description of this invention, and is not the meaning which limits the scope of the present invention only to those Examples. Various modifications can be made to the present invention without departing from the gist thereof. Hereinafter, some of the modifications will be exemplified.

  In the first embodiment, the case where the MFP is used as the image forming apparatus 10 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other image forming apparatuses such as a copying machine or a printer are used. May be.

  Further, the printer controller 51 transfers the component file (image) when the reusable extraction unit 51B receives the print job by passing the processing to the print processing unit 51A in step S6 after the extraction processing in steps S1 to S5. The configuration for performing both the reuse of the object file 40) and the printing process has been described. However, when the print job is received by storing the reuse execution enable / disable setting information in the EEPROM 13E2, the reuse is performed. The configuration may be such that, based on the execution setting information, only the component file reuse processing, only the printing processing, or both may be switched. Note that a hardware switch may be used as the reusability execution enable / disable setting unit. In such a case, the reuse process can be performed only when necessary, so that the unnecessary image object file 40 is not accumulated in the reuse component folder 52A, but the data stored in the storage area of the storage unit 52 is stored. The amount of data can be reduced.

  Further, based on the same idea as described above, the print driver of the host computer 5 gives the reusability execution enable / disable setting information to the print job and refers to the reusability execution enable / disable setting information received by the printer controller 51. You may make it prepare. In addition, for each application that creates a print job, the printer driver determines whether or not to apply the reusability execution setting information to the corresponding print job. Good.

  The reuse extraction unit 51B has been described as having a configuration that exists separately from the interpreter of the print processing unit 51A. However, the reuse extraction unit 51B may be included in the interpreter. When included in the interpreter, instead of steps S1 to S6, the image object file 40 may be extracted and reused at the same time as the image object file 40 is converted into an intermediate language. Good.

  In addition, the reuse storage control unit 51C has described the configuration in which the image object file 40 passed from the reuse extraction unit is stored in the reuse component folder 52A without changing the file name. In order to avoid duplication of the file names of the file 40, for example, a file name including a date and time may be newly given instead of the existing file name and stored in the reuse component folder 52A.

  Furthermore, the reusable storage control unit 51C reads the management table file 60 as shown in FIG. 6A stored in advance in the storage unit 52 when storing the image object file 40 in the reusable part folder 52A. The storage information related to the image object file 40 is registered. As shown in the figure, the storage information includes a file number 61 that is a serial number, the extracted file name 62 as it is, a JOBID 63 that is indicated by the serial number of the print job, a combination of this and the file name, etc., and a storage unit The storage location information 64, which is the start address of the image object file 40 in 52 or a storage destination pointer that represents this as a variable, can be mentioned. However, for the same reason as described above, it is newly added separately from the file name 62. A configuration may be included in which the assigned file name, file attributes, and the like are included. In this case, the access control unit 53 refers to the management table file 60 and uses the corresponding storage location information 64 when the storage unit 52 controls access to the predetermined image object file 40, thereby using the storage unit information 64. No. 52 can directly access the image object file 40 and can speed up the access control process.

  Furthermore, the case where the reuse storage control unit 51C stores the extracted image object file 40 directly in the reuse part folder 52A has been described. In addition, after determining whether or not the image object file 40 stored in the buffer folder and the image object file 40 already stored in the reuse component folder 52A have the same contents, only those that are not the same are reused. You may make it store in the components folder 52A. In this case, since the image object files 40 having the same contents are not stored in the reuse component folder 52A, the data amount of the reuse component folder 52A can be reduced.

  The printer controller 51 may further include an erasing unit that erases from the storage unit 52 what is determined to be unnecessary from a plurality of image objects stored in the storage unit 52. Specifically, when the erasure unit receives an erasure instruction for a file that is determined to be unnecessary from the operation panel 15, when the print job is received or periodically, at a predetermined timing such as periodically, A configuration may be considered in which the access date and time of the image object file 40 is monitored, and the access date and time determined to be old is considered unnecessary and is erased. In addition, a configuration may be considered in which the management table file 60 is referred to at a predetermined timing, and the image object file 40 with the old JOBID is considered unnecessary and is deleted as needed.

  Furthermore, examples of the page description language applied in the present invention include PDF, PRESCRIBE (registered trademark), PCL, PS (PostScript), and the like in addition to the above XPS. A method of applying the present invention to print data in PDF format will be described in detail in Example 2 below.

  Furthermore, the storage unit 52 is not limited to a fixed storage device such as the HDD 14 or the EEPROM 13E2, and may be a removable storage medium such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, CD, MD, HDD, SD card, or CF card. .

  In addition to the image object file in the TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) format or the GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) format, the reuse extraction unit 51B, for example, LZW (Lempel Ziv Welch), It is also possible to extract Flate, RunLength, CCITT Fax, JBIG2 (Joint Bi-level Image experts Group 2), DCT, JPX, PNG (Portable Network Graphics), HDP (HD Photo), or the like.

  Furthermore, the image forming apparatus 10 may include components other than the above-described components, or some of the above-described components may not be included.

  In the first embodiment, the case where the print file received by the image forming apparatus 10 is in the XPS format has been described. However, since the data structure differs depending on the format of the print file, in particular, the page description language, the print file is regenerated according to this type. The processing of the utilization extraction unit 51B is also slightly different. For example, the difference between the XPS file 30 and the PDF file 100 according to the present invention is, in particular, whether an image object included in these files has a file format or an in-file object format.

  In the second embodiment, a case where the print file received by the image forming apparatus 10 from the host computer 5 is in the PDF format (hereinafter referred to as a PDF file) will be described. The configuration of the image forming apparatus 10 is the same as that of the second embodiment except that a PDF-compatible printer function is provided, and the reuse extraction unit 51B and the reuse storage control unit 51C have different processes. The same as described in Example 1.

  FIG. 7 shows an example in which a PDF file received by the image forming apparatus 10 is browsed in the ASCII code format.

  This PDF file 100 also has a print control command, image object data (corresponding to the image object file 40 in the first embodiment), graphic object data, and text drawing object data, similarly to print data described in other page description languages. And part data such as font object data.

  Among them, the image object data 101 is, for example, data immediately after “Stream” after “/ Subtype / Image” and before “endstream.endobj” in FIG.

  FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the process of the reuse extraction unit 51B according to the second embodiment. In the following, the step identification codes in the figure are shown in parentheses.

  (S10) The above-described reuse execution enable / disable setting information stored in advance in the EEPROM 13E2 is acquired, and based on this, it is determined whether or not to perform the reuse processing. If it is determined to be performed, the process proceeds to the next step, and if not, the process proceeds to step S17.

  (S11) The PDF file 100 received by the receiving unit 50 is acquired and read.

  (S12) The number N of image object data 101 in the PDF file 100 is acquired. For example, if the number of / Subtype / Image in the file is calculated, the number N of image object data 101 can be acquired.

  (S13, S16) The following steps S14 to S15 are repeated N times.

  (S14) Image object data 101 corresponding to a predetermined Subtype / Image is extracted.

  (S15) The extracted image object data 101 is transferred to the reuse storage control unit 51C.

  (S17) The entire PDF file 100 is transferred to the print processing unit 51A, and a print processing request is made.

  After the reusable storage control unit 51C acquires the extracted image object data 101, the reusable storage control unit 51C creates a file so that the access control unit 53 can access it, and assigns a name to the image object file 40 as shown in FIG. Create Thereafter, as in the first embodiment, the image object file 40 is stored in the reuse component folder 52A in the storage unit 52 as a reuse component.

  According to the second embodiment, the image object data 101 among the component data included in the PDF file 100 can be reused for other purposes.

  In addition, Example 2 of this invention mentioned above is an illustration for description of this invention, and is not the meaning which limits the scope of the present invention only to those Examples. Various modifications can be made to the present invention without departing from the gist thereof. Hereinafter, some of the modifications will be exemplified.

  The reusable storage control unit 51C has been described as a configuration for converting the extracted image object data 101 into a file. Good. In this case, it is necessary to be able to distinguish the data 101 from other data so that the access control unit 53 can access control the image object data 101. As a method of distinguishing, the configuration using the management table file described in the modification of the first embodiment can be considered.

  Specifically, when the image object data 101 is stored in a predetermined storage area of the storage unit 52, the management table file 110 as shown in FIG. The storage information related to the data 101 is registered. As shown in the figure, the storage information includes a data number 111 that is a serial number, a data name 112 that is automatically created so that the data 101 can be distinguished, a serial number of the print job, and a combination of this and the data name. And the storage location information 114 (for example, the physical address of the HDD 14) that is a storage destination pointer that represents the start address of the image object data 101 in the storage unit 52 or a variable thereof. In this case, the access control unit 53 refers to the management table file 60 and uses the corresponding storage location information 114 when the storage unit 52 controls access to the predetermined image object data 101, thereby storing the storage unit 52. 52 can access the image object data 40 separately from other data.

  The image forming apparatus 10 has a plurality of printer functions capable of interpreting not only the PDF format but also other types of print data such as the XPS format, the PCL format, and the PS format described in the first embodiment. A configuration may be provided in which the reuse processing method is switched according to the situation.

1 is a diagram illustrating an image forming system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the file structure of XPS. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of an image forming apparatus according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. 2 is a functional block diagram of a portion related to the present invention of an image forming apparatus. FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a process performed by a reuse extraction unit according to the first embodiment. (A) is explanatory drawing of the management table file which concerns on Example 1. FIG. (B) is explanatory drawing of the management table file which concerns on Example 2. FIG. It is an example in which a PDF file received by the image forming apparatus is browsed in an ASCII code format. It is a flowchart of the process of the reuse extraction part which concerns on the present Example 2. FIG.

Explanation of symbols

3 Image forming system 5 Host computer 10 Image forming apparatus 20 Communication path 30 XPS file 35 Images folder 11 MPU
12 interface 13E1, 13E2 EEPROM
13D DRAM
14 HDD
15 Operation panel 16S Scanner 16P Printer 17 NIC
18 Facsimile modem 19 Compression / decompression ASIC
40 Image Object File 50 Receiving Unit 51 Printer Controller 52 Storage Unit 53 Access Control Unit 52A Reuse Parts Folder 51A Print Processing Unit 51B Reuse Extraction Unit 51C Reuse Storage Control Unit 60 Management Table File 61 File Number 62 File Name 63 JOBID
64 Storage location information 100 PDF file 101 Image object data 110 Management table file 111 Data number 112 Data name 113 JOBID
114 Storage location information

Claims (6)

Storage means;
Reusable extraction means for extracting an image object in the print data described and supplied in the page description language;
Reusable storage control means for storing the extracted image object in the storage means as a reusable part;
Read control means for controlling the storage means to read the image object;
An image forming apparatus comprising: Receiving means for receiving the print data together with a print command and supplying the print data to the reusable extraction means;
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1. The image object included in the print data has a file format,
The reusable storage control means stores the image object in the storage means in a file format.
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image forming apparatus is an image forming apparatus. The storage means stores a management table of the image object,
When the reusable storage control means stores the image object in the storage means, the management table registers the identification name of the image object and information indicating the storage location in association with each other,
The read control means performs read control with reference to the management table.
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image forming apparatus is an image forming apparatus. Instruction input means;
From the plurality of image objects stored in the storage means, those that are judged unnecessary based on a predetermined rule or those judged unnecessary based on the instruction input of the instruction input means are deleted from the storage means Erasing means to perform,
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: The storage means stores reusability execution enable / disable setting information,
The reusable extraction means and the reusable storage control means perform the above-described processes when the reusability execution enable / disable setting information indicates executable.
The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image forming apparatus is an image forming apparatus.