JP2010256958A - Printing server and printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce printing cost by a more simple and inexpensive configuration. <P>SOLUTION: A printing condition corresponding to a user ID included in a header of a print job data is read from a print condition restriction table TBL which makes a user ID associated with a printing condition restriction by a printer driver by the side of a print server (S10 and S11). The printing condition is changed so that the printing condition included in a header may satisfy the printing condition restriction (S14-S25), and the user is notified of the change by E-mail (S28). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a print server and a printing system having a function for forcibly changing printing conditions such as color / monochrome and duplex / single-sided based on settings.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in order to reduce printing costs in companies and the like, for example, as disclosed in Patent Document 1 below, the number of printed sheets of users and groups has been limited.
JP 2008-65608 A

  However, in the print control system of Patent Document 1, it is necessary to arrange a management program on both the client side and the server side and to cooperate with each other, and management is performed using an SDK (Software Developers Kit) relating to the printer driver. Since the system has to be developed, the cost becomes high, and there is a case where the system cannot be adopted particularly in a small-scale company.

  In view of such problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a print server capable of reducing printing costs with a simpler and cheaper configuration and a printing system including the same.

In a first aspect of the present invention, in a print server that receives print job data including a print condition, converts the print job data into PDL data by a printer driver, and transmits the PDL data to the image forming apparatus.
It further comprises restriction information that associates user identification information with printing condition restrictions,
The printer driver causes the CPU to read a print condition restriction corresponding to the user identification information included in the print job data from the restriction information before the conversion, and the print condition included in the print job data is The printing condition is changed so as to satisfy the printing condition restriction.

In a second aspect of the print server according to the present invention, in the first aspect, the restriction information further includes an e-mail address associated with the user identification information,
When the printer driver further changes the print condition included in the print job data, the printer driver indicates that the print condition is changed to the e-mail address of the user identification information. Send an email.

  According to the configuration of the first aspect, the server-side printer driver reads the printing conditions corresponding to the user identification information included in the print job data from the restriction information that associates the user identification information with the printing condition restriction. Since the printing conditions only need to be changed so that the printing conditions included in the print job data satisfy this printing condition restriction, it is possible to reduce the printing cost with a simpler and cheaper configuration than before. In particular, it greatly contributes to expanding the use of printing conditions by small users.

  Moreover, since only the restriction information needs to be changed in order to change the printing condition restriction of each user, there is an effect that the management cost can be reduced.

  According to the structure of the said 2nd aspect, there exists an effect that a user can confirm the content of the printing condition forced change by the existing notification means.

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

  FIG. 5 is a schematic block diagram of a printing system to which the print server of the present invention is applied.

  In the print server 10, a CPU 11 is coupled to a PROM 13, a DRAM 14, an auxiliary storage device 15, and a NIC (network interface) 16 through an interface 12. In FIG. 5, a plurality of interfaces are represented by one block 12 for simplification.

  The PROM 13 is a flash memory, for example, and stores a BIOS.

  The DRAM 14 is used as a virtual storage type main storage device.

  The auxiliary storage device 15 stores a virtual storage OS (operating system), various device drivers including a printer driver, and various data including a print server program and a printing condition restriction table TBL.

  The print server 10, a plurality of PCs 20, PC 21,... Serving as clients to the server, and the image forming apparatus 30 are coupled via a wired or wireless communication medium COM to form a LAN. .

  The image forming apparatus 30 includes a print engine, a paper feeding unit, a conveyance unit, and a paper discharge unit, develops a bitmap of the supplied PDL data, and forms an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum based on the bitmap. This image is developed with toner, and the toner image is transferred and fixed on a sheet, and discharged.

  FIG. 3 is a schematic functional block diagram showing a part of the system of FIG.

  The user activates the application 22 on the PC 20, interactively operates the input device to create a document and the like, performs print settings on the GUI, and then clicks a print start button. In accordance with the application 22, the CPU causes the printer driver 24 to supply GDI data via a GDI (Graphics Device Interface) 23, which is an OS library. The printer driver 24 causes the CPU to add a header to the GDI data as shown in FIG. 4A to generate print job data and supply it to the spooler 25.

  This header information is set in the print setting by the GUI unit of the printer driver 24 linked with the application 22. In the header, when a document or the like generated by the application 22 is printed, whether the document or the like is printed in monochrome, whether to print in monochrome, whether to print on one side or both sides of the paper, Whether or not a plurality of logical pages are printed together on one page, a paper type such as recycled paper or plain paper, a printing condition such as the number of copies, and a user ID are included.

  Returning to FIG. 3, the spooler 25 causes the CPU to sequentially receive and temporarily store print job data from the printer driver 24, and to confirm that the print server 10 is in a ready state via the communication unit 26. The print job data is transmitted to the print server 10.

  The print server 10 includes a communication unit 17, a spooler 18, and a printer driver 19 corresponding to the communication unit 26, the spooler 25, and the printer driver 24 of the PC 20. The communication unit 17 includes the NIC 16 of FIG. 5 and a communication driver. In this respect, the communication unit 26 is the same as the communication unit 17.

  The spooler 18 causes the CPU to sequentially receive the print job data from the communication unit 17, assign a job number, temporarily store it in the auxiliary storage device 15, and sequentially supply it to the printer driver 19.

  Here, the auxiliary storage device 15 of the print server 10 stores a print condition restriction table TBL as shown in FIG. The printing condition restriction table TBL includes fields for user ID and e-mail address, and fields for “monochrome”, “double-sided”, “aggregation”, and “recycled paper” as printing condition restriction information. Yes.

  Each piece of printing condition restriction information is represented by a Boolean type. For example, if “monochrome” is Yes, the print job with this user ID is forcibly changed to “monochrome” even if the print mode as the print condition is “color” in the header. means.

  The printer driver 19 in FIG. 3 causes the CPU 11 to execute processing as shown in FIG. In this process, step S2 is a conventional process in which the CPU 11 converts the GDI data into PDL (page description language) data that can be interpreted by the image forming apparatus 30 and forms an image via the spooler 18 and the communication unit 17. Transmit to the device 30.

  The feature of the first embodiment is that the processes of step S0 and step S1 are added before the process of step S2. FIG. 2 is a detailed flowchart of the process in step S0 in FIG. In the following, the step identification codes in the figure are shown in parentheses.

  (S10) The header included in the print job data in FIG.

  (S11) The print condition restriction table TBL in FIG. 4B is searched with the user ID included in this header.

  (S12) Both flags Fr0 to Fr3 and Fu are initialized (reset).

  (S13) If the search in step S11 is hit, the process proceeds to step S14; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S26.

  (S14) If the print mode included in the header is color, the process proceeds to step S15; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S17.

  (S15) If the “monochrome” field of the search result row data is Yes, the process proceeds to step S16; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S17.

  (S16) The print mode “color” included in the header is forcibly changed to “monochrome”, the flag Fr0 is set, and the process proceeds to step S17.

  (S17) If the print side included in the header is “single side”, the process proceeds to step S18; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S20.

  (S18) If the “both sides” field of the search result row data is Yes, the process proceeds to step S19; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S20.

  (S19) The print side “single side” included in the header is forcibly changed to “double side”, the flag Fr1 is set, and the process proceeds to step S20.

  (S20) If the layout mode included in the header is “1 in 1” (logical one page is arranged on one physical page), the process proceeds to step S21; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S23.

  (S21) If the “aggregation” field of the search result row data is Yes, the process proceeds to step S22; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S23.

  (S22) The layout mode “1in1” included in the header is forcibly changed to “4in1” (4 logical pages are arranged on 1 physical page), the flag Fr2 is set, and the process proceeds to step S23.

  (S23) If the paper type included in the header is other than “recycled paper”, the process proceeds to step S24; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S27.

  (S24) If the “recycled paper” field of the search result row data is Yes, the process proceeds to step S25; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S27.

  (S25) The paper type included in the header is forcibly changed to “recycled paper”, the flag Fr3 is set, and the process proceeds to step S27.

  (S26) The flag Fu is set, and the process proceeds to step S27.

  (S27) If any of the flags Fr0 to Fr3 or Fu is set, the process proceeds to step S28. Otherwise, the restriction process in FIG. 2 is terminated and the process proceeds to step S1 in FIG.

  (S28) If at least one of the flags Fr0 to Fr3 is “1”, an e-mail whose contents indicate that the printing conditions have been changed to “monochrome”, “double-sided”, “combined”, and “recycled paper” An e-mail is transmitted to the address in the “E-Mail” field of the search result in S11. If the flag Fu is “1”, an e-mail indicating that the user is an unregistered user is similarly transmitted to this destination.

  (S1) If Fu = '1', the printing in the image forming apparatus 30 is not performed by skipping step S2.

  Returning to FIG. 3, the communication unit 31 is configured in the same manner as the communication unit 17. A RIP (Raster Image Processor) 32 develops the received PDL data into a bitmap and supplies it to the print output unit 33. In response to this, the print output unit 33 forms an image on the paper and discharges it.

  According to the first embodiment, the printer driver 19 on the print server 10 reads the print condition restriction corresponding to the user ID included in the header of the print job data from the print condition restriction table TBL, and the print condition included in the header. However, it is sufficient to change the printing conditions so as to satisfy the printing condition limitation, so that it is possible to reduce the printing cost with a simpler and cheaper configuration than the conventional one.

  Further, in order to change the printing condition restriction of each user, it is only necessary to change the contents of the printing condition restriction table TBL, which brings about an effect that the management cost can be reduced.

  Furthermore, there is an effect that the user can confirm the content of the forced change of the printing conditions by using an existing electronic mail.

  Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described, the present invention includes various other modifications, and realizes other combinations of the components described in the above-described embodiments and the functions of the components. Other configurations using other configurations, and other configurations that would be conceived by those skilled in the art from these configurations or functions, are also included in the present invention.

  For example, other printing condition restrictions such as paper size and printing time zone are added, each item of the printing condition restriction is set more finely, for example, the paper type is restricted to “plain paper” by the user ID, or “reproduction” The configuration may be limited to “paper”.

  Further, the print server 10 may be provided with a login processing program so as to be surely hit in step S13 in FIG. 2, and the processing in steps S13 and S26 may be omitted.

  Further, the user identification information is not limited to the user ID included in the print job header, and may be a nickname or an e-mail address included in a predetermined part of the print job main body, an IP address included in the packet header, or the like. .

3 is a schematic flowchart illustrating processing of a print server side printer driver according to the first exemplary embodiment of the present invention. It is a detailed flowchart of the process of step S0 of FIG. 1 is a schematic functional block diagram showing a part of a printing system. (A) is a schematic functional block diagram showing processing of the client side printer driver, and (B) is an explanatory diagram of a printing condition restriction table used in the print server side printer driver. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a printing system.

10 Print server 11 CPU
12 Interface 13 PROM
14 DRAM
15 Auxiliary storage device 16 NIC
17, 26, 31 Communication unit 18, 25 Spooler 19, 24 Printer driver 20, 21 PC
22 Application 23 GDI
30 Image forming apparatus 32 RIP
33 Print Output Unit TBL Printing Condition Restriction Table COM Communication Medium

Claims (5)

In a print server that receives print job data including print conditions, converts the print job data into PDL data by a printer driver, and transmits the PDL data to the image forming apparatus.
It further comprises restriction information that associates user identification information with printing condition restrictions,
The printer driver causes the CPU to read a print condition restriction corresponding to the user identification information included in the print job data from the restriction information before the conversion, and the print condition included in the print job data is Changing the printing conditions to meet the printing condition restrictions;
A print server characterized by that. The restriction information further includes an email address associated with the user identification information,
When the printer driver further changes the print condition included in the print job data, the printer driver indicates that the print condition is changed to the e-mail address of the user identification information. Send an email,
The print server according to claim 1.   The restriction information includes information as to whether or not the printing condition for each user identification information is restricted to monochrome printing, double-sided printing, aggregate printing, or printing on recycled paper. Print server.   The user identification information included in the print job data packet is a user ID included in the header of the print job data or an IP address included in the packet header of the print job data. The print server according to any one of claims 1 to 3. A print server according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
A client and an image forming apparatus connected to the print server via a network;
A printing system comprising: