JP2012113390A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve such problems that an application, a plug-in module, and a printer driver may not be appropriately operated, if one of them is lacking, for example, no plug-in module is installed; since a well-known update notification is to report the update of the installed module, and a notification on the non-installed module is not performed, so that it is ineffective when a plug-in module or the like for a new edition or an upgraded edition of the application is not installed; and, in such case, a user is required to determine it by oneself and to install it.SOLUTION: The printing system performs an appropriate process according to an installation state of the plug-in module. Even if the plug-in module is not installed, when the plug-in module is or may be programmed to correspond therewith, the printing system performs a guide to a user.

Description

  The present invention relates to a cooperative operation between an application, a printer driver, and a plug-in module.

  There is known a printing system in which an application, a printer driver, and a plug-in module operate in cooperation. When printing is performed from an application in the printing system, the plug-in module can perform printing appropriately by setting a printing process in the application. As an example of the mechanism on the application side for recognizing the plug-in module, for example, an inquiry is first made from the application side to the printer driver side regarding the presence or absence of the plug-in module. Then, the printer driver returns the plug-in module name to the application. Further, the application performs processing for reading the plug-in module returned from the driver.

  Also, a mechanism for notifying update information when there is an update of an installed module is implemented in various applications and is already widely known.

Patent Document 1 describes a function of managing a printer driver installed in a client PC, and searching for and updating the optimal version of the printer driver for the client.
JP 2002-323964 A

  These three modules of application / plug-in module / plug-in module compatible printer driver are separately provided by the driver vendor or the application vendor, and therefore, not all of them are necessarily constructed. So if one is missing any may not work properly. If the plug-in module is not installed, the name of the plug-in module that is not installed is returned from the driver when compared with the recognition mechanism on the application side of the plug-in module. In such a case, it may happen that the plug-in module to be loaded from the application is not found.

  Further, the update notification as described in Patent Document 1 notifies an update of an installed module. For this reason, no notification is given when the plug-in module is not installed. Therefore, even if there is a plug-in module that should correspond to a new application in the future, it is not notified if the plug-in module is not installed in the first place. That is, there is no effect when the target plug-in module or the like is not yet installed for the application.

  In such a case, it is necessary for the user to check whether or not a plug-in module corresponding to the application exists, and it is necessary for the user to determine the necessary plug-in module by himself and execute the installation.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention provides a printing system including an application, a printer driver, and a plug-in module that is incorporated in the application and operates in cooperation with the printer driver. An acquisition unit for acquiring, a determination unit for determining whether or not the plug-in module corresponding to the version of the application acquired by the acquisition unit is incorporated, and the plug-in module is incorporated by the determination unit And transmitting means for transmitting information for specifying the plug-in module to the application.

The plug-in module can be appropriately installed by the driver responding according to the application status.
Moreover, if the corresponding module is not installed, it can be guided to install. Even if it is unclear whether a corresponding module exists, it can be guided to obtain the latest information.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a connection between a host device, an internal structure of a printer, and the outside in an embodiment of the present invention. It is the figure which showed the flowchart in one Example of this invention. It is the figure which showed the corresponding application management table in one Example of this invention. It is the figure which showed the user guidance dialog in one Example of this invention.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a configuration of a printing system used in the present invention, which is configured by a host device 101 and a printer 102 typified by a large format printer.

  Reference numeral 103 denotes an application that operates on the host device, and has a function of printing arbitrary data.

  A printer driver 104 requests the application 103 to print via an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS). The printer driver 104 interprets a print command received via the OS and generates print data that can be interpreted by the printer.

  Reference numeral 105 denotes a user interface unit that receives input from the user, and reference numeral 106 denotes a graphics processing unit that generates print data to be transmitted to the printer 102.

  Reference numeral 107 denotes a plug-in module, which is a module for controlling and optimizing printing within the application and between printer drivers. The plug-in module is a module that controls the print control unit in the application so that the print data processed by the printer driver is optimized. This plug-in module may be provided in association with an application, or may be provided as an attached set of a printer driver.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the internal structure of the host device 101 and the printer 102.

  The host device 101 has the same configuration as a general PC, and includes a host CPU 201 and a host RAM 202. Furthermore, it has an input device 203 such as a mouse and a keyboard, a display device 204 such as a CRT and LCD, and an auxiliary storage device 205 such as a hard disk and a magneto-optical disk, and each of the components is connected by an internal bus system bus. The input device 203 and the display device 204 may be provided inside the host device 101 or may be provided outside the host device 101 and connected to the host device 101.

  The input device 203 performs various inputs from the user to icons, menus, and other objects displayed on the display device 204 by the application 103 and the printer driver 104.

  The auxiliary storage device 205 stores an OS, an application, a printer driver, and other programs. The auxiliary storage device 205 is appropriately called from the host CPU 201 and stored in the host RAM 202.

  The host device 101 is connected to the printer 102 via an external bus so that various information such as print data and control commands can be transmitted from the host device 101 to the printer 102.

  The printer 102 includes a printer CPU 206, a printer RAM 207, and a printer ROM 208 that stores various control programs including a printer print control program. In addition, an operation unit 209 that receives input from a user such as an operation panel, a printing unit (printer engine) 210 that performs a printing operation, and an HDD 211 that stores print data are connected to each other via a system bus. .

  The printer CPU 206 calls a control program from the printer ROM 208 to the printer RAM 207 as appropriate, performs overall control of various devices, and performs printing from the printing unit 210.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the recognition operation of the application, the printer driver, and the plug-in module.

  First, in step S101, the file name of the plug-in module is inquired from the application to the printer driver. At this time, the driver inquires the version of the application in S101 to obtain the version of the application. After this, the driver returns the file name, installation path, etc. of the plug-in module to the application, but if the plug-in module does not actually exist at this time, it cannot be read from the application. As a result, printing may not be performed properly. Therefore, if there is an inquiry in S101, the driver determines whether a plug-in module search tool is installed in S102.

  The search tool is a tool that searches whether a plug-in module is installed. The search tool is installed by the vendor that provides the plug-in module. In many cases, it is installed at the same time as the plug-in module.

  If the search tool is not installed, the driver cannot determine whether the plug-in module has been installed. Therefore, the driver does not respond to the application, or if necessary, responds according to the case where it has not been installed.

  If the search tool is installed, the driver inquires about the presence of the plug-in module in S103.

  In S104, the search tool first determines whether the inquired application corresponds to the plug-in module. Here, the application version does not matter. If the application is not a compatible application, no response is made as in S102, or if necessary, a response is made according to the case where the application is not installed. Subsequently, in S105, a search is performed as to whether a plug-in module corresponding to the application is installed. The subsequent operation branches according to the installation status of the plug-in module / the response status to the application.

  In S106, the installation status of the plug-in module is determined. First, a case where it is determined in S106 that the plug-in module has not been installed will be described. In this case, the operation changes depending on whether the application for which the inquiry has been made is a version compatible with the plug-in module, or an unsupported / unknown version.

  If the plug-in module is not installed in S109 and there is a plug-in module that is already compatible with the application, a message prompting the user to install the plug-in module is displayed in S110 to notify the user. An example of this message is shown in FIG.

  If it is unclear whether the application is a new version and a plug-in module exists, a message for guiding the user to confirm the corresponding status of the plug-in module on the Web or the like is displayed in S111 to notify the user. An example of this message is shown in FIG. Further, after S110 and S111, no response is made in the same manner as in S102, or if necessary, a response is made according to the case of no installation. The search tool determines whether or not the plug-in module is already compatible with the application with reference to the correspondence table as shown in FIG. The application and version described in FIG. 4 correspond to the plug-in module. If it corresponds, the process proceeds to S110, and if the application is newer than the version described, the process proceeds to S111. Applications that do not apply to either do not support plug-in modules.

  If it is determined in S106 that the plug-in module is installed, the file name and the path to the file are transmitted to the application as specific information of the plug-in module in S107. The application recognizes the plug-in module from the sent file name and the path to the file.

  The operation described above prevents problems due to the absence of the plug-in module. If the plug-in module exists but is not installed, the user is prompted to install it. If the application is an unknown version, the user is prompted to obtain information on the Web or the like. This makes it possible to provide the best printing environment for the user.

101 Host device (PC)
102 Printer 103 Application 104 Printer Driver 105 User Interface Unit 106 Graphics Processing Unit 107 Plug-in Module

Claims (3)

A printing system comprising an application, a printer driver, and a plug-in module that is incorporated in the application and operates in cooperation with the printer driver,
Obtaining means for obtaining a version of the application;
Determining means for determining whether or not the plug-in module corresponding to the version of the application acquired by the acquiring means is incorporated;
A transmitting unit that transmits information for identifying the plug-in module to the application when the determining unit determines that the plug-in module is incorporated;
A printing system comprising: The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a notification unit that notifies a user to install the plug-in module when the determination unit determines that the plug-in module corresponding to the version of the application is not installed. Item 4. The printing system according to Item 1. When it is determined by the determination means that a plug-in module corresponding to the version of the application is not incorporated, the notification means includes a plug-in module corresponding to the version of the application acquired by the acquisition means 3. The printing according to claim 2, wherein the user is notified to install the plug-in module, and the user is notified to acquire the latest information when the plug-in module does not exist. system.