JP2013016098A - Print control device and printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a print control device for transmitting rendering data developed from a print job to a printer for achieving printing suitable for users who have various visual properties while suppressing the increase of a storage capacity for storing rendering data and the decrease of a print processing speed.SOLUTION: The print control device is configured to store developed rendering data and intermediate data before development in a print server, and to, when a user who has made a print request from a printer is the user who has a normal visual property, transmit the above mentioned rendering data to the printer, and to, when the user who has made the print request is the user who has difficulty in identifying characters having 10 points or less, create rendering data by enlarging the characters having 10 points into characters having 15 points on the basis of the intermediate data, and to transmit the rendering data to the printer.

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing control apparatus, and a printing system having the printing control apparatus and the printing apparatus.

  A print job received via a network from a client computer is stored in a print server, which is a print control device, and a user holds a storage medium such as an IC card in which personal information is registered over the print device. A printing system is known in which user authentication is performed between the print jobs, and after authentication, a print job can be selected from a list of print jobs stored in a print server and printed (Patent Document 1). In this printing system, a plurality of users can simultaneously transmit print jobs using an unspecified number of client computers.

  By the way, some users of printing devices have not only normal visual characteristics (color vision, visual acuity, etc.) but also visual characteristics, such as those who have difficulty in identifying colors and those who have difficulty in recognizing fine characters. It is assumed that there are people who are not normal.

  However, since the above printing system does not take measures that take into account the visual characteristics of users, users with normal visual characteristics (hereinafter referred to as general users) and users with abnormal visual characteristics (hereinafter referred to as special users) When a print job is transmitted simultaneously using an unspecified number of client computers, a special user cannot obtain a print result that matches the visual characteristics from the printing apparatus. Therefore, although it is not described in the literature, in the case of a special user, each person can cope with it by adjusting print data so as to suit his / her visual characteristics.

  Thus, in the above printing system, it is conceivable that a plurality of users having different visual characteristics can simultaneously transmit print jobs using an unspecified number of client computers and can perform printing suitable for each visual characteristic.

  However, for that purpose, a large-capacity storage area is required to store print data in the print server. That is, when accumulating print data from the client computer, rendering data corresponding to the number of different visual characteristics is accumulated as print data to be transmitted to the printing apparatus, so that a large capacity storage area is required. For this reason, when the memory area occupied by the print data increases, the print processing speed may decrease.

  The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to perform print control for transmitting rendering data developed from a print job to the printing apparatus in response to a print request from the printing apparatus. In the apparatus, it is possible to perform printing suitable for a user having various visual characteristics while suppressing an increase in storage capacity for accumulating rendering data and a decrease in printing processing speed.

  The print control apparatus of the present invention is a print control apparatus that transmits rendering data developed from a print job to the printing apparatus in response to a printing request from the printing apparatus, and is suitable for a user having a predetermined visual characteristic. Based on the print data storage means for storing the rendering data and intermediate data that has not been expanded into the rendering data, and the user's personal information in the print request, the stored rendering data matches the visual characteristics of the user. Personal information identification means for determining whether or not the data conversion means for converting the intermediate data into rendering data suitable for the visual characteristics of the user when the personal information identification means determines that the data does not match, Depending on the identification result of the personal information identification means, the accumulated rendering data or the A print control apparatus and a data transmission means for transmitting the rendering data converted by over data converting unit to the printing device.

  According to the present invention, in a print control apparatus that transmits rendering data developed from a print job to the printing apparatus in response to a printing request from the printing apparatus, an increase in storage capacity for storing rendering data and printing are performed. It is possible to perform printing suitable for users having various visual characteristics while suppressing a decrease in processing speed.

It is a figure for demonstrating the structure of the printing system of embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the information of the database which a personal information identification means refers in the printing system of embodiment of this invention. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the printing system according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the conversion operation | movement of the intermediate data in the printing system of embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the conversion operation | movement of the rendering data in the printing system of embodiment of this invention.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
<Configuration of printing system>
FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, this printing system includes a PC (personal computer) 2 that can communicate with each other via a network 1 such as the Internet or a LAN, a print server 3 as a print control device, and a printing device 4.

  The PC 2 includes a CPU, ROM, RAM, HDD, operation unit, display unit, communication unit, and the like (not shown), and a printer driver 21 is stored in the HDD. The printer driver 21 includes a print data creation unit 21a and a print data transmission unit 21b as functional blocks.

  The print server 3 includes a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, an HDD, a communication unit, and the like (not shown). As functional blocks, a print data receiving unit 31, a print data storage unit 32, a personal information identification unit 33, a data analysis unit 34, Data conversion means 35 and data transmission means 36 are provided. Further, the storage unit 37 constituted by the RAM and the HDD is provided with a print data storage unit 37a and a database 37b.

  The printing apparatus 4 includes a CPU, ROM, RAM, HDD, communication unit, printing unit, and the like (not shown). In addition, a personal authentication unit 41, a data receiving unit 42, and a printing unit 43 are provided as functional blocks realized by a printing program stored in the HDD.

<Functions of printing system components>
The print data creation unit 21a of the printer driver 21 creates print data from data created by an application program (not shown) (hereinafter referred to as application data). The print data that can be created are rendered rendering data and intermediate data before the rendering. The intermediate data is data of a format such as WMF, EMF, and XPS that has a smaller data amount than rendering data and can be processed.

  The print data transmission unit 21b can selectively transmit the print data created by the print data creation unit 21a to the printing apparatus 4 or the print server 3 according to the setting by the user from the operation unit.

  In the description of the operation of the printing system, which will be described later, a case where the printer driver 21 of the PC 2 transmits intermediate data to the print server 3 and the print server 3 transmits rendering data to the printing apparatus 4 will be described.

  The print data receiving unit 31 of the print server 3 receives the print data transmitted from the PC 2. The print data storage unit 32 stores the print data printed by the print data reception unit 31 in the print data storage unit 37a. Here, since the intermediate data is transmitted from the PC 2, the print data storage unit 32 expands the intermediate data to create rendering data, and stores the intermediate data and the rendering data in the print data storage unit 37a.

  The personal information identification unit 33 refers to a determination flag (to be described in detail later) in the database 37b based on personal information (for example, a user name) transmitted from the printing apparatus 4 together with the print request, and renders data to be transmitted to the printing apparatus 4. Whether or not it is necessary to process for the user.

  That is, since the print data transmitted from the PC 2 is suitable for general users, that is, conforms to normal visual characteristics, the user who made the print request is a special user, that is, a user whose color is difficult to identify, If the user has a poor visual characteristic, such as a user who is difficult to recognize, it is determined that the data needs to be processed in order to send rendering data for a special user to the printing apparatus 4.

  When the personal information identification means 33 determines that data processing is necessary, the data analysis means 34 needs to change the color for the user who has difficulty in identifying what kind of data processing is necessary. Whether the character size needs to be changed (enlarged) for a user who has difficulty in recognizing fine characters is determined with reference to the confirmation information and change information (to be described in detail later) in the database 37b.

  Based on the determination result of the data analysis unit 34, the data conversion unit 35 reads the intermediate data from the print data storage unit 37a, processes the intermediate data (changes the color or the character size), expands it, and renders the rendering data. And The color is changed using a conversion table stored in the database 37b. Also, a layout shift caused by a change in character size can be automatically adjusted.

  The data transmission unit 36 transmits rendering data to the printing apparatus 4. At this time, if the user who made the print request is a general user, send rendering data for general users, and if the user who made the print request is a special user, send rendering data for special users. .

  The personal authentication means 41 of the printing apparatus 4 transmits personal information together with a print request to the print server 3 when the user holds a storage medium such as an IC card in which personal information is stored. The data receiving means 42 receives rendering data transmitted from the print server 3 in response to a print request. The printing unit 43 executes printing using the printing unit based on the rendering data received by the data receiving unit 42.

<Database referenced by personal information identification means>
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing information referred to by the personal information identification unit 33 in the database 37b. As shown in the figure, this information is stored in association with the user name, determination flag, confirmation information, and change information.

  Here, the value 0000 of the determination flag means that the visual characteristics are normal, that is, data processing is unnecessary. In addition, 0001, 0002, and 0003 each have a problem in identifying the character size, so the character size needs to be changed, the color is difficult to identify, the color needs to be changed, and the character size is identified. This means that both the character identification and the color identification are hindered, so that it is necessary to change the character size and the color.

  Further, 10 points in the confirmation information means that there is a problem in identifying characters of 10 points or less, and 15 points in the change information means changing to 15-point characters. Further, the color adjustment of the change information means performing color adjustment. This is a method for dealing with problems related to character size and color, but customization other than this is possible according to the visual characteristics of the user.

<Operation of printing system>
Next, the operation of the printing system of this embodiment will be described using the flowchart shown in FIG.

  First, the print data creation means 21a of the printer driver 21 of the PC 2 creates intermediate data from the application data (step S1), and the print data transmission means 21b sends the intermediate data to the print server 3 (step S2). The operation of PC2 ends here.

  In the print server 3, first, the print data receiving means 31 receives the intermediate data (step S11). Actually, the print server 3 waits for a print job from the PC 2, and the flow starts in response to reception of the print job. Next, the print data storage unit 32 expands the intermediate data to create rendering data (step S12), and stores the received intermediate data and the generated rendering data in the print data storage unit 37a (step S13).

  In order to print the print data stored in the print data storage unit 37a of the print server 3, the user holds the storage medium storing the personal information over the operation unit of the printing apparatus 4, and the personal authentication unit 41 A print request is transmitted to the print server 3 (step S21). This print request includes personal information read from the storage medium.

  In the print server 3, the personal information identification means 33 receives the print request (step S14), performs print authentication with reference to the database 37b based on the personal information included in the print request (step S15), It is determined whether or not data processing is necessary (step S16).

  That is, the personal information identification unit 33 refers to the determination flag in the database 37b based on the user name of the personal information transmitted to the print server 3, and determines whether data processing is necessary.

  If it is determined that data processing is necessary (step S16: YES), the data analysis unit 34 refers to the confirmation information in the database 37b to determine whether to change the character size or the color information. At the same time, the contents of the change are confirmed with reference to the change information in the database 37b.

  In the case of FIG. 2, for the user AAAA, since the determination flag is 0000, it is determined that there is no need to process data by the personal information identification means 33 (step S16: NO). On the other hand, for the users BBBB, CCCC, and DDDD, since the determination flags are 0001, 0002, and 0003, it is determined that the data needs to be processed (step S16: YES).

  When data processing is necessary (step S16: YES), the data analysis unit 34 refers to the confirmation information and the change information. For the user BBBB, it is possible to confirm that printing is performed by changing the character of 10 points or less to 15 points, because there is a problem in identifying characters of 10 points or less. For the user CCCC, the data analysis unit 34 sets to perform color adjustment on the intermediate data based on the change information. For user DDDD, there is a problem in identifying characters of 10 points or less, so characters of 10 points or less are changed to 15 points for printing, and color adjustment is performed on intermediate data based on the change information.

  After the execution of step S18 by the data analysis means 34, the data conversion means 35 processes the intermediate data and creates converted rendering data (step S19). That is, for the user BBBB, the data conversion means 35 examines the intermediate data based on the confirmed information, detects a character of 10 points or less using a drawing function, and detects the detected character data along the change information. Change to 15 points. At that time, the pasting layout is also adjusted. For the user CCCC, the data conversion unit 35 changes the color information of the intermediate data based on the color information set by the data analysis unit 34. Regarding the user DDDD, the character size and color information of the intermediate data are changed based on the change information.

  After the execution of step S19 by the data conversion unit 35, the data transmission unit 36 uses the print data created by the data conversion unit 35, that is, rendering data in which the character size and color are changed from the original intermediate data as print data. It transmits to the printing apparatus 4 (step S20).

  If it is determined that data processing is not necessary (step S16: NO), the data transmission unit 36 transmits the rendering data accumulated in step S13 to the printing apparatus 4 as print data (step S17).

  In the printing apparatus 4, the data receiving unit 42 receives the rendering data transmitted in step S17 or S20 (step S22), and the printing unit 43 executes printing based on the rendering data (step S23).

<Data conversion operation>
Next, the operation of the data conversion means 35 will be specifically described with reference to FIGS. Here, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of conversion of intermediate data for the user BBBB in FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of correcting (converting) original rendering data so as to conform to the user BBBB. It is.

  As described with reference to FIG. 2, in the case of the user BBBB, since it is difficult to recognize a character having a character size of 10 points or less, the character size having a character size of 10 points or less is changed to 15 points. As shown in FIG. 4A, CharacterSet is set to 10 in the original intermediate data. When the user BBBB starts printing from the printing apparatus 4, the data conversion unit 35 changes the CharacterSet of the intermediate data to 15 and corrects the intermediate data as shown in FIG. 4B. Next, the data conversion unit 35 performs rendering based on the corrected intermediate data to create print data (rendering data). When the print server 3 creates rendering data and transfers it to the printing apparatus 4, the intermediate data is restored.

  The creation of rendering data will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. The data conversion means 35 determines whether there is a character size of 10 points or less in the data from the unrendered intermediate data stored in the print data storage unit 37a in the print server 3 as a drawing function (such as a TextOut function). Detect from the argument.

  For the character string 1 to 3 of the character string (11111, 22222, 33333) of the original data shown in FIG. 5, the character size is 10 points, so the character size is changed to 15 points and rendering data is generated. To do. Since it is 10 points or more for a character string (AAAAA, BBBBB, CCCCC) having a character size of 16 points, the character size is expanded to 16 points. However, since the character string (11111, 22222, 33333) has already been changed to a character size of 15 points and pasted, the layout is adjusted for the position where the character string (AAAAA, BBBBB, CCCCC) is pasted and pasted. Create rendering data.

As described above, the printing system according to the embodiment of the present invention has the following features (1) to (2).
(1) By analyzing the print data and processing the print data as necessary, for example, the character size is automatically enlarged for users who are difficult to judge fine characters, and colors that are easy to see for users who have difficulty in identifying colors By automatically changing the setting, it is possible to provide an optimum printing result suitable for the person.
(2) To prevent print data analysis from spending time and affecting print performance, register print data that is not a problem for most users in the image as rendering data. By preparing intermediate data files and processing / developing the intermediate data into rendering data only when necessary, printing performance is not degraded. That is, a general user who can perform normal printing can print quickly by printing the rendered data. Also, for special users who need to process data, the data creator is conscious of the layout of the data to be created by processing the intermediate data before rendering to unify the print data from processing to conversion. It can be printed without.

  In the above embodiment, the print data transmitted from the PC 2 to the print server 3 is intermediate data, and the print server 3 expands the intermediate data to create rendering data. However, the PC 2 generates intermediate data and rendering data. Can be created and transmitted to the print server 3.

  2 ... PC, 3 ... print server, 4 ... printing device, 32 ... print data storage means, 33 ... personal information identification means, 35 ... data conversion means, 36 ... data transmission means.

JP 2009-303008 A

Claims (4)

A print control apparatus that transmits rendering data developed from a print job to the printing apparatus in response to a printing request from the printing apparatus,
Print data storage means for storing rendering data suitable for a user having a predetermined visual characteristic, and intermediate data not developed in the rendering data;
Personal information identifying means for determining whether the accumulated rendering data matches the visual characteristics of the user based on the personal information of the user in the print request;
A data conversion means for converting the intermediate data into rendering data suitable for the visual characteristics of the user when the personal information identifying means determines that the personal data is not suitable;
A print control apparatus comprising: a data transmission unit configured to transmit the accumulated rendering data or the rendering data converted by the data conversion unit to the printing apparatus according to the identification result of the personal information identification unit. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1,
The printing control apparatus, wherein the predetermined visual characteristic is at least one of normal color vision and visual acuity. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1,
The data conversion means is a print control apparatus having layout adjustment means.   A printing system comprising: a printing apparatus; and the printing control apparatus according to claim 1.

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