JP2013033341A - Commodity information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a commodity information processor which does not damage readability of printed contents of a receipt even in printing with the used amount of a receipt sheet saved.SOLUTION: A commodity information processor includes: a receipt printer for printing on a receipt sheet; declaration means for performing a sheet saving declaration; acquisition means for acquiring commodity information including a first commodity name, a second commodity name composed of characters easily recognizable even being smaller than a first commodity name in printing and a price for each commodity; a character storage area for storing character data; and print control means for calling out character data corresponding to the first commodity name when there is no saving declaration by the declaration means, or character data corresponding to the second commodity name when the declaration means has performed a saving declaration, so as to print it with commodity price information of the commodity by the receipt printer.

Description

  Embodiments described herein relate generally to a product information processing apparatus capable of printing on receipt paper.

  When a customer purchases a product at a store, for example, a bar code attached to the product is read by a POS terminal, the sales of the product are printed on a receipt sheet, and the printed receipt sheet is given to the customer. The receipt paper is printed with a store logo, a product name and its unit price, a total amount of the product, a deposit amount, a change amount, and the like.

  In such a POS terminal, when it is desired to reduce (save) receipt paper, there are some which print with a narrower line spacing.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 05-138953

  The receipt is generally printed on a long receipt sheet, and then cut and discharged by a cutter. For this reason, the amount of receipt paper used can be reduced by narrowing the line spacing. However, narrowing the line spacing often makes it difficult to see the printed content.

  Accordingly, there is provided a product information processing apparatus that does not impair the visibility of the printed contents of a receipt even when printing is performed while saving the amount of receipt paper used.

  In this embodiment, a receipt printer that prints on receipt paper, a declaration unit that makes a paper saving declaration, a first product name for a product, and a character that is easy to recognize even if it is smaller than the first product name when printed The acquisition means for acquiring the product information including the second product name and the price of the product, the character storage area for storing the character data, and the character data for the first product name when there is no saving declaration by the declaration means , A product information processing apparatus having a print control means for calling character data for the second product name from the character storage area and printing it with the receipt printer together with the amount information of the product when the saving means is declared by the declaring means .

The perspective view of the POS terminal of this embodiment. The block diagram which shows the electrical connection of this POS terminal. The figure which shows the process which this POS terminal performs. The example of printing of a receipt is shown, (a) is a diagram printed with the first character type, (b) is a diagram printed with the second character type.

  Hereinafter, the commodity information processing apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. 1 to FIG. 4 by taking a POS terminal as an embodiment as an example.

  1 is a perspective view of a POS (Point of Sales) terminal according to this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing electrical connection of the POS terminal, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing processing performed by the POS terminal, and FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of printing of a receipt.

  The POS terminal 1 of this embodiment is used, for example, in a store such as a convenience store or a supermarket. The POS terminal 1 is provided with a display 2, a keyboard 5 having a key switch 3 and a number of keys 4, a receipt paper discharge port 6, and a barcode reader 7. In addition, a drawer 8 that stores cash or the like is provided at the bottom of the POS terminal 1. The display device 2 inquires of the server 9 about product information corresponding to the barcode of the product read by the barcode reader 7, and displays the product name and price. The key switch 3 is for switching the POS terminal 1 to a registration mode or a setting mode. Among the many keys, a total key 10 and a paper saving key 11 are provided in addition to a numeric keypad. The receipt paper discharge port 6 discharges the receipt printed by the printer 12. The drawer 8 stores bills and coins inside, and after the bar code of the product purchased by the customer is read, the deposit amount is input to the POS terminal 1 and is released if the current key 10 is pressed.

  The CPU (Central Processing Unit) 13 of the POS terminal 1 includes a ROM (Read Only Memory) 14, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 15, a display control unit 16 that controls the display device 2, and a printer control unit 17 that controls the printer 12. A drawer control unit 18 that controls the opening of the drawer 8, a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) control unit 20 that controls a hard disk drive (HDD) 19, a code reader control unit 21 that controls the barcode reader 7, A key control unit 22 that controls the keyboard 5 and a communication interface (communication I / F) 24 that is connected to the server 9 via a communication line 23 are connected by a bus line 25.

  The ROM 14 stores a first character storage area 26 for storing an ideographic character such as a Chinese character, which may have a meaning, corresponding to the character code, and a first character storage for storing an alphabet as a written character corresponding to the character code. A two-character storage area 27 is provided. In the RAM 15, a sales buffer 28 that stores product information such as product names and amounts obtained by reading with a barcode reader and stored in the server 9, and a print buffer 29 that stores an image image developed in a dot matrix for printing by the printer 12. And are provided. As described above, the keyboard 5 is provided with the current total key 10 and the paper saving key 11 among many keys. The server 9 stores in the price lookup memory the price of the product, the first product name of an ideographic character that is the first character type composed of kanji and hiragana, and the written character that is the second character type composed of the alphabet. Has a second trade name. The character data stored in the first character storage area 26 and the second character storage area 27 is true type font data in which characters are formed by vector information, and each font data corresponds to a character code. Is remembered. The character data may be bitmap font data.

  Processing of the POS terminal 1 will be described. This process is a process performed in the registration mode in which the product is sold. This process starts when the POS terminal 1 is set to the registration mode according to the position of the key switch 3. First, it is determined whether or not the barcode attached to the product is read by the barcode reader 7 (Act 1). If the barcode is read, the product name is transmitted from the server 9 via the communication line 23 and the communication I / F 24. And product information such as price is acquired (Act 2). The amount calculated from the fetched product name, amount and number is written in the sales buffer 28 (Act 3). If the bar code is not read in Act1, it is determined whether or not there is a key input (Act4). If there is no key input, other processing is performed (Act5). The other processing is, for example, processing of a magnetic card or IC card. If there is a key input in Act 4, it is determined whether or not the paper saving key 11 has been pressed (Act 6). Is selected (Act 7). If it is not the paper saving key in Act 6, it is determined whether or not the current total key 10 has been pressed (Act 8). If it is not the current total key 10, other key processing is performed (Act 9). Here, the other key processing is input of a deposit amount using a numeric keypad, for example. If the current key 10 is pressed in Act 8, the change is calculated from the total amount of the product stored in the sales buffer 28 (Act 10), and the image data is written in the print buffer 29 in the selected character storage area. (Act 11), the drawer 8 is opened (Act 12), the receipt paper is printed by the printer 12 with the image data written in the print buffer (Act 13), and the process is terminated. In the initial state, the characters to be printed on the receipt are written in the print buffer 29 using the first character storage area 26.

  In this apparatus, a store clerk operating this POS terminal 1 first inserts a key into the key switch 3 and turns the key to enter the registration mode. Then, the POS terminal 1 can record the sales of the product.

  When the customer brings the product to the POS terminal 1, the store clerk reads the barcode attached to the product with the barcode reader 7. The POS terminal 1 inquires of the server 9 about product information based on the read barcode. The server 9 returns the product information such as the product name and unit price for which the inquiry has been received to the POS terminal 1. The product name includes a character code of the character storage area of the first character type composed of kanji and hiragana and the character code of the character storage area of the second character type composed of alphabet. Then, the product information sent from the server 9 is written in the sales buffer 28. In addition, the product name and price received from the server are displayed on the display device 2 in the first character type. When a customer buys a plurality of products, the barcode of the product is further read with a barcode reader. The POS terminal 1 displays the total amount of merchandise on the display.

  When the bar codes for all products have been read, the store clerk presses the subtotal key to receive payment from the customer. When the store clerk inputs the received amount (deposit amount) into the POS terminal 1 using the numeric keypad 4 and presses the current key 10, the POS terminal 1 calculates the change amount and displays it on the display 2. The POS terminal 1 reads out characters of the first character type designated in the initial state from the first character storage area 26 and forms an image to be printed in the print buffer 29. Then, the POS terminal 1 opens the drawer 8 and starts printing with the printer 12. The store clerk prepares a change for the received amount and delivers the receipt discharged from the receipt discharge opening 6 to the customer together with the change. As shown in FIG. 4 (a), the receipt paper includes a store logo 42, a printed date and time 43, a text 44 indicating receipt of the amount of the product, a POS terminal number and a product on which the receipt 40 is printed. Store side information 45 such as a person in charge who has input the information is printed. Also, the name of the product purchased by the customer and its amount (in this example, four products) 46 and the item 47 consisting of subtotal, consumption tax, deposit amount and change are printed in the first character type for each line. .

  The logo 42 is printed on a receipt for passing to the next customer while the receipt paper is conveyed to the cutter position in order to cut the receipt to be passed to the previous customer.

  By the way, the receipt paper is colored, for example, on the side edge of the receipt paper so that it can be seen that the remaining receipt paper is reduced. The store clerk normally replaces the receipt paper when there is little remaining receipt paper. However, if there are many customers waiting for cashiers, the sales process (customer response) may be continued without changing the receipt paper. In such a case, the store clerk presses the paper saving key 11 to declare paper saving. When the paper saving key 11 is pressed, characters written in the print buffer 29 are written in alphabets (Roman characters) which are easy-to-read notation characters even if the size of the character font is small. That is, the POS terminal 1 is set to read the character font from the product information and the second character storage area 27 when writing the image data in the print buffer 29. Then, the character font corresponding to the product name is read from the second character storage area 27 at the time of drawing in the print buffer 29 after the current key 10 is pressed. For the item, the character font is read from the second character storage area 28. Since the image data is developed in the print buffer 29 with the character font of the second character type read out in this way, the product information and items are printed on the receipt paper with the character font of the second character type.

  FIG. 4B shows a savings receipt 41 printed with the second character type. The saving receipt 41 is printed with a store logo 42, printed date and time 43, text 44 indicating receipt of the amount of merchandise, and store side information 45, as with the normal receipt 40. The savings receipt 41 normally includes the name of the product bought by the customer and its amount (in this example, four products) 48 and an item 49 consisting of a subtotal, consumption tax, deposit amount and change for each line. It is printed with an alphabet (Roman character) which is a second character type different from the receipt 40. For example, in a normal receipt, the product name printed on the fourth line is “pork”. In the savings receipt 41, the letter “butaniku” is written in an alphabet slightly smaller than the size of the normal receipt. The readability of is not much different.

  In order to make the receipt as easy to read as possible, the receipt paper is printed using ideographic characters mixed with kanji. However, since ideographic characters such as kanji have a large number of strokes, it is generally difficult to read if the font (character font) is reduced. Therefore, in this embodiment, the product name is stored in the price lookup memory of the server 9 as the character code of the two character types, the first character type and the second character type, and the product information corresponding to the inquiry from the POS terminal 1 is stored. Is sent from the server 9, the character codes of the product names of both the first character type and the second character type are sent to the POS terminal 1. When the store clerk recognizes that the remaining receipt paper is running low, he presses the paper save key 11 to make a paper save declaration and uses an alphabet that is relatively easy to read even if the letters are small. Try to print.

  In this way, in a normal state, the product name and the like can be printed with ideographic characters including kanji, and a receipt 40 that is easy for a person to recognize can be created. When the paper saving key 11 is pressed, the image is developed in the print buffer 29 for printing on the receipt paper using easy-to-read written characters even if the line spacing is small or the character size is small. Since the image developed with the written characters is printed on the paper, it is possible to print a receipt that can be read without being crushed as shown in FIG. 4B.

  In this embodiment, the second product name is printed in alphabets that are written characters. However, katakana and hiragana may be printed in combination with alphabets, katakana, and hiragana. Further, a sensor (near-end sensor) nearing the end of the receipt paper set in the printer 12 may be provided, and when the near-end is detected by this sensor, it is printed on the receipt paper with a written character as a paper saving declaration. . The present invention is not limited to the POS terminal 1 and can be applied to any device that prints merchandise information on receipt paper such as an electronic cash register having merchandise information inside the terminal.

  As described above, the embodiments are presented as examples and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. These novel embodiments can be implemented in various other forms, and various omissions, replacements, and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. These embodiments and modifications thereof are included in the scope and gist of the invention, and are included in the invention described in the claims and the equivalents thereof.

1 POS terminal 11 Paper saving key 12 Printer 26 First character storage area 27 Second character storage area 29 Print buffer

Claims (6)

A receipt printer for printing on receipt paper;
Declaration means for paper saving declaration,
An acquisition means for acquiring product information including a first product name for a product and a second product name composed of characters that are easy to recognize even if smaller than the first product name when printed;
A character storage area for storing character data;
The amount data of the product is obtained by calling the character data for the first product name from the character storage area when there is no saving declaration by the declaring unit, and the character data for the second product name when the saving declaration is made by the declaring unit. A product information processing apparatus having print control means for printing with the receipt printer. The product information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein characters of the first product name are formed by ideograms, and characters of the second product name are formed by notation characters that are easy to recognize even if they are smaller than the ideograms. The product information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the first product name is an ideogram including Chinese characters. The product information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the second product name is a written character composed of any one of alphabet, katakana, hiragana, or a combination thereof. 2. The product information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the character storage area includes a first character storage area for storing a first product name and a second character storage area for storing a second product name. The commodity information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print control unit is a specific key provided on a keyboard.

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