JP2013254411A - Image formation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To print a document of a meeting in a favorite setting of a handout recipient.SOLUTION: An image formation device 100 has a list of print settings that favorite print settings for each group are associated with identifiers which can identify each group. When some electronic filing document data is printed in plural number of copies, an information processing unit 200 acquires the list of print settings, divides the plural number of copies to plural arbitrary number of copies with a specification of a printer, generates transmit data by assigning the identifier every divided arbitrary number of copies and transmits the transmit data. The image formation device 100 generates printing data to print the electronic filing document data in a printing setting associated with the identifiers assigned to each arbitrary number of copies based on the received transmit data and prints the generated printing data with the arbitrary number of copies.

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming system, and more particularly to a technique for printing conference materials with handout recipient preference settings.

  There are often opportunities to print multiple copies of the same document by changing the printing form, such as printing meeting materials in monochrome for yourself and printing in color for participants. Configuration of a printer driver and an image forming apparatus characterized by means for dividing a plurality of copies into groups of an arbitrary number of copies and performing print settings for each group in order to efficiently perform print settings when printing a plurality of copies Is already known.

  However, the means up to now requires the printer to make print settings for each number of copies, and if the printer does not know the preferred print settings of the recipient of the copy (printed product user), an appropriate print result can be obtained. There was a problem that it could not be obtained easily. For example, when printing multiple copies of a meeting material, if there are participants who want to consolidate and prefer a small font size, and participants who prefer a large font size without consolidating, the material printr will print the preferred print from the participant It is necessary to listen to the settings before printing, and complicated print settings are repeatedly performed for each number of copies, which may cause a setting error.

  Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-151867 divides the total number of copies into groups of arbitrary number of copies and sets the print setting for each divided group for the purpose of easily performing different print settings for each number of copies when printing a plurality of copies. The configuration of a means for performing, a printer driver for performing printing based on the print settings, and an image forming apparatus is disclosed.

  The present invention is certainly related in that it provides means for performing different print settings for each number of copies. However, if the printer does not know the preference of the recipient of the handout, the above-described problem that an appropriate print result cannot always be obtained cannot be solved.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to be able to print conference materials with a preference of the handout recipient.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an image forming system having an image forming apparatus and an information processing apparatus, wherein the image forming apparatus has a desired print setting for each group and an identifier for identifying the group. A print setting management unit that stores a list of associated print settings, and the information processing apparatus prints a list of print settings when printing a plurality of copies of certain electronic document data; The plurality of copies is divided into a plurality of arbitrary copies according to the designation of the user, and a transmission data generation unit that generates transmission data by assigning the identifier for each of the divided arbitrary copies, and the generated transmission data is formed into the image. A data transmission unit for transmitting to the apparatus, and the image forming apparatus further assigns electronic document data to each arbitrary number of copies based on the received transmission data. And having a print data generating unit that generates print data to be printed by the associated print settings Besshi, it generated any copies of the print data, a printing mechanism for printing, the.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to print the conference material with the preference of the recipient of the handout.

It is a block diagram which shows the system configuration | structure of embodiment of this invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a print setting list stored in a print setting management unit 102 in FIG. 1. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a multi-part printing process in the present embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the print setting selection means used in the case of multiple copy printing in this embodiment. 6 is a diagram illustrating a data format structure of transmission data transmitted from the information processing apparatus 200 of the printer in the multiple copy processing according to the present embodiment.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. The following embodiment has the following characteristics when performing print settings for an arbitrary number of copies when printing a plurality of copies.

  In short, in the following embodiment, when printing a plurality of copies, the total number of copies is divided into groups with an arbitrary number of copies, and a printer sets an identifier (for example, a user with the number of copies) for each divided group. . Then, based on the identifier assigned to the group, the image forming apparatus determines print settings for the specific group and executes print processing.

  Unlike the conventional technology, the person who sets the print settings for each number of copies will be changed to the recipient who actually receives the number of copies from the printer, so the user can obtain the best print for the recipient when printing multiple copies. Can do. In addition, there is an effect of preventing generation of unnecessary printed matter due to a setting mistake by omitting troublesome setting of printing for each number of copies. This will be described in more detail below.

  FIG. 1 shows the system configuration of this embodiment. As illustrated, the entire embodiment includes an image forming apparatus 100 and an information processing apparatus 200. Both are connected and can communicate with each other.

  The image forming apparatus 100 includes a UI unit 101 that accepts user print settings, a print setting management unit 102 that assigns and records identifiers to print settings, a print data generation unit 103 that generates print data from print settings and image data, A printing mechanism unit 104 that executes image formation based on the generated print data is provided.

  The information processing apparatus 200 is configured to have the functions of the following units when the printer driver 201 is installed in a general-purpose computer, for example. In the drawing, the printer driver 201 is described as having each unit.

  That is, the printer driver 201 includes a UI unit 211 that receives input from the user, and a print setting acquisition unit 212 that acquires registered print settings from the print setting management unit 102 of the image forming apparatus 100 at the time of printing a plurality of copies. A transmission data generation unit 213 that generates data to be transmitted to the image forming apparatus 100 from the electronic document data to be printed and the acquired registered print settings, and a data transmission unit 214 that transmits the generated data.

A printing embodiment using the above system will be described below.
Prior to printing, a user (preferably a recipient of printed matter) makes print settings that are easy to use in the image forming apparatus 100. The UI unit 101 provides a user with print setting registration means (for example, panel operation) for editing print settings and assigning and registering print setting IDs for the edited print settings.

  The print setting management unit 102 records the print setting and the print setting ID based on the information input to the UI unit 101. The print setting management unit 102 holds a print setting and a list of print setting IDs (hereinafter, “print setting list”). FIG. 2 shows an example of the print setting list.

  FIG. 3 shows a flow of the multi-part printing process in the present embodiment, which will be described below with reference to FIG.

  When printing is performed, the UI unit 211 provides a print setting unit for performing print settings to the printer. When the print setting unit instructs to print a plurality of copies, the UI unit 211 requests the print setting acquisition unit 212 to acquire registered print settings from the image forming apparatus 100 (S101).

  The print setting acquisition unit 212 receives a print setting and a list of print setting IDs assigned to the print setting (print setting list (FIG. 2)) from the print setting management unit 102 in response to an acquisition request for the registered print setting. Obtain and pass to the UI unit 211 (S102).

  After completing the acquisition of the print setting list, the UI unit 211 displays a list of the acquired registered print settings for the printer, and a copy number dividing unit that divides the designated plural sets into groups of an arbitrary number of copies, A print setting selection unit (FIG. 4) for assigning the print setting selected from the list of the print setting acquired through the print setting acquisition unit 212 and the print setting ID to each group is provided.

  After the print setting for each group (arbitrary number of copies) is completed, the transmission data generation unit 213 transmits the print setting information in the UI unit 211 to the image forming apparatus 100 in a format as shown in FIG. Data is generated (S103, S104, S105), and the data transmission unit 214 transmits the generated data to the image forming apparatus 100 (S106).

  FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a data format structure of transmission data transmitted from the information processing apparatus 200 of the printer in the multiple copy printing process according to the present embodiment. FIG. 5A briefly shows the entire transmission data. “Arbitrary number print information” is attached to the electronic document data input to the information processing apparatus 200 by receiving it from the application that created the electronic document data as a header. Other information not shown in the figure may be attached.

  The structure of the “arbitrary number print information” is as shown in FIG. In other words, the information on the total number of copies (for example, “100 sheets”) is followed by the number of groups into which the “copy range” and “print setting ID” pairs are divided. For example, the total number of copies is divided into n groups, the first to 18th copies are printed with the print setting ID “userA”, the 19th to 22nd copies are printed with the print setting ID “userB”, .. Are stored in the “arbitrary number of copies printing information”.

  The image forming apparatus 100 processes the data received from the data transmission unit 214 in the print data generation unit 103, and generates data (print data) that can be interpreted and printed by the printing mechanism 104 (S107). The print data generation unit 103 acquires a print setting ID associated with each number of copies from the print information portion of the arbitrary number of copies of the received transmission data in the format of FIG. 5 (FIG. 5B). The print data generation unit 103 acquires a print setting corresponding to the acquired print setting ID from the print setting management unit 102, and converts the electronic document data into print data based on the acquired print setting. The print data generation unit 103 sends the generated print data to the printing mechanism 104, and printing is executed (S108).

  According to the above-described embodiment, unlike the prior art, the setting person for the print setting for each number of copies is changed to a recipient who actually receives the number of copies from the printer. Therefore, at the time of printing a plurality of copies, the user can obtain an optimum printed matter for the recipient. In other words, meeting materials can be printed with the preference of the handout recipient.

In the said embodiment, it is good to have the following structure further.
That is, the print setting management unit 102 provides a print setting list in response to a request from the information processing apparatus 200. However, it is preferable that the print setting management unit 102 has a configuration for performing user authentication when providing the print setting list. By specifying a user who can view the print setting list on the UI unit 211 of the information processing apparatus 200, security is improved.

  It is also preferable that the print setting acquisition unit 212 designates a user who can view the print setting list acquired by the print setting acquisition unit 212. Security is improved by restricting users who can view a list of favorite print settings.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Image forming apparatus 101 UI part 102 Print setting management part 103 Print data generation part 104 Printing mechanism 200 Information processing apparatus 201 Printer driver 211 UI part 212 Print setting acquisition part 213 Transmission data generation part 214 Data transmission part

JP 2010-244383 A

Claims (3)

An image forming system having an image forming apparatus and an information processing apparatus,
The image forming apparatus includes:
A print setting management unit storing a print setting list in which a favorite print setting for each group is associated with an identifier capable of identifying the group;
The information processing apparatus includes:
A print setting acquisition unit that acquires the print setting list when printing a plurality of copies of certain electronic document data;
A transmission data generation unit that divides the plurality of copies into a plurality of arbitrary copies according to the designation of the printer, assigns the identifier to generate transmission data for each divided arbitrary number of copies, and
A data transmission unit that transmits the generated transmission data to the image forming apparatus,
The image forming apparatus further includes:
A print data generation unit that generates print data for printing electronic document data with print settings associated with the identifier assigned to each arbitrary number of copies based on the received transmission data;
A printing mechanism for printing the generated print data in an arbitrary number of copies;
An image forming system comprising:   The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein the print setting management unit causes only a specified user to acquire the print setting list when the print setting acquisition unit acquires the print setting list.   The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein the print setting acquisition unit specifies a user who can view the acquired print setting list.

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