JP2015184915A - Information processing device, information processing method, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information processing technique for achieving print processing from an application by using a proper printer driver.SOLUTION: Printer drivers which can be used in a selected printer among printers which can print by an application, are detected. A printer driver which is used in the application among the detected printer drivers, is set. By using the set printer driver, printing processing from the application is performed.

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing technique for executing a printing process from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls a printing apparatus.

  In recent years, with the widespread use of large format printers, the size of printed matter printed from applications has also become enormous. Therefore, the failure cost when printing fails is also increasing. Therefore, it is important to reduce printing failures as much as possible.

  When a plurality of printer drivers (for example, vector driver and raster driver) having different characteristics are provided for one printer, the user often decides which one can select the optimum print result. There is a problem of not knowing. In the OS mechanism, basically, “ordinary printer” set as a default setting on the printer management screen is automatically selected.

  For example, in Patent Document 1, image data in an EMF (Enhanced Metafile) format transferred from an application at the time of a print instruction is analyzed. Then, a configuration for selecting a printer driver to be used for printing from the analysis result and the characteristics of the registered printer driver has been proposed.

JP 2001-88405 A

  However, the techniques known so far have the following problems.

  Since one upper printer driver collectively handles PDLs having different characteristics and responds to the application, information exchange with the application becomes the greatest common divisor of each printer driver. That is, the detailed capabilities of the printer driver are not properly transmitted to the application. For example, if a printer driver supports device fonts installed in the printer body and does not support the other, which printer driver is used at the time of exchanging printing capability with the application, I have not decided. Therefore, it is impossible to convey the characteristic capabilities of each printer driver, and as a result, the application cannot utilize the unique functions of each printer driver.

  If the printer driver cannot use the specific spool format requested by the application, the printer driver cannot handle spool data from the application. Also, if the function does not work for this reason, it is difficult for the user to understand and take countermeasures.

  ・ Spool data needs to be analyzed, which takes time.

  SUMMARY An advantage of some aspects of the invention is that it provides an information processing technique that realizes print processing from an application using an appropriate printer driver.

In order to achieve the above object, an information processing apparatus according to the present invention comprises the following arrangement. That is,
An information processing apparatus that executes print processing from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls the printing apparatus,
Detecting means for detecting a printer driver usable in the selected printer among printers that can be printed by the application;
Of the printer drivers detected by the detection means, setting means for setting a printer driver used in the application;
Execution means for executing print processing from the application using the selected printer and the printer driver set by the setting means.

  According to the present invention, printing processing from an application is realized by an appropriate printer driver.

It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the system which has plug-in software. It is a figure which shows the connection of the internal structure of PC which has plug-in software, and the exterior. It is a figure which shows the screen at the time of starting of an application. It is a flowchart which shows a printing process. It is a figure which shows an example of driver information. It is a figure which shows the setting screen displayed at the time of starting of plug-in software. It is a figure which shows the list | wrist of a response | compatibility with an application and its optimal driver. It is a figure which shows an example of a warning dialog. It is a flowchart which shows a printing process.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  In the present exemplary embodiment, plug-in format printing auxiliary software that is incorporated in various applications and provides optimal settings for the driver is used. In particular, the present embodiment describes a configuration in which an optimum printer driver is automatically selected when a plurality of printer drivers can be selected from a plug-in module that can be adjusted and controlled in cooperation with the application side.

  FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a printing system including a PC (personal computer) 101 as an information processing apparatus and a printer 102 represented by a large format printer.

  The printer 102 is, for example, a printer that uses an inkjet method as a printing method. Here, a printer that uses a roll paper or a recording medium having a relatively large size such as A0 size or B0 size is assumed. ing. However, a printing apparatus using a recording medium having a relatively small size can be applied to this embodiment. The recording method is not limited to the ink jet method, and other printing methods such as an electrophotographic method and a thermal transfer method can be used.

  In FIG. 1, an application 103 running on the PC 101 can incorporate plug-in software 104 (hereinafter abbreviated as a plug-in), which is auxiliary software that supports function expansion and processing for the application 103. Examples of the application 103 that can incorporate the plug-in 104 include an office series such as Microsoft Word (registered trademark) of Microsoft Corporation, software of Adobe Corporation, and the like.

  The plug-in 104 is software for extending the function of the application 103, operates on the application 103, and operates in cooperation with the printer driver 105 that controls the printer 102. The plug-in 104 has a function of realizing various settings for the operation and processing of the application 103. The characteristic processing of the present embodiment, which will be described later, is executed by the plug-in 104. In this embodiment, it is assumed that a plurality of types of printer drivers 105 that can be used by the printer 102 are registered in the PC 101. For this reason, the plug-in 104 operating in cooperation with the printer driver 105 holds driver information 106 related to each of the plurality of types of printer drivers 105.

  The printer driver 105 receives a print command from the application 103 requested via an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS), and controls a printing process for the printer 102. More specifically, the printer driver 105 interprets a print command received from the application 103 via the OS, generates print data that can be interpreted by the printer 102, and outputs the print data to the printer 102. In addition, the printer driver 105 receives a change in print settings from the plug-in 104.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the connection between the internal structure of the PC 101 and the outside.

  The PC 101 includes general components included in a general-purpose computer. Specifically, the PC 101 includes a central processing unit 201 having a CPU, a storage device 202 such as a RAM, an input device 203 such as a mouse and a keyboard, a display device 204 such as a CRT and an LCD, an auxiliary device such as a hard disk and a magneto-optical disk. A storage device 205 is included. These various components are connected to each other by an internal bus line 206.

  The input device 203 accepts various inputs from the user to a graphic user interface (GUI) including icons, menus, and other objects displayed on the display device 204 by the application 103 and the plug-in 104.

  The auxiliary storage device 205 stores various programs for realizing the plug-in 104, the application 103, the printer driver 105, the OS, and the like. The central processing unit 201 appropriately calls these programs from the auxiliary storage device 205, stores them in the storage device 202, and executes them, thereby executing processing by various programs.

  Also, the internal bus line 206 of the PC 101 is connected to the printer 102 by the external bus line 207, and a job registration such as a print job can be performed from the PC 101 to the printer 102.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of an application screen 300 displayed on the display device 204 by starting the application 103. Here, the application 103 is an example of document creation software that can create data such as document data as software that can generate a print job to be input to the printer 102 and issue a print instruction. explain.

  The application screen 300 includes a title bar 301 that displays the title and application name of a document that is currently being created, and a menu bar 302 that displays functions provided by the application 103 in a menu format. Furthermore, the application screen 300 includes a toolbar 303 on which controls such as button icons for instructing calling and execution of functions provided in the plug-in 104 and the application 103 and a document display for displaying a document currently being created. An area 304 is provided. In the document display area 304, a document image 305 to be edited by the user is currently displayed.

  A plug-in activation icon 306 on the toolbar 303 is an icon for activating the plug-in 104 registered in the application 103. When the plug-in 104 is registered in the application 103, a corresponding plug-in activation icon 306 is displayed on the toolbar 303. Here, a case where the plug-in 104 is registered in the application 103 will be described as an example. Further, the plug-in 104 is software for supporting printing processing by the application 103 in particular, and the processing described later is executed by pressing the plug-in activation icon 306. Note that the procedure for registering the plug-in 104 with respect to the application 103 can be realized using a well-known technique, and thus the details thereof are omitted.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a printing process using the plug-in 104.

  The processing shown in FIG. 4 is realized by the central processing unit 201 of the PC 101 reading and executing a program corresponding to the processing shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4 on the storage device 202. Hereinafter, in particular, the operation of the application 103 and the plug-in 104 registered in the application 103 will be described.

  First, in S401, the central processing unit 201 activates the plug-in 104. For example, the plug-in 104 is activated by detecting the pressing of the plug-in activation icon 306 on the application screen 300. In step S <b> 402, the central processing unit 201 presents a printable printer on the display device 204 and receives a selection of a print printer from the user. An example of the plug-in operation in this case is shown below. First, the plug-in 104 detects a printable printer and a printer driver that can be used by the printer. For example, the plug-in 104 regards the same connection destination (output port) of the installed printer driver as the same printer, and detects this as a printable printer for each connection destination. Then, the plug-in 104 creates a list of printable printers and presents it on the display device 204. The detection of the output port may be detected when the printer driver is installed or may be detected from the port name specified at the time of printing. The detection result is held in the plug-in 104 as driver information 106.

  The driver information 106 is configured as shown in FIG. 5, for example.

  The driver information 106 shown in FIG. 5 includes a printer name 501 of a printer capable of printing, a connection port 502 for each printer indicated by the printer name 501, and a printer driver 503 installed in the PC 101 for that printer. Here, in the printer driver 503, for example, when printing via the cloud is supported, this can also be included in the options. Note that printing via the cloud means printing by a printer on the network that can be printed by the PC 101 via the network. In printing via the cloud, the printer connection destination (URL) Etc.) is specified.

  In the configuration of FIG. 5, the PC 101 can print on the printer A, the printer B, and the printer C. The connection port for printer A is ¥¥ 192.168.8.1. A, the installed printer drivers are the raster driver 1 and the vector driver 1. The connection port of the printer B is ¥¥ 192.168.8.1. B, the installed printer driver is the vector driver 1. The connection port of the printer C is ¥¥ 192.168.8.1. C, and the installed printer driver can print via the cloud 1 in addition to the raster driver 2.

  In the printer driver, the raster driver is a driver that interprets raster format data and generates print data, and the vector driver is a driver that interprets vector format data and generates print data. To do.

  FIG. 6 is a print setting screen 600 of the plug-in 104 presented in S402.

  In the print setting screen 600, reference numeral 601 denotes a control for allowing the user to select a printer capable of printing. In the case of this embodiment, referring to the driver information shown in FIG. 5, the control 601 can select one of printer A / printer B / printer C. Reference numeral 602 denotes a button for displaying a printer setting screen for performing detailed print settings. Since the print setting by the printer setting screen can be realized by using a known technique, the details thereof are omitted. Reference numeral 603 denotes a button for the user to finally execute printing. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the user has selected the printer A with the control 601.

  Returning to FIG. 4, in step S <b> 403, the central processing unit 201 detects a printer driver that can be used by the printer selected by the control 601 of the print setting screen 600. Here, since the printer A is selected, it is detected from the driver information 106 shown in FIG. 5 that the two printer drivers that can be used in the printer A are the raster driver 1 and the vector driver 1.

  In step S <b> 404, the central processing unit 201 acquires a driver name of a printer driver that is optimal for printing. This is acquired by the plug-in 104 with reference to a DB (database). This DB may be held inside the plug-in 104 or may be referred to from a DB managed separately outside. FIG. 7 shows an example of this DB. Here, in the DB shown in FIG. 7, a printer driver (optimum driver) optimal for printing selected for each application is associated and managed. Reference numeral 701 denotes an application name, and reference numeral 702 denotes a driver name most suitable for printing with the application indicated by the application name 701. For example, in the case of printing from the application A, the vector driver 1 is acquired as the optimum driver. In general, a driver that handles vector data is suitable for a draw application or a CAD application, and a driver that handles raster data is suitable for an application that handles an image system.

  In step S <b> 405, the central processing unit 201 determines whether the printer driver indicated by the acquired driver name can be used with the printer selected by the user. If the printer is usable (YES in S405), the process proceeds to S406. In step S406, the central processing unit 201 sets the printer driver indicated by the acquired driver name as a printer driver used for printing. Here, assuming that printing is performed from the application A, in the determination in S405, the vector driver 1 is determined as a printer driver that can be used for printing, and is set as a printer driver to be used.

  In step S407, the central processing unit 201 executes printing with the set printer driver. Here, the application A and the vector driver 1 exchange information necessary for printing after the start of the printing process according to the OS mechanism, and print the print.

  On the other hand, if the printer driver indicated by the acquired driver name is not usable in the printer selected by the user (NO in S405), the process proceeds to S408. In S408, the central processing unit 201 determines whether or not the printer driver (predetermined printer driver) designated by “others / default” in the DB of FIG. 7 is usable. The determination as to whether or not the printer can be used can be made based on whether or not a printer driver corresponding to the PC 101 is installed.

  As a result of the determination, if the printer driver designated by default is usable (YES in S408), the process proceeds to S409. In step S409, the central processing unit 201 sets a printer driver designated by default as a printer driver used for printing, and executes printing using the printer driver. On the other hand, if the printer driver designated by default is not usable (NO in S408), the process proceeds to S410. In step S <b> 410, the central processing unit 201 displays a warning dialog indicating that there is no usable printer driver on the display device 204. Here, FIG. 8 is an example of the warning dialog 801.

  Another preferred example will be described below.

  In recent years, it is possible to execute printing using a printer driver other than the printer driver 105 installed in the PC 101 due to enhancement of the network environment such as via the cloud. Also in this embodiment, if the plug-in 104 supports printing via the cloud, this can be added as an option. As a result, as in the driver information 106 shown in FIG. 5, as a printer driver that can be used for each printer, for example, the cloud 1 can be added as a usable printer driver to the printer C. In addition, even when the printing system on the cloud or the server is more suitable or corresponds to the latest function, this embodiment can easily cope with it. For example, the raster driver 1 has been designated as the optimal printer driver for the application C. However, if it is recommended to output a print job to the printer via the cloud 1 as an emergency measure due to a failure or the like, it can be handled by updating (updating) the contents of the DB (FIG. 7) referred to in S404. . For example, the optimum driver for the application C is set in the cloud 1.

  Similarly, even when a printer driver having a new function suitable for an application is newly released, it can be dealt with by updating the DB (FIG. 7) referred to in S404. For example, the XPS driver 1 is set as the optimum driver for the application D.

  In the above example, the optimum printer driver is determined after the user selects a printer to be used for printing. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, by using the DB in FIG. 7, it is possible to select a printer that can use an optimal printer driver when the user selects printing via a plug-in and to show the user as a printing destination candidate. A flowchart in this case is shown in FIG. 9 is realized when the central processing unit 201 of the PC 101 reads and executes a program corresponding to the process shown in the flowchart of FIG. 9 on the storage device 202.

  In step S901, the central processing unit 201 activates the plug-in 104. In step S <b> 902, the central processing unit 201 acquires, by the plug-in 104, the printer driver name of the optimal printer driver when printing with the activated application 103 with reference to the DB illustrated in FIG. 7. For example, the application B is the raster driver 1.

  In step S <b> 903, the central processing unit 201 presents a printer that can use the printer driver indicated by the acquired printer driver name on the display device 204. In the example in which printing is executed by the application B, the printer driver name acquired in S902 is the raster driver 1, and the printer that can be used by the raster driver 1 is the printer A / printer C from the driver information 106 of FIG. Therefore, the two printers are presented on the display device 204 as usable printers. In this case, for example, the plug-in 104 presents a usable printer to the user by presenting a print setting screen similar to the print setting screen 600 shown in FIG. Thereafter, when the user selects a printer by an operation on the print setting screen, the plug-in 104 executes printing on the selected printer.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, the plug-in automatically determines the optimum printer driver for each application from among the printer drivers that can be used with the selected printer. Alternatively, the optimum printer driver for the application is selected, and the plug-in automatically determines a printer that can be used with the selected printer driver. As a result, it is possible to obtain an optimal print result without requiring the user to take time and effort. At this time, the printer driver is not limited in any way, and there is no limitation on the spool format.

  Note that the processing of the above embodiment is also realized by executing the following processing. That is, software (program) that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied to a system or apparatus via a network or various storage media, and a computer (or CPU, MPU, or the like) of the system or apparatus reads the program. It is a process to be executed. At this time, processing may be performed by one computer, or processing may be performed while linking a plurality of computers. Also, part or all of this processing may be realized by hardware such as ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit).

Claims (13)

An information processing apparatus that executes print processing from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls the printing apparatus,
Detecting means for detecting a printer driver usable in the selected printer among printers that can be printed by the application;
Of the printer drivers detected by the detection means, setting means for setting a printer driver used in the application;
An information processing apparatus comprising: an execution unit that executes a printing process from the application using the selected printer and a printer driver set by the setting unit. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printable printer is a printer designated for each connection destination of a printer driver registered in the information processing apparatus. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the setting unit sets a printer driver used in the application with reference to a database associated with a printer driver selected for each application. The said setting means sets the predetermined printer driver registered into this database to the printer driver used by the said application, when the said application is not registered into the said database. Information processing device. A storage unit that stores driver information for managing a printer that can be printed by the information processing apparatus and a printer driver that can be used by the printer;
The detection unit refers to the driver information, and detects a printer driver that can be used by a selected printer among printers that can be printed by the application. The information processing apparatus according to item. The information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the detection unit, the setting unit, and the execution unit are realized by plug-in software incorporated in the application. An information processing apparatus that executes print processing from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls the printing apparatus,
Setting means for setting a printer driver used in the application;
Detecting means for detecting a printer usable by the printer driver set by the setting means;
An information processing system comprising: an execution unit that executes a printing process from the application using a selected printer among the printers detected by the detection unit and a printer driver set by the setting unit. apparatus. The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the setting unit sets a printer driver used in the application with reference to a database associated with a printer driver selected for each application. A storage unit that stores driver information for managing a printer that can be printed by the information processing apparatus and a printer driver that can be used by the printer;
The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the detection unit detects a printer usable by the printer driver set by the setting unit with reference to the driver information. The information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 7 to 9, wherein the setting unit, the detection unit, and the execution unit are realized by plug-in software incorporated in the application. An information processing method for executing print processing from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls a printing apparatus,
A detection step of detecting a printer driver usable in the selected printer among printers that can be printed by the application;
Of the printer drivers detected in the detection step, a setting step for setting a printer driver used in the application;
An information processing method comprising: an execution step of executing a printing process from the application using the selected printer and the printer driver set in the setting step. An information processing method for executing print processing from an application in cooperation with a printer driver that controls a printing apparatus,
A setting step for setting a printer driver used in the application;
A detection step of detecting a printer that can be used by the printer driver set in the setting step;
An execution step of executing a printing process from the application using a selected printer among the printers detected in the detection step and the printer driver set in the setting step. Method.   The program for functioning a computer as each means of the information processing apparatus of any one of Claims 1 thru | or 10, or making a computer perform the information processing method of Claim 11 or Claim 12.

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