JP2798637B2 - Overlay printing method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an overlay printing method, and more particularly to an overlay printing method for performing an overlay printing process using a printer having no built-in overlay printing function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, using a printer having no overlay printing function, form image data (overlay data) such as a separately stored table and accounting table including a heading character, and each item column in the form. The most common method for overlay printing with data such as characters and numbers to be printed (individual print data) is to give the overlay data and the individual print data separately to a printer, and to strike the same sheet twice. It was a way to make it.

As a conventional technique for avoiding the double hit, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 2-353426 discloses that overlay data and individual print data are converted into dot images in page units, and the converted overlay data and individual print data are converted into dot images. A page buffer control method for performing overlay printing by merging dot images of print data and supplying the merged dot images to a printer is disclosed.

[0004]

In the first method described above, since the printer prints the overlay data and then prints the individual print data at the same position in a superimposed manner, it takes a long time to print and the printer takes less than a fixed time. There is a disadvantage that the number of prints that can be processed is reduced.

In the page buffer control system,
Overlay printing can be performed in a single printing operation without performing double hitting. However, overlay data and individual print data are converted to dot images once in page units, and overlay data converted to dot images and individual prints are printed. Data is merged page by page, and the merged dot image data is supplied to the printer for printing, so a large amount of memory area is required for the merge process, the amount of data transferred to the printer also increases, and printer-specific There are disadvantages such as the inability to use fonts.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an overlay printing method which eliminates the above-mentioned disadvantages, uses a small memory area and a small amount of transfer data, and can use a printer-specific font.

[0007]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an overlay printing method in which a printer having no overlay printing function is used to print overlay data such as a table or a form image including a heading character and each item column in the form. In an overlay printing method for performing overlay printing with individual print data such as characters and numbers to be printed, overlay print receiving means for receiving a print command and obtaining one page of overlay data and one page of individual print data An overlay data decomposing means for analyzing the overlay data for one page to decompose into line-by-line decomposed overlay data and storing the data separately; and analyzing the individual print data for one page and decomposing individual line data for each line. Individual print data decomposing means for decomposing and sorting and storing the decomposed overlay data and decomposed individual marks on the same line decomposed Overlap checking means for extracting data and checking whether there is actual data to be printed, and extracting data having actual data on both sides, and merging the disassembled overlay data having the actual data in the same line with the disassembled individual print data. A data merging unit for creating the separated composite print data;
A physical line buffer for temporarily storing the separated individual print data or the merged separated and synthesized print data on a line-by-line basis; and print request means for transferring the contents of the physical line buffer to a printer and requesting printing. ing.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the overlay printing system according to the first aspect, the individual print data decomposing means sequentially outputs the decomposed individual print data decomposed in units of lines without aligning and storing. The overlap checker takes out the disassembly overlay data on the same line as the disassembled individual print data sequentially output from the individual print data disassembler, checks whether there is actual data to be printed, and extracts those for which actual data exists on both sides. It is characterized by:

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the overlay printing system according to the first or second aspect, the physical row buffer is composed of decomposed overlay data, decomposed individual print data, or merged individual print data in which actual data for a plurality of rows exists. It is characterized in that the separated combined print data can be temporarily stored.

[0010]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of one embodiment of the present invention.

The overlay printing method of the present embodiment is shown in FIG.
As shown in (1), an overlay processing unit 1 for performing pre-processing for overlay printing, overlay data 2 including one page of form image data including a table and a heading character, and printing 1 in each item column in the form It comprises individual print data 3 composed of data such as characters and numerals for a page, and a printer 4 having no overlay printing function. The overlay processing unit 1 is composed of overlay print receiving means 5, overlay data decomposing means 6, individual print data decomposing means 7, overlap checking means 8, data merging means 9, physical row buffer 10, and print request means 11, and is composed of one page. The overlay data 2 and the individual print data 3 for each minute are input, and the composite print data for each line is created and supplied to the printer 4, and the overlay printing is performed by one printing operation.

When an instruction for overlay printing is issued from the host device to the overlay processing unit 1, the overlay print accepting means 5 sends the specified overlay data 2 for one page.
Is received from the format information file or the like of the higher-level device, and the specified one page of individual print data 3 is received from the print data file or the like of the higher-level device and sent to the individual print data decomposing means 7.

The overlay data decomposing means 6 analyzes the received overlay data 2 for one page, decomposes the data in units of lines, creates decomposed overlay data 12 for each line using the line number as key information, and stores the data in ascending order. I do. The overlay data 2 and the individual print data 3 received from the host device are
Normally, line feed information indicating the number of line feeds from the first line of the page or the immediately preceding print line, and print data including character codes and position information of characters (including symbols and ruled line characters) to be printed on the line. , And consists only of the information of the line where the character or the like to be actually printed exists.

Similarly, the individual print data decomposing means 7 analyzes the received individual print data 3 for one page and decomposes the data in units of lines, and decomposes individual print data 13 for each line using the line number as key information. Are created and stored in ascending order.

Decomposition overlay data 1 for one page (n rows)
When the creation of the print data 2 and the separated individual print data 13 is completed, the overlap checking means 8 uses the line number as a key to
The separation overlay data 12 and the separation individual print data 13 for the line are extracted, and it is checked whether or not there is actual data to be printed. As a result of this check, if the actual data to be printed exists only in the disassembled overlay data 12, the actual overlay data 12 is stored in the physical row buffer 10. Contains the physical row buffer 1
Convert the decomposed individual print data 13 into a format that can be understood by the printer to 0 (return line numbers to line feed information, etc.)
Then, the data is stored as printer control data, and the process proceeds to the next line number. As a result of the check, the actual data to be printed is the separated overlay data 12 and the separated individual print data 13.
If both exist, the actual data of both are merged via the data merging means 9 to generate decomposed and synthesized print data in a format that can be understood by the printer, and this is stored in the physical row buffer 10 as printer control data. Then, the process moves to the next line number. If the actual data to be printed does not exist in the decomposed overlay data 12 or the decomposed individual print data 13, nothing is stored in the physical row buffer 10 and the process proceeds to the next line number. The above processing is repeated until the processing of the last line number (#n) ends.

When the printer control data is stored in the physical row buffer 10, the print request means 11 passes the printer control data to the printer 4 and requests printing. The printer 4 develops and prints a dot image in accordance with the printer control data, so that overlay printing of the form image and the character data is performed in a single printing operation.

Hereinafter, the above-described operation will be described with respect to a specific example of the print image shown in FIG. 2A shows a print image of the overlay data for one page, and FIG. 2B shows a print image of the individual print data for one page. FIG. 2C shows the result of overlay printing of both. The print image is shown. The overlay print accepting means 5 of the overlay processing unit 1 first inputs the overlay data 2 for one page and the individual print data 3 for one page. The overlay data corresponding to the print image in FIG.
As shown in (a), each line is composed of a plurality of records including line feed information and print data (consisting of a character code and its position information and displayed as a print image in the figure), and one line where the print image exists. There are three rows of records in the first, second, and third rows. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3B, the individual print data corresponding to the print image in FIG. 2B is composed of two rows of records, ie, the second row and the fifth row in which the print image exists. ing.

The overlay data decomposing means 6 is shown in FIG.
The overlay data for one page shown in (a) is analyzed and decomposed in units of lines, and as shown in FIG. 4 (a), decomposed overlay data 12-1 to 12-5 for five lines are created and Arrange in numerical order.

Similarly, the individual print data decomposing means 7 analyzes the individual print data for one page shown in FIG. 3 (b) and decomposes it in units of lines, and as shown in FIG. Separated individual print data 13-1 to 13-5 for lines are created and arranged in line number order.

When the creation and development of the decomposed overlay data 12 and the decomposed individual print data 13 by the overlay data decomposing means 6 and the individual print data decomposing means 7 are completed, the overlap check means 8 of FIG. Separated overlay data 12-1 and separated individual print data 1
Take out 3-1. Since only the decomposed overlay data 12-1 contains actual data to be actually printed at the line number # 1, the overlap check unit 8 stores only the decomposed overlay data 12-1 in the physical row buffer 10. Subsequently, the processing shifts to the processing of line number # 2, where the disassembled overlay data 12-2 and the separated individual print data 13-2 for line number # 2 are processed.
, Both have actual data, so the data merging means 9
And the merged data is stored in the physical row buffer 10 as printer control data. Since only the decomposed overlay data 12-3 exists in the row number # 3, only the decomposed overlay data 12-3 is stored in the physical row buffer 10. As for the next line number # 4, there is no actual data in both the decomposed overlay data 12-4 and the decomposed individual print data 13-4. Perform processing. Since actual data exists in the last line number # 5 only in the separated individual print data 13-5,
Only the separated individual print data 13-5 is stored in the physical row buffer 10
To be stored.

As described above, each record of the composite print data shown in FIG. 5 is sequentially stored in the physical line buffer 10 as printer control data, transferred to the printer 4 by the print request means 11, and shown in FIG. Overlay printing of a print image is performed in one printing operation.

The case where overlay data of one page and individual print data of one page are overlay-printed has been described in detail above. However, when different data is continuously written in the same form, first, After the overlay data is decomposed and stored in an aligned manner, only the individual print data may be sequentially input to be decomposed and processed.

In the above description, the individual print data is also decomposed and aligned and stored in the same manner as the overlay data, and the overlap check means extracts and processes the same row of data from both. Is often used continuously, so it is better to develop the decomposed information in memory and store it in alignment. However, since the same data is rarely used continuously for individual print data, it is necessary to store it in memory. Alternatively, it is also possible to adopt a configuration in which the separated individual print data in line units created by the individual print data decomposing means is sequentially processed by the overlap check means. Also, one line of printer control data is stored in the physical line buffer,
Although the description has been given of the case where the print request unit sequentially transfers the data to the printer, the printer control data for a plurality of businesses may be stored and transferred collectively.

[0025]

As described above, according to the overlay printing method of the present invention, when overlay printing is performed by a printer having no overlay printing function, the overlay data and the individual print data are converted into dot data. Since only the necessary lines are merged without changing the code data and transferred to the printer as printer control data in the form of code, the printer performs overlay printing in a single printing operation without performing double printing without being aware of overlay printing. Can be executed, the memory area used for preprocessing is small, the amount of transfer data is not increased, and fonts unique to the printer can be used.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a print image of a specific example for explaining overlay printing.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of overlay data and individual print data corresponding to the print image of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the configuration of the disassembled overlay data and the disassembled individual print data corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of composite print data obtained from the decomposition overlay data and the decomposition individual print data of FIG. 3;

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 overlay processing unit 2 overlay data 3 individual print data 4 printer 5 overlay print accepting means 6 overlay data decomposing means 7 individual print data decomposing means 8 overlap checking means 9 data merging means 10 physical row buffer 11 print request means 12, 12-1 １２12-5 Separated overlay data 13, 13-1 to 13-5 Separated individual print data

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. Overlay printing of overlay data such as a form image including a table and a heading character and individual print data such as characters and numbers to be printed in each item column in the form by using a printer which does not have an overlay printing function. In the overlay printing method for performing the above, an overlay print receiving means for receiving a print command to obtain one page of overlay data and one page of individual print data, and analyzing the one page of overlay data Overlay data decomposing means for decomposing into line-by-line decomposed overlay data and storing the data separately; and individual print data decomposing means for analyzing the one-page individual print data and decomposing the data into decomposed individual print data per line and storing the data separately. Take out the disassembled overlay data and disassembled individual print data of the disassembled same line and check whether there is actual data to be printed. Overlap checking means for extracting data for which actual data exists on both sides, and data merging means for merging decomposed overlay data and decomposed individual print data in which the real data exists in the same line to create decomposed composite print data; A physical row buffer for temporarily storing the separated overlay data, the separated individual print data, or the merged separated and synthesized print data in which the actual data exists, on a line-by-line basis; An overlay printing method, comprising: a print request unit. 2. The individual print data decomposing means sequentially outputs the decomposed individual print data decomposed in line units without sorting and storing, and the overlap checking means outputs the decomposed individual print data sequentially outputted from the individual print data decomposing means. 2. The overlay printing method according to claim 1, wherein the disassembled overlay data of the same line as the print data is taken out, the presence or absence of actual data to be printed is checked, and the data having actual data present on both sides is extracted. 3. The physical row buffer according to claim 1, wherein said physical row buffer is capable of temporarily storing decomposed overlay data, decomposed individual print data, or merged decomposed and synthesized print data in which a plurality of rows of actual data are present. Overlay printing method.