JP2988768B2 - Media issuing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medium issuing apparatus for issuing tickets such as air tickets and commuter passes, and passbooks used in financial institutions, for example, by printing on the above-mentioned medium and issuing the medium. The present invention relates to a printing method in a medium issuing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a medium issuing device for issuing, for example, air tickets and commuter passes, various types of media are mounted in the same device, and printing is performed on these media in various types of characters. I didn't go and issue it. For example, in a conventional medium issuing device, there are not so many types of print characters to be printed on a medium, and about four types of characters, uppercase, middle, lowercase, and very small, can be printed. Also, in the case of a medium issuing apparatus that receives data to be printed on a medium from an upper station and performs printing based on the data, the code system as an interface with the upper station may have few character types. Therefore, for example, a different code range is set for each character type, which is set exclusively for each device. For an upper-level station that controls these devices by connecting these devices, it is difficult to edit print data. There was a face.

[0003]

By the way, recently, a medium issuing apparatus which enables mounting of various types of media in the same medium issuing apparatus, and prints and issues an appropriate character type according to the medium. Is required. Further, even if one medium itself is taken, from the viewpoint of service to the customer who obtains the medium, in order to make it easy for the customer to see, it can be printed in various character types, for example, an air ticket shown in FIG. It has been demanded. In order to meet such needs, it has become necessary for a medium issuing device to be able to print various types of characters on various types of media using the same device. It should be noted that when the upper station specifies print data in which various types of characters are mixed, it is important that each character type and each character can be easily specified.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and has as its object to provide a printing system which can print each character in a character form suitable for the medium to be issued in a medium issuing apparatus. I have.

[0005]

Means for Solving the Problems In order to solve such problems, the present invention has been made as follows. That is, in a medium issuing device that prints and issues predetermined characters on a predetermined medium, a character information storage unit that stores character information corresponding to each character data for each character type, and a print data input unit that inputs print data Medium type determining means for determining the type of medium to be printed from among the print data input by the print data input means, and print medium input from the print data input by the print data input means. Character type determining means for determining a character type, and characters to be printed for each medium type
Print control that stores print control information such as character pitch for each type
Information storage means, and a mark input by the print data input means;
Character data to be printed is detected from the character data
The character type determining means corresponding to the detected character data is
Based on the determined character type, the
From inside, the character designated from among the print control information storage means
Character information extracting means for extracting shape information; print control information extracting means for extracting print control information stored in the print control information storage means based on the medium type determined by the medium type determining means; based on the shape information and the print control information extraction print control information unit is taken out of the information extraction means is taken out, which the media type determining means is characterized by having a printing means for printing the determined medium It is.

[0006]

According to the present invention, in the printing method in the medium issuing device having the above-described configuration, print data is input from the print data input means from, for example, an upper station. Thereafter, the medium type determining means determines the medium type to be printed from the print data input by the print data input means, and further, the character type determining means determines the type of the print data input by the print data input means. From, the character type at the time of printing is determined. next,
The character information extracting means detects character data to be printed from the print data input by the print data input means, and the character type determining means determines the character type from the character information stored in the character information storage means. Character shape information corresponding to the detected character data is extracted based on the determined character type. The printing means prints on the medium determined by the medium type determining means based on the character information extracted by the character information extracting means.

Further, a print control information storage means for storing print control information for each medium type, and a print control information stored in the print control information storage means based on the medium type determined by the medium type determination means. Print control information extracting means for extracting information, wherein the printing means performs printing based on the print control information extracted by the print control information extracting means.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. 1 is a conceptual diagram of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of a medium issuing device, FIG. 3 is a flowchart of one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 4 is an example of print control information, FIG. FIG. 6 is an example of a print character data format, and FIG. 7 is an example of a medium print.

In this embodiment, a description will be given assuming that the present invention is applied to a medium issuing device for issuing air tickets. As shown in FIG. 2, for example, a medium issuing apparatus 1 to which the present invention is applied according to this embodiment stores a processor 101 for controlling the entire processing operation, programs and data for instructing the processor 101 to perform various operations. Memory 102, a floppy disk device 103 for reading programs and data from a floppy disk storing programs and data, and a hard disk 10
4, communication control unit 105, input unit 106, display unit 1
07, a magnetic recording unit 108, a printing unit 109, and a hopper 110.

First, an outline of the present embodiment will be described mainly with reference to FIG. When the operator inputs information on medium issuance from the input unit 106 of the medium issuing device 1 and transmits the information to the upper station 2, the upper station 2 performs a predetermined process based on the medium issuing information transmitted from the medium issuing device 1. After that, for example, FIG.
The print character data CD to be printed on the air ticket as shown in (1) is created and transmitted to the medium issuing device 1. The medium issuing device 1 receives the print character data CD from the upper station 2 via the communication line 3. The print character data CD includes different character types (for example, full-width characters, half-width characters, ANK characters, etc. as shown in FIG. 5), for example, the character types A, B, and C shown in FIG.
And a medium type number CND indicating the type of medium to be printed is added at the beginning of the print character data CD.

[0011] The medium issuing device 1 transmits the print character data C
When D is received, the type of the medium and the mixed character type are determined, and the corresponding character code is selected from character shape information CI such as a character font prepared in advance for each character type and, if necessary, for each medium type. Is extracted and printed on the medium M. Further, when printing a character code on the medium M as needed, printing is performed with reference to print control information PI such as character pitch information. The above will be described in some detail with the character information CI as a character font and the print control information PI as character pitch information as follows.

First, character pitch information, which is 1
This specifies the horizontal length of the character (in other words, the horizontal dot interval, etc.).

The method for specifying the character pitch information is as follows. That is, the medium issuing device 1 uses the medium type number CND added to the print character data CD as a search key.
The print control information (that is, the character pitch information group, etc.) corresponding to the medium type number CNT is extracted from the print control information PI stored in advance in the printer. Then, by determining the character type indicated in the print character data CD from the character pitch information group, the character pitch information corresponding to this character type is extracted and stored in the medium issuing device 1.

Next, the printing on the medium M is as follows. That is, character data is sequentially extracted from the print character data CD, a character font corresponding to the character type of the character data is extracted, and the character font is extracted using the character font in advance according to the character type described above. Is printed on the medium M corresponding to the medium type number CND at a character pitch according to the character pitch information stored in the. FIG. 7 shows an example of printing, where C1 is a full-width character type, C2 is an OCR-7B character type, and C3 is
Is a full-width 1/2 character type, C4 is a full-width character type,
C5 part is full-width 1/2 character type, C6 part is half-width 1 /
An example of an airline ticket printed with each of two character types is shown.

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail mainly with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

This process is executed under the control of a program.

When the power is supplied to the medium issuing device 1, for example, a program recorded on a floppy disk is read by the floppy disk device 103 and loaded into the memory 102, and then the program enters an execution state. First, the program includes print control information PI stored in advance on the hard disk 104 and character shape information C such as a character font (for example, dot configuration, vector font, etc.) corresponding to each character code of each character type.
I (hereinafter, described as a character font) is read from the file, and the print control information PI and the character font group are read into the memory 102 (step S1). The print control information PI (see FIG. 4) has the following configuration. That is, there are a plurality of medium type numbers CNT indicating the types of the medium M that can be issued, and the following information is prepared for each medium type number CNT. That is,
A medium size indicating the size of the medium M in the horizontal direction, a medium name indicating the name of an air ticket or the like, a margin on the medium surface indicating a printable range on the medium M on the top, bottom, left and right, and a horizontal width for each character type. A character pitch indicating the length in the direction and a line feed pitch indicating the length in the vertical direction (the line feed pitch is uniform for each character type in the present embodiment, but this is not an essential limitation). The character font group includes character fonts corresponding to each character code for each character type. Here, the character type means a character type such as a full-width character, a half-width character, and an ANK character as shown in FIG. 5, for example, and the character configuration of each character belonging to each character type is set in a dot configuration in the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 5, for example, for a full-width character, one character is composed of 24 dots vertically and 24 dots horizontally. A character font corresponding to each character is created in advance according to the dot configuration for each character type and stored in the hard disk 104. The method of defining the character shape and the character font are not limited to the vertical and horizontal dot configurations, but may be any information such as a vector format that can finally print characters on a medium M such as a ticket.

Next, print character data CD as shown in FIG. 6, for example, is received from the upper station 2 such as a host computer (step S2). Here, the format of the print character data CD transmitted from the upper station 2 will be described. At the head of the print character data CD, a medium type number CND is added, followed by data of each character type. That is, a control code CC for specifying a character type and a print code PC for specifying each character in the character type (generally, a plurality of characters are printed in the same character type, so that a print code is set for a plurality of characters. Then, as long as print codes of the same character type continue, only one control code CC corresponding to the character type is added to the head of the print code of the same character type.)
The control code CC and the print code PC follow. In this embodiment, the control code CC and the print code PC basically employ JIS codes. The control code CC is information indicating a character type as described above,
In this embodiment, 7 is used as the escape code of the JIS code.
A combination of codes such as 4, 75 and the like is adopted. For example, for a full-width character, a combination of an escape code and 74 is adopted. Also, the print code P
C adopts the JIS code as it is. In this way, the print character data CD in which various types of characters are mixed
Is specified easily by the upper station 2 as well. Of course, control code CC and print code PC
Is not limited to the above, and any information may be used as long as the information can determine the character type and the information can determine which character is to be printed in the character type.

When the medium issuing device 1 receives the print character data CD from, for example, the upper station 2 (of course, the print character data CD may be input from the input unit 106), the print character data CD includes the medium. Since the type number CND is added, the medium type number CND is taken out (step S3). Next, the hopper 110 takes out the medium M corresponding to the medium type number CND and moves it to the printing unit 109 (Step S4). The method of taking out the medium M corresponding to the medium type number CND is as follows. That is, the hopper 1
In the ten medium storage units, cassettes capable of storing the medium M for each medium type are prepared so that a plurality of types of media M can be stored. Specific information is allocated to this cassette for each type of medium that can be stored, and the specific information can be read by a program. When taking out the medium M to be printed, a cassette having the above-mentioned unique information corresponding to the medium type number CND is detected (for example, as a detection method, a correspondence table between the unique information and the medium type number CND is stored in a memory. The unique information recorded in the correspondence table is retrieved based on the medium type number CND, and a cassette having the unique information is searched for based on the medium type number CND. Without preparing, as the unique information, the medium type number CN
D itself may be used. ), The medium M stored in the detected cassette is determined as the medium M to be printed. Next, the position of the medium type number CNT of the print control information PI corresponding to the above-described medium type number CND in the print control information PI is stored (step S5). Next, character codes to be printed are sequentially extracted from the print character data CD received from the upper station 2. Whether character data (which means both the control code CC and the print code PC) is present or not. (Step S
6) If there is character data, data corresponding to one character is extracted from the character data (step S7), and it is determined whether or not the control code is CC, that is, whether or not 74 etc. are continuous in the escape code (step S7). S8). In the case of the control code CC, preparation for extracting a character font corresponding to the character type of the control code CC (that is, the position where the character font group corresponding to each print code in the medium type number CND is stored, if necessary) Is determined), and the corresponding position of the print control information PI set in step S5 (that is, the medium type number C
The print control information PI such as the character pitch information of the position corresponding to the NT and the character type) is extracted, and the print information is set to be printed by the printing unit 109 based on the print control information PI (step S9). Then, the process proceeds to step S6 to retrieve character data corresponding to the next one character from the print character data CD. In the character font group corresponding to each print code in each character type, the medium type number C
Regardless of NT, it may be set so as to uniformly affect only the character type. If it is determined in step S8 that the code is a code to be printed, the character font corresponding to the print code is selected from the character font group based on the position where the character font group determined in step S9 is stored. The character font is taken out (step S10), and a print request is sent to the printing unit 109 to print the character font based on the print control information PI set as print information in step S9 (step S11). The process proceeds to step S6 to retrieve character data corresponding to one character. The printing in the printing unit 109 may be performed sequentially or simultaneously at a certain timing. In step S6, if there is no character code to be taken out,
Since all printing has been completed, the magnetic recording unit 10
After performing a process such as recording predetermined information on a magnetic stripe provided on the medium M by the step 8, the medium M is discharged from a discharge port (not shown), and a word indicating that one process is completed is displayed. It is displayed on the unit 107. Thereafter, if, for example, the next medium M is to be issued, the process proceeds to step S2 to receive the next print character data CD.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be expected. That is, character shape information corresponding to each character data is stored for each character type, and when printing is performed based on the input print data, character shape information corresponding to the character type and print character data is extracted, and based on this character shape information, Since it is decided to print on the medium specified in the input print data, it is possible to mount a plurality of types of media, perform printing with an appropriate character type according to the medium, and even take one medium itself, Printing can be performed with various types of characters and the medium can be issued. For this reason, since one medium issuing apparatus can issue various types of media, the cost is low and no labor is required. In addition, since printing can be performed with an appropriate character type according to the medium, it is possible to provide print characters that are easy to see to customers who handle the medium.

Further, print control information is stored for each medium type, and the print control information corresponding to the medium type is taken out.
Since printing is performed based on the extracted print control information, printing can be performed in a finer character form according to the medium without increasing the character shape information.
Since the storage capacity of the apparatus is not increased so much, the cost does not increase so much, and it is possible to provide print characters that are more legible to a customer who handles the medium.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of a medium issuing device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an example of print control information.

FIG. 5 shows a character type and a character configuration example.

FIG. 6 is an example of a print character data format.

FIG. 7 is an example of medium printing.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 medium issuing device 2 upper station 3 communication line CI character information PI print control information CNT medium type number M medium CD print character data CND medium type number

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A printing method in a medium issuing device for printing and issuing predetermined characters on a predetermined medium, wherein a character information storage means for storing character information corresponding to each character data for each character type; Print data input means for inputting, medium type determining means for determining a medium type to be printed from print data input by the print data input means, and print data input means by print data input means. A character type determining means for determining a character type at the time of printing; and a mark such as a character pitch for each character type to be printed for each medium type.
Print control information storage means for storing character control information, and whether the print data is
Then, character data to be printed is detected, and the detected character is
Character type determined by the character type determination means corresponding to data
Based on the character type information of a plurality of character types
Extracts the specified character information from the control information storage
Based on the medium type determined by the character shape information extracting means and the medium type determining means,
A print control information retrieving unit for retrieving the print control information stored in the print control information storage unit, based on the character shape information retrieved by the character shape information retrieval unit and the print control information retrieved by the print control information retrieval unit. And a printing unit for printing on the medium determined by the medium type determining unit.