JP3060349B2 - PRINT CONTROL DEVICE, PRINT CONTROL METHOD, AND PRINTING 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 printing control apparatus, a printing control method, and a printing control method for controlling printing means for performing printing in line units.
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that performs printing in line units.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional print control apparatus, each data in document data is developed into a bit image on a line basis and output to a printer.

[0003] In recent years, text has been developed in a line-by-line manner as in the past, in order to diversify the character size and incorporate various multimedia (graphics, images, graphs, etc.) into sentences.
Could not output. Therefore, in recent years, various elements (texts, graphics, images, graphs, etc.) in one page of document data are developed into a bit pattern at a time, and the bit pattern is adapted to the width of the print head of the printer. In this case, a method of sequentially extracting one line of data and outputting the data to a printer has been adopted (here, it is referred to as a bit pattern development method) (see FIG. 9).

[0004]

However, in the conventional method, the developed bit pattern is simply divided into the print head width of the printer and taken out irrespective of the continuity of the pattern in the vertical direction. Because of the output, the character string data may be divided into two or more lines and output to the printer (character truncation; see FIG. 9). As a result, the printing quality of characters may be extremely deteriorated due to line feed errors and print head position errors.

An object of the present invention is to provide a print control apparatus and a print control method capable of performing high-quality printing by preventing a pattern from being divided and printed as much as possible. And a printing device.

For example, an object of the present invention is to analyze the data of one line, pay attention to the continuity of the bit pattern, and divide the line at a position where the pattern is not continuous as much as possible, so as to reduce the character cutoff as much as possible.

[0007]

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a print control apparatus for controlling a printing unit for performing printing on a line basis, and comprising: Determining means for determining whether or not there is a white dot line in the row when the determining means determines that there is continuity of the row; and determining whether or not the row has continuity of the row by the determining means. If it is determined that there is no data, one line of data is printed, the printed line is printed so that the next line does not overlap, and if the determination unit determines that there is a white dot line in the line, The data up to the line immediately before the white dot line is printed, and the printed line is printed so that the next line does not overlap. If the determination unit determines that the line has no white dot line, one line is printed. Prints the data for And having a control means for controlling so as to print so as to overlap and the line and the next line. Further, the print control method of the present invention is a print control method for controlling a printing unit that performs printing in units of lines, wherein a determining step of determining whether there is continuity of lines, If it is determined that there is continuity, a determining step of determining whether or not there is a white dot line in the row; and if the determining step determines that there is no continuity of the row, data for one row is printed. And printing is performed so that the printed line and the next line do not overlap, and when it is determined that the line has a white dot line in the determination step,
The data up to the line immediately before the white dot line is printed, and the printed line is printed so that the next line does not overlap. If it is determined that the line has no white dot line in the determination step, one line is printed. And a control step of controlling the printing so that the printed line overlaps with the next line. Also,
The printing device of the present invention is a printing unit that performs printing in line units,
Determining means for determining whether or not there is line continuity, and determining means for determining whether or not there is a white dot line in the line when the determining means determines that there is line continuity; When the determination unit determines that there is no line continuity,
One line of data is printed, and the printed line is printed so that the next line does not overlap. If the determination unit determines that the line has a white dot line, the line immediately before the white dot line is displayed. Data is printed so that the printed line does not overlap the next line. If the determination unit determines that the line does not have a white dot line,
It is characterized by having control means for printing data of a line, and controlling to print so that the printed line and the next line overlap.

[0008]

According to the above configuration, it is possible to prevent the pattern from being divided and printed as much as possible, and to perform high-quality printing.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a character processing apparatus according to the present invention. 1 is a central processing unit (CPU). Reference numeral 2 denotes a read-only memory (ROM).
A program of the procedure shown in FIG. 8, a control program for controlling the CPU 1, and the like are stored. Reference numeral 3 denotes a readable / writable memory (RAM) for storing various data and the like. Reference numeral 4 denotes a read-only memory (external ROM) additionally provided outside.
Reference numeral 5 denotes a keyboard control device (KBC), and reference numeral 6 denotes a keyboard (KB). Reference numeral 7 denotes a display control device (CRTC), and reference numeral 8 denotes a display device (CRT). 9 is a peripheral device control device (PKC), 10 and 11 are external storage devices (FD10 and HD11), and FD or H
The program of the procedure shown in FIGS. 3 to 8 may be stored in D. Reference numeral 12 denotes a printing device (PRT). Reference numeral 13 denotes a pointing device (PD). Reference numeral 14 denotes a system bus for transmitting and receiving data between these devices.

Next, a control structure for executing the recording control of the PRT 12 will be described with reference to a block diagram shown in FIG. In the figure showing the control circuit, 1
Reference numeral 701 denotes an MPU for controlling processing according to a control program in the ROM 1702, 1702 a program ROM for storing a control program executed by the MPU 1701,
Reference numeral 3 denotes a dynamic ROM for storing various data (such as the recording signal and recording data supplied to the head). A gate array 1704 controls supply of print data to the print head 1708, and also controls data transfer between the system bus 14, the MPU 1701, and the RAM 1703. Reference numeral 1710 denotes a carrier motor for transporting the recording head 1708, and reference numeral 1709 denotes a transport motor for transporting the recording paper. Reference numeral 1705 denotes a head driver for driving the head, and 1706 and 1707 denote transport motors 1 respectively.
709, a motor driver for driving the carrier motor 1710;

The operation of the above control configuration will be described. When a recording signal is input from the system bus 14, the gate array 1704
The print signal is converted between the print data and the MPU 1701 into print data for printing. Then, the motor driver 170
6 and 1707 are driven, and the head driver 17
The recording head is driven according to the recording data sent to the recording unit 05 to perform recording.

[0013] The program of this apparatus is stored in ROM2, FD1.
0, HD11 or RAM3, and the CPU 1 sequentially executes programs via the system bus in the ROM2, FD
10, the target process is performed while reading from the HD 11 or the RAM 3. FIG. 3 shows an overall flowchart when the present invention is applied to an output control device. Using this flowchart, the operation of the present apparatus will be described in the following order.

Specifically, the processing is performed in the following procedure. That is, a bit pattern development buffer for holding the bit pattern for one page of the document is provided in the RAM 3. Thereafter, the data (including character strings, tables, graphs, figures, images, etc.) for one page of the document data is developed in a bit pattern on the buffer at once. It is assumed that the bit pattern is developed in a raster scan format (bytes are arranged in a horizontal direction) (see FIG. 10).

Here, for the sake of simplicity, it is assumed that the bit pattern expansion buffer has a capacity enough to store a bit image for one page.

When the bit pattern development is completed, printer output processing is started, and the bit pattern developed above is cut out in units of one line and output to the printer.
In this process, the process is generally performed in the following procedure.

First, the initialization processing (S1) will be described.

First, the address of the bit pattern development buffer is acquired in S101 of FIG. Next, proceeding to S102, the number of vertical dots (n) in the bit pattern development buffer,
The number of horizontal dots (N × 8) is obtained. Next, the process proceeds to S103, where 0 is substituted for c_dos and 0 is substituted for p_dos.

Next, the black dot line search processing (S2) will be described.

The contents of the bit pattern development buffer developed as described above are defined as a line (black dot = value “1”) including at least one black dot (= value “1”), with one vertical dot × horizontal N dot unit as one line. Line) (S20)
1). If not found (if determined to be Yes in S202), the process is repeated until a black dot line is detected (S203, S204). If a black dot line is found (if No in S202), the position of the line (= dot position from the upper end of the bit pattern development buffer) is stored (c_dpos) (see FIG. 11). ), And proceeds to the next line data fetching process.

If the black dot line search processing has reached the end of the bit pattern development buffer without detecting a black dot line (S204).
If it is determined that is>, the output of the page has been completed, and the processing of the page is completed.

Next, the row data fetching process (S4) will be described.

In the row data retrieval process, in principle,
From the black dot line position detected above, the print head width (64 dots in this embodiment) is extracted as data for one line. However, since there is a possibility that there is a pattern cut (= a line consisting of only white dots) in that period, in that case, the line from the upper black dot line to the cut is taken as one line. Specifically, processing is performed in the following procedure.

4-1 Continuity Check of Lines The continuity of two lines of the 63rd dot and the 64th dot counted below the black dot line position (c_dpos) is checked. Specifically, a logical product (AND) of two lines of the 63rd dot and the 64th dot is calculated in byte units (S301) (see FIG. 12). If there is even one that is not 0, it is determined that there is "continuity" (S302).

In short, when black dots are arranged at the same vertical position at the 63rd dot and the 64th dot, it is determined that there is continuity. On the other hand, even if both contain black dots, if the positions are shifted, it is determined that there is no continuity.

4-2 Processing when there is no continuity In 4-1, if it is determined that there is no continuity between the 63rd dot line and the 64th dot line, 64 dots vertically from the position indicated by c_dpos (= L) image is taken out as one line (S308) (Case-
1).

4-3 Processing when there is continuity If it is determined in 4-1 that the 63rd and 64th lines have continuity, then the following processing is performed. Do. That is, the image data is searched upward starting from the 62nd dot from the position indicated by c_dpos, and it is checked whether there is a white dot line (all of the lines are white) (S304, S305) (see FIG. 13). .

As a result, when a white dot line is found, the data from the position indicated by c_dpos to the line immediately before the white dot line (1 dot) is extracted as data for one line (S306). Case-
2).

At this time, it is assumed that all the dots after the (l + 1) -th dot are regarded as white dots, and the line data is extracted.

On the other hand, if a white dot line is not found even after going back from the 62nd dot (ie, a black dot has been present all the time), the vertical position from the position indicated by c_dpos is 6
Four dots (= 1) are taken out as one line (S312) (see FIG. 14) (Case-3).

If all (one or more) black dots exist between the position pointed to by c_dpos and the 64th dot (case-3 above), the overlap flag is set to "1" (S313). ). Otherwise, the flag is set to “0” (307, S309).

Next, the row data output processing (S5) will be described.

By the above processing, one line of image data is cut out from the bit pattern development buffer, and this is output to the printer. This is generally performed in the following procedure.

5-1 Line Feed Processing Before outputting the current one line of image data, line feed processing is performed from the position of the previously output line data to the position of the line data to be output this time. (S40)
1).

The row position output last time is p_dpo
Since the variable s is held in the variable s, specifically, the number of dots corresponding to the difference from the position to the position (c_dpos) of the line to be output this time may be shifted (see FIG. 15).

The row position (p_dpo) output last time is
s) is initialized to point to the upper end of the bit pattern development buffer at the start of processing of one page, and is constantly updated to point to the line position each time black dot line output processing is performed thereafter.

5-2 Line Data Output Processing Bit pattern expansion processing is performed in a low scan format.
The data of one line extracted from the bit pattern expansion buffer is also in the low scan format. On the other hand, since the output to the printer needs to be performed in the column scan format, the conversion process during this period is performed (S402) (see FIG. 16), and then the output is performed to the printer (S403).

Next, the pointer update processing (S6) will be described.

With the above processing, data has been extracted and output to the printer has been completed for one line, so that various pointers are updated.

6-1 The last output row position (p_dp
os) update processing Since the output of the current row has been completed, the “row position (p_dpos) output last time” is updated (S501) (i.
e. The current value of c_dpos is stored in p_dpos).

6-2 Line Overlapping Process Thereafter, a determination is made as to the overlapping flag to update the position (c_dpos) at which the search for the next black dot line should be started as follows (S502).

If the overlap flag = 1, the flow advances to step S503.

The superimposition flag is set to "1" (= overlapping) because at least one black dot exists in 64 vertical dots from the c_dpos position, and the 63rd and 64th dots
This is limited to the case where the dots have continuity (Case-3). In this case, one line image (64 dots vertically)
Is output, the next black dot line search start position (c_
dpos) is updated to point to the 63rd dot of the line (see FIG. 17). That is, in this case, the one line printed this time and the next line are overlapped by two dots, thereby preventing a continuous pattern from becoming blank.

If the overlap flag = 0, the flow advances to step S504.

When the overlap flag = 0, there is no pattern continuity between the current line and the next line to be printed. Therefore, in this case, the overlapping process between the lines is unnecessary, and after outputting one line extracted by the black dot line extracting process to the printer, c_dpos is updated to indicate the position immediately after the detected black dot line. (See FIG. 18, FIG. 1)
9).

When the processes 6-1 and 6-2 are completed, the process returns to the black dot line search process of S2. This is repeated until the output of one page is completed.

The end determination process for one page is performed in the S2 black dot line search process.

In this embodiment, the 63rd dot and the 6th dot
The continuity was checked by taking the logical product of the fourth dot, but the continuity can also be checked by adding the 65th dot.

As can be seen from the above description, in the case of a document consisting of only characters, there is usually a gap of one dot or more between lines, and in this case, one line extends from the upper end of the line to the gap. Therefore, as long as the size of the characters does not exceed the print head size (64 dots in this case), the characters in each line are always printed once, and it can be seen that the print quality is improved.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of one device. Needless to say, the present invention can be applied to a case where the present invention is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0051]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
Patterns can be prevented from being divided and printed as much as possible, and high quality printing can be performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment applied to a character processing device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing one embodiment applied to a printing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of an initialization process according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a black dot line search process according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the flow of a row data retrieval process according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating the flow of a printer output process according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating the flow of a pointer update process according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of control up to output to a printer.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a bit pattern expansion buffer.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a black dot line search process.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a row continuity check in a row data extraction process.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of processing in a row data fetching process when there is continuity of rows.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example in which black dots are present at all of the 64th dot from c-dpos.

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an example of a line feed process in a line data output process.

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example of conversion from a row scan format to a column scan format in a row data output process.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example of an overlapping process in a point updating process.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example of an overlapping process in a point updating process.

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example of an overlapping process in a point updating process.

Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-3-221480 (JP, A) JP-A-1-209175 (JP, A) JP-A-63-24320 (JP, A) JP-A-3-114486 (JP, A) JP-A-1-148562 (JP, A) JP-A-61-121658 (JP, A) JP-A-62-116029 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB Name) B41J 5/30 B41J 21/00 G06F 3/12 B41J 2/485

Claims (9)

(57) [Claims] 1. A printing control apparatus for controlling a printing unit for performing printing in units of lines, wherein the determining unit determines whether there is line continuity, and the unit determines that there is line continuity. If it is determined, the determination unit determines whether there is a white dot line in the line. If the determination unit determines that there is no continuity of the line, one line of data is printed and printed. The line and the next line are printed so that they do not overlap.If the determination unit determines that the line has a white dot line, the data up to the line immediately before the white dot line is printed. When printing is performed so that the next line does not overlap, and when the determination unit determines that there is no white dot line in the line, one line of data is printed, and the printed line and the next line are overlapped. Control means for controlling the printer to print A print control device comprising: 2. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit obtains a logical product of data of a last line of one line and data of a line immediately before the line to determine continuity. 3. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determining unit determines the continuity based on data of a last line of one row and data of a first line of the next row. 4. A printing control method for controlling a printing unit that performs printing on a line-by-line basis, comprising: a determination step of determining whether or not there is line continuity; A determination step of determining whether or not there is a white dot line in the row if determined, and if the determination step determines that there is no continuity of the row, one line of data is printed and printed. The line and the next line are printed so as not to overlap with each other, and when it is determined in the determination step that the line has a white dot line, the data up to the line immediately before the white dot line is printed, and the printed line and The next line is printed so as not to overlap, and if it is determined in the determination step that there is no white dot line in the line, one line of data is printed so that the printed line and the next line overlap. Print on And a control step of performing control as described above. 5. The determining step calculates a logical product of data of a last line of one row and data of a line immediately before the last line,
5. The print control method according to claim 4, wherein continuity is determined. 6. The determining step is based on data of the last line of one row and data of the first line of the next row.
5. The print control method according to claim 4, wherein continuity is determined. 7. A printing unit for performing printing on a line basis, a determining unit for determining whether or not there is line continuity, and a white line when the line is determined to be continuous by the determining unit. Determining means for determining whether or not there is a dot line; and when the determining means determines that there is no line continuity, one line of data is printed, and the printed line and the next line overlap. When the determination unit determines that a line has a white dot line, the data up to the line immediately before the white dot line is printed so that the printed line does not overlap with the next line. When the determination unit determines that there is no white dot line in the line, the control unit controls to print one line of data and print the data so that the printed line overlaps the next line. And printing means apparatus. 8. The printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the determining unit obtains a logical product of data of a last line of one row and data of a line immediately before the logical line to determine continuity. 9. The printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the determination unit determines the continuity based on data of the last line of one line and data of the first line of the next line.