JP3363822B2 - Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and printer driver - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and a printer driver for transmitting print data to a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Since a job related to a printer device has a strong batch-like factor and it does not matter to the user when the print job is completed, the conventional printer device cannot receive a print job received from a host computer. There was a lack of a function to predict the completion time and required printing time to some extent, and a function to notify the user. The technical reason why it is difficult for the printer to predict when printing will be complete depends on the software installed in the printer and the differences in performance and drawing data memory expansion method.
The main reason is that the printing completion time also differs.

Further, in the conventional printing system, the print data created from the text data is transmitted from the information processing device to the printer device, and the printer device prints on the recording medium based on the received print data. .

However, due to the widespread use of office networks, a plurality of printer devices having various functions in the office are printed from a personal computer or workstation of a user connected to the network. Once the request can be made, it is very convenient for the user to be able to know the expected print completion time.

[0005]

Further, the printing system can provide various functions and services provided by the printer device to the user, but in order to do so, data other than the print data created from the document data is required. Come on.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a printer driver capable of creating data other than print data created from document data.

[0007]

In order to achieve such an object, the invention of claim 1 is an information processing for generating print data to be transmitted from a document data generated from an application program to a printer by using a printer driver. A device, first control means for causing the printer driver to generate the print data from the document data, and appearance frequency information indicating the appearance frequency for each type of basic primitives included in the print data in the printer driver. a second control means for generating the said output
Transmitting means for transmitting power frequency information to the printer;
The printer determines the print completion time based on the output count information.
Receiver who calculates and receives the calculated print completion time
It is characterized by having steps .

The invention according to claim 2 is the information according to claim 1.
In the processing device, the transmitting means is connected to a plurality of printers.
The output frequency information is transmitted, and the receiving means is configured to transmit the plurality of output
Of printing completion time is received from another printer.
It

The invention according to claim 3 is the information according to claim 2.
In the processing device, among the plurality of printers, the printer
Generate the print data on the printer with the shortest printing completion time.
And a print data transmitting unit for transmitting the data.
To do.

The invention of claim 4 is an application program.
Document data generated from gram to printer
Generate print data to be sent using the printer driver
The information processing method according to claim 1,
Generate the print data from the document data
In the first control step and the printer driver,
Appearance for each type of basic primitives included in printing data
Second control step for generating appearance frequency information indicating the frequency
And a transmission switch that transmits the output count information to the printer.
And the printer based on the output count information
Calculate the print completion time, and calculate the calculated print completion time.
And a receiving step of receiving.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, input means for inputting document data from an application program,
A translation unit that translates the document data input from the input unit into print data, a generation unit that generates appearance frequency information indicating the appearance frequency for each type of basic primitives included in the print data, and the output frequency information. But
Sent to the printer, and the printer outputs the output count information
Calculate the print completion time based on the
And a receiving means for receiving the completion time.
It

[0012]

[0013]

[0014]

[0015]

[0016]

[0017]

[0018]

[0019]

[0020]

[0021]

[0022]

[0023]

[0024]

[0025]

According to the present invention, the printer device can calculate the expected print time based on the appearance count information indicating the appearance count for each type of basic primitive. By this,
Even if a plurality of printers having different performances are connected to the information processing apparatus, the expected print time that matches the performance of each printer can be obtained. Moreover, since the printer device does not have to count the basic primitives, the processing load on the printer device side does not increase.

[0026]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a host computer that generates information to be printed. Reference numeral 2 denotes a secondary storage device connected to the host computer, in which input basic data for basic primitives of the printer prepared for each printer device are stored. The input basic data is used only for creating the basic performance database in the printer, and is not used when the printer is shipped as a product.

Reference numeral 3 denotes the entire printer device. In the printer device 3, a communication means (implemented by a communication interface and a CPU) 31 with a host computer that supports various communication media, a basic primitive input means for receiving only the basic primitives of the printer from the communication means 31 (using the communication interface) ) 32, basic primitive analysis means (realized by CPU) 33 for analyzing printer basic primitives input from 32, basic performance database management means for measuring printer basic performance and automatically holding it in the basic performance database in the printer (Realized by CPU) 35, database 36, print completion predicting means (realized by CPU) 34, which is the core of the present invention, basic primitive memory expansion means (CPU) for expanding the printer basic primitives into a raster memory or the like in the printer.
37) and a printing means (printer) 38 that means actual printing on paper.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a logical communication path between the printer device and the host computer. As long as bidirectional communication is possible, this is a high speed communication path such as a network, but a low speed communication path such as a serial line. May be

The basic data file relating to the printer existing in the secondary storage device 2 of FIG. 1 needs to be prepared with the typical parameters relating to the basic drawing primitive which most affects the printer performance. In principle, this data is prepared separately for each printer type and each printer processing language (LIPS, PCL, etc.). If one printer device supports multiple printer processing languages, it is necessary to prepare for each printer processing language, but if one printer device supports only one type of printer processing language, prepare one. It will be good if you do.

An example of these basic data is shown in FIG.
In the example of FIG. 2, it is assumed that there are n basic primitives of the printer and the maximum number of parameters that can be taken in each basic primitive is 3, but there is no particular limitation on the number of parameters. The basic data has a form in which for each primitive, the identifier of the primitive, the number of parameters necessary for the primitive, and the number of actual parameter values are continued. Further, the number of parameter lists given as basic data for each basic primitive should be set to increase or decrease according to the capacity of the storage device in the printer and the accuracy of time measurement. The communication means 31 controls communication with the host computer 1, receives print data (printer processing language, etc.) from the host computer 1, and, when requested by the host computer 1, print end time which is the object of the present invention. It has a function of transmitting to the host computer 1 as soon as the prediction result of is understood. Of course, in addition to this function, the host computer 1
Needless to say, if there is data to be transmitted from the printer device 3, that process can also be performed. Further, in the present invention, as described above, the communication means 31 does not depend on the physical medium of communication with the host computer 1.

The basic primitive input means 32 is a means (implemented by the CPU) that receives only the basic primitives of the printer from the communication means 31 with the host computer 1. The basic primitive analysis means 33 analyzes the basic primitives of the printer processing language sent from the basic primitive input means 32, and performs preprocessing for passing to the basic primitive memory expansion means 37 which is the next processing. The basic primitive memory expansion (implemented by the CPU) 37 is in charge of expanding each drawing basic function decomposed by the basic primitive analysis means 33 into the memory of the printer, and leaves the actual printing on the paper to the printing means 38. The expansion to the memory may be partial expansion or full expansion.

Next, the printing time predicting means (implemented by CPU) 34 and the basic performance database management means (implemented by CPU) 35, which are the main points of the present invention, will be described. First, a description will be given of a registration means in the basic performance database, which is required to be performed before shipping the printer device as a product.
When the printer device is almost completed and the software development in the printer device is completed, the basic data concerning the printer device is first transmitted from the host computer 1 to the printer device 3 one by one. The data input from the communication means 31 is analyzed by the basic primitive means 33 for each basic primitive, and is expanded in the memory by the basic primitive memory expansion means 37. The time required for this is measured using the time measuring means (internal timer) in the print predicting means 34, the registration function of the basic performance database managing means 35 is used, and a set of basic data and measured time is used as the basic data in the printer. It is registered in the performance database (installed in the memory) 36. This time measuring means needs to use a timer with a sufficiently fine accuracy. In addition, the memory that stores the database 36 must be guaranteed to retain the stored contents even when the printer is powered off. At this time, an example of each entry in the registered database is shown in FIG.
FIG. 3 shows an example of the basic performance database in the printer when the basic data of FIG. 2 is given. Of course, it goes without saying that the management function also has an update function and an erase function for this database entry.

FIG. 4 shows a system configuration for specifically realizing the basic configuration of FIG. In FIG. 4, 101 is a storage device for storing the basic data file 2.
Reference numeral 102 is a host computer as an information generation source, and will not be described in detail. Reference numeral 200 is a printer device. 202 is an interface, RS42
2. Various interfaces such as SCSI may be used. 201 is the CPU 201, and the system memory 20
By executing the various programs stored in 3, the circuit functions as the circuit described in FIG.

A printing memory 204 stores an image in a dot form for printing. The dot image is sequentially read and printed by the printer mechanism 205.

Next, an actual printing time prediction method using this basic performance database will be described. In the same manner as described above, the printer processing language (printer basic primitive sequence) input from the communication means 31 is passed through the basic primitive input means 32 to the basic primitive analysis means 3
It is analyzed in 3 and decomposed into basic drawing functions. When the analysis of one basic primitive is completed, the pattern matching function in the printing time predicting means 34 is used to determine how many times each basic primitive appears in the sent printer processing language string. The counting means 34 counts each basic primitive.

This pattern matching function is concerned with the parameters normally required for basic primitives,
The most similar to the basic data stored in the basic performance data base 36 is selected, and if necessary, the scale of the size of the figure and the length of the line segment is dynamically determined and registered in the database. You may also have the function to recalculate the remaining time according to the actual scale. An artificial intelligence method may be adopted for this pattern matching function.

The basic drawing function decomposed by the basic primitive analyzing means 33 is irrelevant to this time prediction processing.
The data is sent to the basic primitive memory expansion means 37, and the normal print processing is performed (that is, this time prediction function actually causes a minimum overhead to the print processing of the printer).

At the time when all the printer processing languages have been analyzed, the total number of predicted print times obtained by multiplying the number counted for each primitive by the previously registered time (print required time for each type) is obtained, Through the communication means 31,
Notify the print request host if necessary. Note that the time required for communication between the host computer and the printer device is normally that all print data cannot be sent to the printer device at a time, so in this embodiment, assuming that processing is performed in a pipeline manner as described above, We assume it is a negligible time. At this point, the user on the host computer can obtain accurate information about the completion time of the print job sent by the user before the actual printing ends, even though the actual printing on the paper has not finished. It will be possible to obtain.

The procedure for the CPU 201 to execute the above processing is shown in FIGS. FIG. 5 shows a processing procedure for preprocessing.

In FIG. 5, S1 for inputting basic data
The CPU 201 when executing the processing of 00 functions as the basic primitive input means 32 of FIG. When the basic primitive analysis process of S110 is executed, the CPU 20
1 operates as the basic primitive analysis means of FIG.

CPU2 when expanding the memory in S120
01 constitutes the basic primitive memory expansion means 37 of FIG. 1 together with the printing memory 204. The CPU 201 when executing the process of S130 for measuring the timer constitutes a time measuring unit together with the timer.

The basic performance database 36 shown in FIG. 1 for data registration is constructed on a hard disk (not shown) of the system memory 203, and the basic performance database management means 35 executes software for accessing the database C.
PU201 is in charge.

FIG. 6 shows a processing procedure for acquiring the estimated print time.

Basic primitive input processing of S200, S
C when executing 210 basic primitive analysis processing
The PU 201 corresponds to the basic primitive input means 32 and the basic primitive analysis means 33 of FIG. In this analysis, the CPU 20 when performing pattern matching processing
1 operates as the pattern matching means in FIG.

Further, the CPU 201 when counting the number of basic primitives after the analysis processing in S220 operates as the counting means of FIG. In addition, C when the predicted printing time is calculated from the count value and the registered value (time) (S240)
The PU 201 operates as the print completion prediction unit 34 of FIG. <Other Embodiments> FIG. 7 shows another embodiment of the present invention described above.
Shown in. In FIG. 7, reference numeral 5 is a host computer, and 6 is a secondary storage device connected to the host computer 5. In this embodiment, in order to create a spool file or the like used in the spooling system of the printer device 7. used. Reference numeral 7 denotes various printer devices that realize the functions required for the present invention that directly connect to the network, and it is assumed that a plurality of printer devices are connected to the network.

In the host computer 5, 51 is an application program such as DTP software for making a print request to the printer 7, 53 is a printer driver for translating the document data from the application into the printer language, usually an OS (operating system). )
Incorporated as part of the functionality of. Reference numeral 54 is a printer spooler program for spooling a print request to a printer. Normally, print data is sent to a printer device via a Centronics interface or serial interface. In this embodiment, the print data sent from the spooler is a network. It is intercepted by the driver and sent to the printer device 7 on the network via the network. Reference numeral 55 represents a communication means for realizing the function of transmitting and receiving data via the network. The basic primitive appearance frequency measuring means 52 is the most important point in this embodiment, and has the following functions, which are almost the same as the print completion predicting means 34 of FIG.

(A) Acquire information on the number of appearances of each printer basic primitive with parameters from the printer driver (the parameters are similar).

(B) Communicate with the printer spooler program, and pass this appearance count data to the spooler program.

Although this function may be incorporated in the printer driver, it is separated in this example. The printer spooler program in this embodiment will be described below.
Before sending the print data to the printer device on the network, the printer spooler program first sends information about the printer processing language (LIPS, PCL, etc.) and the information obtained from the basic primitive appearance measuring means 52 in this embodiment to the network. Performs multicast type communication. Multiple printer devices on the network receive this multicast communication packet, and if the requested print job can be executed, accept this request and calculate the theoretical print completion time for the specified print job without actually printing. Then, it responds to the host computer 5. The printer spooler program receives this data through the communication means 55, and transmits the actual print data to the printer device which returned the smallest print completion time among the returned results. With this function, it is possible to provide a flexible scheduling function for print requests to the printer devices connected to the network. Needless to say, the present invention can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the spirit of the invention.

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the prediction accuracy of the predicted printing time is improved, and the printer apparatus is requested to perform printing beyond the batch processing usage of the conventional printer apparatus. It is possible to obtain an excellent effect of predicting the end time of a print job, which is different for each printer device type, with considerable accuracy and notifying the user to the user.

[0052]

As described above, according to the present invention, data other than print data generated from document generation data can be generated. For example, the printer driver generates print data, and data other than print data such as information on the number of appearances of basic primitives in the print data is generated to cause the printer device to calculate the print completion time in each printer device. There is also an effect that an information processing device such as a computer can be answered.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing basic primitives according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing basic primitives according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a specific system configuration of the present invention.

5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure executed by a CPU 201 of FIG.

6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure executed by a CPU 201 of FIG.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a basic system of a second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Host computer 2 Basic data file 3 Printer 31 Communication means 32 basic primitive input means 33 basic primitive analysis means 34 Printing completion prediction means 37 Basic Primitive Memory Expansion Means

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Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus for generating, using a printer driver, print data to be transmitted to a printer from document data generated from an application program, the printer driver causing the printer driver to generate the print data from the document data. a first control unit, the printer driver, and second control means for generating the number of occurrences information indicating the number of occurrences of each type of basic primitives included in the print data, transmitting means for transmitting the output count information to the printer
And when the printer completes printing based on the output count information.
Calculate the interval and receive the calculated print completion time.
An information processing device characterized by comprising a communication means . 2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1,
The transmitting means outputs the information about the number of outputs to a plurality of printers.
And sending the information to the receiving means from the plurality of printers.
Information processing device characterized by receiving print completion time
Place 3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2,
Of the plurality of printers, the print completion time is the longest.
Printer that sends the generated print data to a small printer.
Information processing apparatus characterized by having a printing data transmission means
Place 4. Generated from an application program
Print data to be sent from the saved document data to the printer.
Data generation method using a printer driver
There, in the printer driver, from the document data
A first control step of generating the print data, and a printer driver including a group included in the print data.
Appearance count information indicating the number of appearances for each type of this primitive
Second control step for generating a report and a transmission step for transmitting the output count information to the printer.
And when the printer completes printing based on the output count information.
Calculate the interval and receive the calculated print completion time.
An information processing method comprising a communication step. 5. An input unit for inputting document data from an application program, a translation unit for translating the document data input from the input unit into print data, and an appearance for each type of basic primitives included in the print data. Generating means for generating appearance frequency information indicating the frequency, and the output frequency information transmitted to the printer,
Calculates the print completion time based on the output count information,
Receiving means for receiving the calculated print completion time.
A driver characterized by what you got.