JP3473287B2 - Font management 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 PDL processing output device for outputting an image using PDL data described in a page description language (hereinafter referred to as PDL) as an input, and a font management device for managing font storage processing. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A PDL is a format that does not depend on specifications such as resolution of an image output device, color expression capability, processing method, etc., and defines definition of complicated graphic drawing and character output of arbitrary size. It is a language that can be used, and has a very high level of abstraction. Especially regarding the character output process, PD
By describing the data of the document image using L,
Not only is it possible to output characters of arbitrary size, but it is also possible to make a wide selection of fonts (also called typefaces) for the characters to be drawn. In this way, PDL
Then, by being able to select multiple fonts, it becomes possible to use different fonts for headings and texts, Japanese and English, etc. like ordinary printed materials, and the expressive power of documents has improved significantly compared to before. As examples of these PDLs, Interpress (registered trademark) of Xerox, PostScript (registered trademark) of Adobe, etc. are known.

A conventional process output device and process flow for such PDL data will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 and 9. All P's input to the PDL processing output device 1
The DL data is read by the input analysis unit 2 (procedure 1),
PDL such as construction, drawing, parameter setting, print instruction
Processing is performed according to the data attributes (procedure 2). That is, when the input PDL data relates to the construction of the drawing graphic, the graphic management unit 3 builds the graphic data for drawing in the graphic buffer 4 according to the PDL data (procedure 3). If the input PDL data is a drawing command, the drawing processing unit 5 reads the drawing graphic data constructed in the graphic buffer 4 according to the parameters set in the parameter table 6, and the printer or the CRT. A raster expansion suitable for the expressive ability of the output device 7 including a display or the like is performed and written in the frame buffer 8 (procedure 4).

If the input PDL data is a parameter setting command (procedure 5), the parameter management section 9 first determines whether or not the parameter is font-designated (procedure 6). If it is not related to the font designation, it is registered in the parameter table 6 and the necessary processing is performed (procedure 7). On the other hand, when the font is designated, the parameter management unit 9
After registering the parameters in the parameter table 6 (procedure 8), it is searched whether or not the font has already been expanded in the VM area 10 which is a font storage area on the main storage device (procedure 9). As a result, if the font has already been expanded, the drawing processing unit 5 treats it as the font currently in use, and if the font has not been expanded yet, it is stored in an external storage device (not shown) or the like. The loaded font is read, expanded on the VM area 10 and treated as a font currently in use (procedure 11).

When the input PDL data is a print output command, the print processing unit 11 reads the content already drawn in the frame buffer 8 by the drawing command in synchronization with the output device 7 and prints it. (Step 12). The frame buffer 8 may be a band type buffer, and the principle is the same. Then, when all the input PDL data are processed as described above, the series of processes is ended (procedure 13).

Further, the font selection process of the conventional processes for such PDL data will be described in detail. To make the description easier to understand, as an example of the PDL, PostScript (registered trademark) manufactured by Adobe Systems Incorporated is used.
Also, description will be made by taking as an example a printer having the processing system installed therein. For the language specifications of PostScript (registered trademark), see “PostScript” of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Reference Manual Second E
section ".

According to the PostScript (registered trademark) language specification, a font is developed in an area of a main storage device called a VM. In addition to the area called VM, a VM buffer for printing and a work area for internal processing are required.
Can also be expressed as an area used for language processing of PDL in the main memory, that is, the VM is used as an area for holding the internal state of the PDL data when it is analyzed. Here, VM is LocalVM and Gl
It is divided into two types of ovalVM, the difference between the two is L
That is, the ocalVM is provided with a storage state generation management mechanism called save / restore. That is, the changes made to the VM after the stage of issuing the save command can be invalidated by the restore command, and the state can be restored to the stage of the save. In PostScript (registered trademark), this mechanism is frequently used, and for example, it is used as a means for recovering the state for each processing of one page and achieving independence for each page.

By the way, the font is set as a usable (referenceable) font by being expanded on the VM by a findfont command or the like. At the time of this expansion processing, depending on the current VM mode, Local
It is determined whether it is deployed on the 1VM or the GlobalVM. Then, in the case of being expanded to the Local VM, if it has already been saved once, r
The estore command cancels the expanded state of the font and restores the original state.

Here, generally, it takes a considerable time to develop a font on a VM. If the number of characters per font is from several tens to at most 100, such as English, for example, after the VM is restored for each page and the font is restored to the state before the expansion, the font is selected again. The processing time is negligible even if a new font is developed when it is processed. However, when the number of characters is several thousand per font like Japanese, the time required for the expansion process becomes a large overhead. Further, in order to develop such a large capacity font, a large amount of VM is also consumed.

Such a problem will be described in more detail and a solution that has been considered in the past will be described. For example, the normal font format of PostScript (registered trademark) is called Type 1, but not limited to this format, all fonts are described in the format of a PDL data language program as shown in FIG. Has been done. Main memory 12
In the state where it is not expanded on the VM area 10 in the inside, the program describing the font is stored as it is in the external storage device 13 such as ROM or Disk on the file system of the PDL processing output device 1 and The font is expanded on the VM area 10 by executing the program as needed such as referring to the font in the processing.

Here, V in PostScript
As shown in FIG. 11, the expansion processing on the M area is performed as an object in a format in which a set of keys and data contents corresponding to the keys is made an object called a dictionary. That is, when a font is selected, when the font is already expanded in the VM area, the corresponding dictionary object is referenced, but when it is not expanded in the VM area, the external storage device is used. The program file for creating the dictionary is searched and executed, and the dictionary is created. As described above, since the PostScript font expands the information described in the program format in the VM area in the dictionary object format, the expansion process consumes a large amount of time and VM resources. Especially, Type
This is remarkable because the format called e1 is a format in which all information is expanded on the VM.

In order to solve such a problem, only the basic part of the dictionary is placed on the VM, and the outline data definition part having the largest data capacity is placed in another external area (on the DISK or ROM). It is possible to use it in the stored state and put only the access method and pointer to the area in the program. According to this solution, the required capacity of the VM provided by the expensive semiconductor memory can be suppressed, and the outline data body having the largest size is not expanded on the VM. Deployment time can also be reduced.

As described above, it is considered effective to use the outline data definition portion in a state where it is stored in the external area, that is, to make a so-called ROM. This RO
The most ideal method in the M-ized method is to use a storage area swap method in a virtual storage device used in a computer operating system,
When all the fonts that can be used when the DL processing output device is started are expanded on the VM, the VM is treated as a swap area and is directly converted to ROM, that is, a SnapShot of the VM is created and burned to ROM as it is. Moreover, it is a method of recognizing in that state by the memory management system. This method is considered to be the most efficient method because the VM is burned in the ROM as it is and the VM in the RAM is not consumed at all. However, SnapSh of VM
In order to burn ot to ROM, it is necessary to unify the memory management of the PDL processing output device and the memory management of the operating system. Therefore, depending on the specific operating system, the VM management mechanism itself of the PDL processing output device is changed. There is a need to.

Under these circumstances, in order to easily realize the ROM system, the existing format is used as the framework of the font data to maintain compatibility, and a part of the format is stored in the ROM to consume the VM. And reduce RO
Since the M-ized portion is not expanded on the VM, the method of increasing the expansion speed is considered to be advantageous. As an example of an original method devised from such a viewpoint, “Fuji Xerox Technical Report No. 8” issued by Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
The method described in the section "Full-color print service technology" of "1993" will be described.

As shown in FIG. 12, this method is based on the following two pillars, one of which is a font format corresponding to an external storage device called Type 85, and the other is a delay evaluation method. PostScript (registered trademark)
Is a PD that supports Japanese based on the one for English
L, so one font dictionary is usually 256
Expressed within characters. Therefore, for fonts that require thousands of characters such as kanji, the fonts are managed in a composite format. That is, a plurality of fonts are arranged in a hierarchical manner, and finally, the fonts are managed by having 256 characters or less. In managing fonts in this composite format, fonts that are positioned higher in the hierarchy, that is, for performing mapping, are "Composite Fon".
It is called "t" and is given a format number of Type 0. In other words, since one Type 0 font corresponds to one typeface, it can coexist with the existing English font management method. In such management , The font entity is a plurality of fonts that are hierarchically mapped from the Type0 font "Descender Fon.
It is performed by tracing to a font "Base Font" which is composed of t "and finally has a substance such as Type1.

The characteristic of this system is that
This is because the font called "Type85" originally defined by Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. is used as "Base Font." Although this font has an entry necessary for the PostScript dictionary, the outline data of the font itself is stored in an external storage device. By setting it, the loading speed and VM consumption when a new font is selected are suppressed.In addition, the lazy evaluation method is applied to the font management, and when the findfont command is executed, a temporary object ( Pseudo fonts) are created and registered, and the actual expansion / creation of the actual font is performed only when a font to be actually processed having a specific size is required by scalefont or the like. With the lazy evaluation method, fonts are used until needed. Since the substantial part of is not expanded, the load will not be concentrated even if a large number of fonts are expanded in advance at the time of initialization, and the load will be distributed.

However, with this method, the actual expansion of the font can be postponed, but if a large number of Japanese fonts etc. are selected and the characters are output, the amount of consumption of the main storage device is reduced. It grows infinitely. Therefore, this system requires a large memory capacity in the main storage device in order to support Japanese only for those that support only English.

Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-64971 discloses that
For fonts with a large number of characters such as Japanese, group the fonts and store them in an external storage device, etc.
There is disclosed a system in which when a character is drawn, a search is made as to whether or not the corresponding font has already been expanded in the main storage device, and if it has not been expanded, it is expanded from the external storage device. According to this system, it is not necessary to expand all the fonts when starting up the system, so that it is possible to reduce the expansion time and the capacity of the main storage device.

However, in this system, since the font development of a certain group is newly started only at the stage of drawing characters, the existing PDL, particularly Post
It was not applicable to the selection of typefaces such as Script and the character output method. That is, in the PDL process, a table (FontDire) as shown in FIG.
The font is managed using ctry).
At the same time that the font with the name specified by the dfont command is created as a usable object, the name is registered in the FontDirectory. That is,
When the typeface is selected, the font object is Fo
It must be registered in ntDirectory. On the other hand, in the system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-64971, fonts to be expanded on the main storage device are simply arranged in small grouped units, and thus the FontDirector is used.
When indirectly referenced from the management table such as y, the referenced font may not be expanded in the main storage device. Further, in this system, since a font is simply selected by reverse lookup from a character code, it is not compatible with a plurality of typefaces and cannot be applied to a highly functional PDL processing output device such as PostScript.

[0020]

As described above, in the related art, in a PDL processing output device, handling of a font having a large number of typefaces such as Japanese is handled by increasing the capacity of the main storage device. There was nothing else. Therefore, in the past, it is not possible to develop a large number of fonts at high speed like Japanese, and the capacity used for fonts in the main storage device becomes considerably large. There was a problem that memory management became extremely complicated. The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a font management apparatus capable of handling many fonts such as Japanese in a limited capacity of a main storage device.

[0021]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a font management apparatus for managing fonts of a plurality of character images referred to on the basis of PDL data described by PDL is used in a plurality of fonts. And a main storage unit such as a VM area for holding fonts used for drawing processing, and when the expansion receiving unit receives an instruction to expand the font, the main memory management unit expands it. By expanding the designated font, it is detected whether or not the total amount of the fonts held in the main storage means exceeds a predetermined capacity. When the main memory management unit detects that the total amount of fonts exceeds the above capacity, the exclusion unit excludes the font with the lowest reference frequency among the fonts held in the main storage unit and removes the area. After this area is secured, the expansion means expands the font for which the expansion instruction is given from the auxiliary storage means to the main storage means in a format that can be referred to.

Further, in the font management apparatus according to the present invention, each font has a substantive font portion for managing character image information and an identification font portion for managing the association between the PDL data and the substantive font portion. When the reference receiving unit receives a reference instruction for a font already held in the main storage unit, the main storage management unit expands the substantive font portion for which the reference instruction is given, and thereby the font held in the main storage unit. It is detected whether or not the total amount of the data exceeds a predetermined capacity. If the main memory management unit detects that the total amount of fonts exceeds the capacity, the elimination unit starts from the substantive font part with the lowest reference frequency among the substantive font parts held in the main storage unit. The area is excluded to secure the area, and after the area is secured, the reference expansion means expands the substantive font portion for which the reference instruction is given from the auxiliary storage means to the main storage means in a referable format.

More specifically, the font management apparatus according to the present invention analyzes the input PDL data and extracts a command relating to font processing. Then, of the commands related to the extracted font, those that need to be expanded in the main storage device are read from the external storage device and expanded. When this expansion is performed, the frequency of use of the corresponding font is counted, and for the less frequently used font, the area on the main memory is released for reuse according to the capacity limit of the main memory. Further, even in this reusable state, the identification font portion is made to exist in the main storage device so that indirect reference can be performed.

[0024]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A font management device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Note that FIG.
The conventional example shown in FIG. 12 will also be referred to as necessary. FIG. 1 shows a font management device according to the present embodiment, and this font management device is configured as a font management unit 20 in a parameter management unit 9 in the PDL processing output device 1 shown in FIG. The font management unit 20 receives an instruction to develop a font by a command related to parameter setting of PDL data, and a font area instructed to be developed in the VM area 10 of the main storage device to be stored in the VM area 10. Main memory managing means 22 for detecting whether the total amount of fonts held exceeds a predetermined capacity, and of the fonts held in the VM area 10 when it is detected that the total amount of fonts exceeds the specified capacity. Among them, an excluding means 23 for sequentially excluding the font having the lowest reference frequency, and an expanding means for expanding the font for which the expansion instruction is given to the VM area 10 whose expansion area is secured by the exclusion from the external storage device 13 as a referable format. 24
And are equipped with.

Here, as will be described later, the font in this embodiment has a substantive font part for managing the information of the character image and an identification font part for managing the association between the PDL data and the substantive font part. Therefore, the elimination processing by the elimination means 23 is performed by overwriting the data area of the substantial font portion already held in the VM area 10 with another substantial font portion developed based on the instruction. In order to perform such processing, the font management unit 20 causes the expansion unit 24 to expand the substantial font part, and removes the entry of the designated substantial font part for the corresponding entry of the substantial font part. A deployment control means 25 is provided for performing control to reflect the reflection.

Next, the processing performed by the font management unit 20 of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. In addition,
The processing of the PDL data in the present embodiment is different from the conventional example shown in FIG. 9 only in part of the processing part (procedure 14 to procedure 16) for the parameter setting related command, and therefore in other processing parts (procedure 14 to 16). The description of steps 1 to 10 and steps 12 and 13) is omitted to avoid duplication. Also in the present embodiment, when the font is not expanded in the VM area 10, the PDL data (program format) for generating the font is read from the external storage device 13 and executed to execute the expansion processing on the VM area 10. To generate a font object.
Here, if a new area for expansion is secured in the VM area 10, the VM area 10 will be consumed indefinitely in proportion to the increase in the number of fonts, as described as a conventional problem.

Therefore, first, the main memory management means 22
Of the fonts currently used in the VM area 10, the one with the lowest frequency of use is searched for (procedure 14), and the exclusion means 23 releases the area secured by that font (procedure 15). Each time one character is output, the main memory management unit 22 updates the usage frequency information of the font and determines the usage frequency according to the frequency information. Then, after securing an expandable area in the VM area 10, the expansion means 24 reads the corresponding new font from the external storage device 13 and expands it in the VM area 10.

Here, if the above process is simply performed, a problem occurs in the PostScript processing system. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, PostScr
In ipt, the fonts developed on the VM are managed by a management table called a font directory “FontDirectory”, and the user can refer to it. Therefore, simply VM
If the font is released from, the correspondence with this management table will be lost. For the management table, V
If the current contents of M are reflected as they are, only the frequently used fonts are registered in this management table. This is not generally allowed due to the language specifications of PostScipt. According to the PostSirpt language specification, the font once expanded to the VM is the V
This is because if the M area is not returned to the previous state by an explicit command such as restore, it must be retained and spelled.

Therefore, in the basic processing of this embodiment, when a font is released, "FontDi
The entry registered in "directory" is left unchanged, and the data part (that is, the font dictionary itself) is left as a dummy.
When actually accessed through "FontDirectory", the dictionary is newly expanded in the VM area again and replaced with the corresponding dummy. However, with such processing alone, "FontDirector" is used.
This may impose a load on the management of "y", which may lead to a decrease in processing speed. Therefore, in the present embodiment, such management based on the frequency of fonts is performed in "Base Font" of the composite format fonts. Only the limited items are implemented.

As described above, the composite format font is mainly used for handling Kanji in PostScript, and as shown in FIG. 3, the highest-order font corresponding to the font name. To "Root Fon
t ", a lower-level font derived from this" Root Font "is called" Descender Font ",
The lowest font among the "Descender Fonts" that actually has font data is called "Base Font". The basic Kanji font is one "Root Font" and dozens of "B".
Although it is made up of "ase Font", a font with a complicated code system has "Descender" in the middle stage.
Some "Composite Fonts" may be included. "Base Fonts" are divided into so-called Kanji character units, and the number is about tens to hundreds per font.

In this embodiment, "Base Font" is used.
Only the target is released from the VM area, and the following processing is combined to avoid the problem. In other words, if only "Base Font" is the target of release, "Descender Font" of its upper level is released.
The player must recognize that his or her lower "Base Font" has been released and update the contents at any time, and "Fo" for the released "Base Font".
It avoids the problem that ntDirectory "also has to be updated.

In this embodiment, when a Kanji font is called by the findfont command, it is normally "R".
All the fonts of "root font" and "Base font" are called, but the method of lazy evaluation in the conventional example is introduced, and only the pseudo font is generated at the first findfont stage, and the font is actually specified when the character is drawn. Only the "Base Font" in which the stored characters are stored are sequentially expanded in the VM area. In other words, only the used section is expanded in the VM area, so that the second level which is not often used is Since such a font is hardly expanded in the VM area, the usage amount of the VM area is reduced.
A mechanism for releasing the M area and a mechanism for preventing fragmentation of the area of the main storage device due to repeated release and new generation are adopted.

First, the area release and indirect reference will be described. In this embodiment, Japanese fonts are managed in a hierarchy as shown in FIG. Highest level "Root Comp"
"osite Font" is the "Focus Font" of the next layer managed by the font.
It is managed by an array of dictionaries with the entry name "DepVector". "Root Composite F
The "FontType" entry of "ont" is 0, and the "FMTypeType" entry determines an algorithm of which font of the next hierarchy font is selected. For example, if the "FMTypeType" entry is 2, then The numerical value of the first 1 Byte of the character string to be commanded is used as the index of the array shown in the "FDepVector" entry to specify the dictionary of the next layer.

Here, originally, "Bas
e Font ”comes, but in the present embodiment, the font“ Descend ”of the original font format is used.
erComposite Font "is placed in between. The font type of this font is 88 indicating a pseudo font. Also, this" Des "
cender Composite Font ”
(1) Procedure for acquisition of "Base Font",
(2) A font that has a pointer to the dictionary when "Base Font" has already been acquired.

First, when the first Japanese typeface is selected, this Type88 font "Descend" is selected.
er Composite Font "is newly expanded on the VM area. As a result, the selected typeface is the font management table" FontDirectory ".
It will be possible to be registered in the and to be indirectly referenced. Although the typeface selection process ends at the stage where the Type88 font is developed in this way, the actual "Base Font" pointed to by this Type88 font is not created in the VM area. Therefore, the font expansion processing is realized with almost no consumption of the VM area.

Next, when a state actually searching for "Base Font" occurs according to a mapping algorithm for drawing a character, "Base Font" which is necessary only when the Type88 font is selected.
Only the Type88 font is created by executing the procedure of (1) above registered in the Type88 font, or is selected by the pointer of (2) above, and the "Base" is selected.
The character drawing process is actually performed in the "Font". Note that this "Base Font" is "Fon" in this embodiment.
Although “tType” is set to 87, it is an original format for ROM based on Type1.
Since actual font data is not expanded in the VM area because it corresponds to, the consumption amount of the VM area can be reduced also from this point.

As described above, at the stage when the first Japanese font is selected, FontType 88 "Comp
Since only "site font" is generated, V
The consumption amount of the M area is suppressed, and the expansion speed is swiftly performed, and only the necessary "Base Font" is expanded to the VM area only at the stage of actually drawing a character.
Here, if you simply perform the expansion process as above,
When a large number of characters are drawn, the consumption amount of the VM area will gradually increase. In order to avoid such a situation, in the present embodiment, frequency management as shown in FIG. 5 is performed.

That is, when the preset upper limit value of the consumption amount of the VM area is reached, and a new type 8 is added.
If you want to create "Base Font" of 7,
Refer to the frequency management table that manages the usage frequency of each font deployed in the area, and refer to “B” of Type 87.
From the usage frequency information of the “Base Font”, a less frequently used one is selected.
Check the upper Type88 font pointing to, clear the Base Font pointer registered in that font, and initialize to reuse the area in the VM area in which the "Base Font" is expanded. . By such processing, it is possible to release one font to generate one font and suppress the consumption amount of the VM area. In the Type 88 font, the "Base Font" returns to the unexpanded state.

Further, in the present embodiment, when the VM area of the main storage device used by the font is eliminated / developed, the area is not simply released and then secured again, but rewritten as shown in FIG. A method of reusing by processing is used. That is, "D" before being expanded in the VM area
The "Descender Composite Font" is eliminated, and the next "Descender Co
In order to expand "mposite Font", the previous "
Descender Composite Font ”
NULL of "Base Font Pointer"
As the next "Descender Composite
e Base's "Base FrontPointe"
r "is set to the corresponding" Base Font ".

Here, if the area for expanding the "Base Font" is simply released and secured again, a fragmented state occurs in which the used area and the released area are mixed like the VM area is in a worm-eaten state. I will end up. Such a problem can be avoided if the system has a real-time garbage collection of the VM area, but it is difficult to realize the real-time garbage collection in order to realize a quick process. The rewriting process of this embodiment is performed in order to prevent such fragmentation of the VM area.

That is, as shown in FIG.
The Font dictionary is not released, and the contents of the font dictionary are rewritten with new contents. In order to realize this processing, the entry structure of all "Base Fonts" is unified and reuse is possible. This is done by rewriting the entry, that is, the value of the entry that is common to each "Base Font" is not rewritten as shown in Fig. 7 (1), and each "Base" is shown as shown in Fig. 7 (2).
The value of the entry that differs between e Fonts is overwritten. In order to unify the entry configuration,
As shown in FIG. 7 (3), if the number of entries having different values among the "Base Fonts" is indefinite, all "Bas Fonts" have the maximum number of entries.
e Font ”.

That is, in order to deal with rewriting, an appropriate number of rewriting dictionaries are prepared in advance according to the limit value of the VM area for Font, and the securing is performed from here. Japanese font "Base Font"
In order to be able to deal with all of the above, if there is a possibility that data of indefinite length is stored, a font dictionary for rewriting is generated with the maximum value. In the case of a dictionary that is represented by a set of entries and data, the entries used in all fonts are also registered in advance.

By carrying out such a processing, it is possible to always limit the capacity of the VM area used for the font, and fragmentation of the area of the main storage device due to reuse does not occur. Furthermore, there is little speed overhead due to this processing, and especially when the first Japanese font is selected, the expansion speed is "Base Fo".
It is quick because it does not generate nt ".

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to perform high-speed expansion processing for various types of fonts such as Japanese fonts, and it is possible to keep the capacity of the area used for fonts in the main storage device below a certain amount. Easy to manage.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a main part of a PDL processing output device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of a PDL processing output device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a Font Directory.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a hierarchical structure of a Kanji font according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram illustrating frequency management according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing changes in a higher-level font in the reuse processing.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a font reuse process according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a configuration of a PDL processing output device according to a conventional example.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of a PDL processing output device according to a conventional example.

FIG. 10 is a conceptual diagram illustrating expansion of a font dictionary.

FIG. 11 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a font dictionary.

FIG. 12 is a conceptual diagram illustrating conventional font expansion processing.

[Explanation of symbols]

9 ... Parameter management unit, 10 ... VM area (main storage unit), 13 ... External storage unit, 20 ... Font management unit, 21 ... Reception unit, 22 ... Main storage management Means, 23 ... Elimination means, 24 ... Deployment means, 25 ... Deployment control means,

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI G06F 12/02 520 G06F 12/02 520A 17/21 562 17/21 562P (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB) Name) G09G 5/00-5/42 G06F 3/12 G06F 3/14 G06F 17/21 B41J 2/485

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. PDL data described in PDL
Manage fonts for multiple character images referenced based on
In the font management device Each font is a substantive font part that manages character image information
Minutes, PDL data and the above-mentioned substantive font
Has an identification font part for managing Auxiliary storage means for holding a plurality of fonts, Main storage means for holding fonts used for drawing processing, Registration acceptance means for accepting instructions for registering fonts, Based on the registration acceptance means accepting the registration instruction,
Font identification Mainly from the auxiliary storage means only the font part
It is characterized in that it is provided with a registration / expansion means which is expanded in the storage means.
Font management device to collect. 2. The font management device according to claim 1.
Be careful In addition, the fonts already stored in the main memory are managed by
The reference instruction for the text image information
A light receiving means, Based on the reference receiving means receiving the reference instruction,
Substantial font that manages character image information with reference instructions
The file stored in the main storage means by expanding the part
Mainly detects whether the total amount of components exceeds a specified capacity
Memory management means, The total amount of fonts exceeds the above capacity due to the main memory management means.
Based on the fact that the
The lowest reference frequency among the retained substantive font parts
Exclude hands to secure the area by excluding from the real entity font part
Dan, Entities that were given a reference instruction after securing the area by means of exclusion
From the auxiliary storage means as a format that can refer to the font part
Reference expansion means for expanding in the secured area of the main storage means
A font management device characterized by comprising: 3. The font management device according to claim 2,
Be careful Unifying the size of the substantive font part of each font
Font management device characterized by. 4. PDL data described in PDL
Based on Manage the font of a number of character images
In the font management device Each font is a substantive font part that manages character image information
Minutes, PDL data and the above-mentioned substantive font
Has an identification font part for managing Auxiliary storage means for holding a plurality of fonts, Main storage means for holding fonts used for drawing processing, Sentences managed by fonts already stored in main memory
Reference acceptor that accepts reference instructions for character image information
Dan, Based on the reference receiving means receiving the reference instruction,
Substantial font that manages character image information with reference instructions
The file stored in the main storage means by expanding the part
Mainly detects whether the total amount of components exceeds a specified capacity
Memory management means, The total amount of fonts exceeds the above capacity due to the main memory management means.
Based on the fact that the
The lowest reference frequency among the retained substantive font parts
Exclude hands to secure the area by excluding from the real entity font part
Dan, Entities that were given a reference instruction after securing the area by means of exclusion
From the auxiliary storage means as a format that can refer to the font part
Reference expansion means for expanding in the secured area of the main storage means
And Furthermore, the size of the actual font part of each font is unified.
A font management device characterized by the above. 5. The phone according to claim 3 or 4.
In the management device, In addition, the entry structure of the substantive font part of each font is
Have been unified, The exclusion process by the exclusion unit is already stored in the main storage unit.
The data area of the actual font part
Done by Reference when the reference expansion means expands the real font part
Entity that excludes the specified entity font entry
The control to reflect to the corresponding entry of the font part
A deployment control means for controlling
Management device.