JP3620633B2 - Print data transmitting apparatus and printing system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling a printing operation in a computer system or the like, and more particularly, to a technique for canceling a print job during its execution.
[0002]
[Prior art]
As shown in FIG. 1, a host 1 in a computer system or the like usually has a printer driver 5 and a print spooler 7 as part of the OS in order to control the printer 3. When the user of the host wants to perform printing, he calls the printer driver 5, designates a document or image to be printed, and commands printing. Then, the printer driver 5 generates print data for causing the printer to print the document or image to be printed. The print spooler 7 spools the print data generated by the printer driver 5 in a print queue 9 on a storage such as a disk, and then sequentially retrieves the print data from the print queue 9 and transfers it to the printer 3 through a predetermined port 11. To do.
[0003]
When the user wants to cancel the print job after instructing the printer driver 5 to execute printing, the user displays a list of print jobs in the print queue on the screen, selects the print job from the list, and selects the print job. The spooler 7 is instructed to delete or cancel the print data of the selected job. In response to this, the spooler 7 deletes the selected print data from the print queue.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
A print cancel operation in which a job list in the print queue is displayed on the screen, a job is selected, and the spooler is instructed to delete print data or cancel the print is troublesome and takes time and effort. While this operation is troublesome, transmission of print job data to be canceled to the printer is often opened. Then, since the print data cannot be deleted from the print queue, printing cannot be stopped.
[0005]
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to enable the printing of the print data to be stopped immediately when the user desires even while the print data is being transmitted to the printer.
[0006]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
According to one aspect of the present invention, an emergency stop button for urgently canceling printing is provided to the user in advance (for example, in a form such as being displayed on a graphic user interface screen) on the host side, and printing is in progress. If a user operates the emergency stop button while sending a series of print commands as print data to the printer in sequence, the print command transmission is canceled and the print job is canceled. The unsent print command is discarded. Thus, when the user presses the emergency stop button, untransmitted print data remaining in the host is not transmitted to the printer and is not printed.
[0007]
In a preferred embodiment, when the emergency stop button is operated, the host further sends a print stop command to the printer. Then, the printer stops processing the print job and discards unprocessed print data related to the print job. Accordingly, the subsequent print data is not printed except for the data being printed on the paper when the emergency stop operation is performed.
[0008]
A computer according to a second aspect of the present invention receives a print spooler that sends print data in a print queue from the top, print data sent from the print spooler, and sequentially sends print commands for the received print data. An emergency stop command is displayed in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by the user by displaying a transmission control unit, a port for transmitting a print command sent from the transmission control unit to the printer, and an emergency stop button on the graphic user interface screen. And an emergency stop operation unit that provides the transmission control unit. When the transmission control unit receives an emergency stop command in the middle of transmitting the print command, the transmission control unit stops transmission of the print command, and has not yet transmitted the same print job received from the print spooler and received in the future. Discard the print command. Therefore, even after the print spooler starts sending print data, the print job can be canceled.
[0009]
The print data transmitting apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention displays a graphic user interface screen and an emergency stop button on the graphic user interface screen, and issues an emergency stop command in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by the user. In response to an emergency stop operation unit and an emergency stop command, a predetermined operation for stopping printing (this is not limited to the emergency stop method of the present invention described above, A print canceling unit that performs (good). Since an emergency stop button is displayed on the graphic user interface screen, the user can issue an emergency stop command easily and quickly when necessary.
[0010]
In a preferred embodiment, an emergency stop button is displayed on the desktop (including bars such as task bars around the desktop) or on the application window. As a result, the emergency stop button can be operated immediately without opening another window or menu while working on the application.
[0011]
The present invention can typically be implemented by a computer, and a computer program for the computer program can be installed or loaded on the computer through various media such as disk storage, semiconductor memory, and communication network.
[0012]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
FIG. 2 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.
[0013]
As shown in FIG. 2, the host 21 is, for example, a personal computer, and includes a printer driver, a print spooler 27, a language monitor 31, and a port 35 as a program module for performing print data transfer to the printer 23. ing.
[0014]
The printer driver 25 is called when the user intends to perform printing, and when receiving a “print execution” command from the user, the printer driver 25 creates print data of a document or image to be printed designated by the user. This print data is sent to the print spooler 27. The print spooler 27 receives print data, writes the print data in a print queue 29 on a storage such as a disk, and then reads and sends the print data from the head of the print queue 29. The language monitor 31 temporarily receives the print data sent from the spooler 27 in the data buffer 33 on the host memory, and analyzes the individual print commands of the print data while analyzing the page data in the memory as will be described in detail later. When the print data for one complete page is stored in the area 34 and the print data for one page is arranged in the page data area 34, the print data for one page is sequentially read from the page data area 34 and transmitted. The port 35 receives print data sent from the language monitor 31 and transfers it to the printer 23.
[0015]
Further, the printer driver 25 has an emergency stop button 37 for urgently stopping the printing during printing. The emergency stop button 37 is automatically displayed at a predetermined location on the graphic user interface screen when the printer driver 25 is installed in the host 21 (or by manual setting by the user after installation). For example, as shown in FIG. 3, an emergency stop button 37 may be displayed as one of the icons 63 in the task bar 61 on the desktop of the graphic user interface screen 51, or a predetermined application window 53 may be displayed. An emergency stop button 37 may be added into one of the predetermined toolbars 55 as one of the buttons 57. Alternatively, although not shown, the emergency stop button 37 is provided as an independent icon in the desktop, as one of menu items in some pull-down menu, or as one of buttons in the printer driver 25 window. May be present. However, as illustrated in FIG. 3, it is desirable that the emergency stop button 37 is displayed on the application window 53 at a place where it can be operated immediately during work for quick operation. In any case, when the user operates the emergency stop button 37 with a mouse or the like, the printer driver 21 sends an “emergency stop” command directly to the language monitor 31 (ie, skips the print spooler 27). When the language monitor 31 receives the emergency stop command 39, as will be described in detail later, the language monitor 31 immediately stops the transmission of the print data and instead sends a “print stop” command to the printer 23. The print data is erased, and the subsequent print data received from the data spooler 33 from the print spooler 27 is read from the data buffer 33 (without being written to the page data area 34) and discarded. Therefore, after receiving the emergency stop command 39, the language monitor 31 does not send print data to the printer 23.
[0016]
The printer 23 includes a controller 41 including a microcomputer that creates a print image of each page from print data and peripheral circuits, and a print engine 47 that prints the print image created by the controller 41 on paper. The controller 41 receives the print data transferred from the host 21 in the reception buffer 43 on the memory, then interprets the print data, creates a print image, and develops it in the image buffer 45 on the memory. The print engine 47 takes a print image from the image buffer 45 by DMA and prints it on a sheet.
[0017]
When the controller 41 receives a print cancel command from the host 21, it immediately stops processing the print data, initializes its own state, erases the data in the reception buffer, and after the printing of the currently printing page is finished. The states of the image buffer 45 and the print engine 47 are also initialized and returned to the state when the power is turned on. Therefore, when receiving the print cancel instruction, the printer 23 finishes printing the page being printed at that time and finishes processing of the print job, so the subsequent page is not printed.
[0018]
FIG. 4 shows the operation of the language monitor 31.
[0019]
First, an operation in a normal case where an emergency stop is not performed during printing will be described.
[0020]
The language monitor 31 receives the print data simply sent from the head by the spooler 27 to the data buffer 33 (step S3), then extracts the print data from the head of the data buffer 33 and analyzes the individual print commands. By doing (S4), it is checked whether or not the complete print data for one page has been received (S5), and the print data is sequentially written in the page data area 34 in units of commands (S6). Each time a print command is received from the spooler 27, a check is made as to whether print data has ended or printing has been interrupted (S1) and whether an emergency stop command has been input (S2).
[0021]
When the complete print data for one page has been received (YES in S5), the complete print data for one page is stored in the page data area 34 to the end (S7), and then the language monitor 31 Print data is read from the page data area 34 (S10), and is sent to the printer 23 through the port 35 in order in command units (S11). Each time a print command is sent to the printer 23, a check is made whether an emergency stop command has been input (S8), and a check is made whether all the print data for one page has been sent to the printer 3 (S9). )I do. When all the print data for one page has been transmitted to the printer 23 (YES in S9), the language monitor 31 deletes the print data of the page that has been transmitted from the page data area 13, and returns to step S1 again. Then, the subsequent print data is received from the spooler 27 to the buffer 33 (S3), and written in the page data area 34 while analyzing it (S6), and the same operation is repeated.
[0022]
When print data coming from the spooler 27 ends or is interrupted (that is, when a predetermined time elapses without print data coming from the spooler 27, or a message “printing finished” or “printing suspended” comes from the spooler 27. ) (YES in S1), the language monitor 31 prints the print data stored in the page buffer area 13 based on the check result in step S5 after the print data in the data buffer 33 has been written to the page buffer area 13 to the end. It is checked whether the data is not finished as incomplete print data as a page (S12). If the print data ends normally, the print data ends in a complete state as a page (NO in S12). In this case, the operation in step S7 and subsequent steps is continued and the data in the page buffer area 34 is finally stored. After the transfer to the printer 23 is completed, the operation is terminated. On the other hand, when printing is interrupted (for example, when the user orders the spooler 27 to cancel printing during printing), the print data sent from the spooler 27 is normally interrupted in the middle of the page. The language monitor 31 proceeds to step S13, erases all incomplete data as pages remaining in the page data area 34, and ends the operation without transferring them to the printer 23.
[0023]
With the operation of the language monitor 31 described above, only complete print data as a page is sent to the printer 3, and incomplete data as a page is not sent to the printer 23.
[0024]
Next, the operation of the language monitor 31 when an emergency stop command 39 is received during printing will be described.
[0025]
As already described, the language monitor 31 writes the print data received in print command units to the page data area 34 or transmits it to the printer 23. When an emergency stop command is input, printing is performed at that time. The writing of the command to the page data area 34 and the transmission to the printer 23 are stopped, the process proceeds to step S14, and a print stop command is transmitted to the printer 23 through the port 35, and the print data remaining in the page data area 34 is transferred. All are erased (S15). Subsequently, the language monitor 31 reads the print data from the data buffer 33, analyzes each print command (S16), and discards the print data retrieved from the data buffer 33 (without writing it in the page data area 34). (S17). Further, the subsequent print data sent from the spooler 27 is received by the data buffer 33 (S19), and is also read from the data buffer 33 for analysis (S16) and discarded (without being written to the page data area 34) (S17). ). The operation of receiving the print data from the spooler 27 and discarding it is repeated as long as the print data of the same print job continues from the spooler 27. When the print data ends or the print interruption occurs, the operation ends.
[0026]
Therefore, when the user operates the emergency stop button during printing, transmission of the print command to the printer 23 is immediately stopped at that time, and a print stop command is sent to the printer 23 instead, and the subsequent print data is Although it is sent from the spooler 27, it is discarded by the language monitor 31 and is not sent to the printer 23. In the present embodiment, the situation in which all the print data that the spooler 27 has started to send cannot be stopped halfway and sent to the printer 23 as in the prior art does not occur.
[0027]
FIG. 5 shows the operation of the controller 41 in the printer 23 when a print cancel command is received.
[0028]
In the printer 23, when the print stop command is received from the host 21, the controller clears its own system memory (S31), cancels the interrupt to the CPU related to the processing of the print data, and the setting and status of the DMA ( (S32), the reception buffer 43 is cleared (S33), and the print engine 47 is stopped when the printing of the page currently being printed by the print engine 47 is completed, and the image buffer 45 is also cleared (S34). Is returned to the initial state when the power is turned on (S35). With the above operation, when the user operates the emergency stop button, the page being printed at that time is printed, but the printing of the subsequent pages is avoided.
[0029]
As mentioned above, although one Embodiment of this invention was described, this Embodiment is an illustration for description of this invention to the last, and is not the meaning which limits this invention only to this Embodiment. Therefore, the present invention can be implemented in various forms other than the above-described embodiment. For example, in the above-described embodiment, when the printer receives the print stop command, it prints only the page currently being printed and then stops printing the subsequent pages. The printing may be stopped immediately or after printing only the line currently being printed, or after printing only the band currently being printed.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional system.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a graphic user interface screen for explaining an arrangement place of an emergency stop button.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the language monitor.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the printer 23 when a print cancel command is received.
[Explanation of symbols]
21 Host 23 Printer 25 Printer Driver 27 Print Spooler 31 Language Monitor 39 Emergency Stop Command

Claims (8)

In sending print data consisting of a series of print commands to a printer,
A transmission control unit for sequentially transmitting print commands of the print data to the printer;
An emergency stop operation unit that provides an emergency stop button to the user and gives an emergency stop command to the transmission control unit in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by the user;
With
The transmission control unit receives the emergency stop instruction in the course of transmitting the printing command to stop the transmission of the print command, and discards the untransmitted print command according to the same print job, further Sending a print stop instruction to the printer ;
Print data transmission device. The print data transmission apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a graphic user interface screen, wherein the emergency stop button is displayed on a desktop or an application window of the graphic user interface screen. In a computer capable of sending print data comprising a series of print commands to a printer,
A print spooler having a print queue and sending print data in the print queue from the top;
A transmission control unit that receives the print data sent from the print spooler and sequentially sends print commands of the received print data;
A port for transmitting a print command sent from the transmission control unit to the printer;
An emergency stop operation unit that displays an emergency stop button on a graphic user interface screen and gives an emergency stop command to the transmission control unit in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by a user;
With
When the transmission control unit receives the emergency stop command in the middle of transmitting the print command, the transmission control unit stops the transmission of the print command and applies to the same print job that has already been received from the print spooler and is received in the future. Discards unsent print commands and sends a print abort command to the printer ;
Computer. The computer according to claim 3 , wherein the emergency stop button is displayed on a desktop or an application window of the graphic user interface screen. In a method for sending print data comprising a series of print commands to a printer,
Sequentially sending a print command of the print data to the printer;
Providing an emergency stop button to the user;
If the user operates the emergency stop button during the transmission of the print command, the transmission of the print command is canceled , the unsent print command for the same print job is discarded , and a print stop command is issued. Sending to the printer ;
A print data transmission method. A method of sending print data comprising a series of print commands to a printer,
Sequentially sending a print command of the print data to the printer;
Providing an emergency stop button to the user;
If the user operates the emergency stop button during the transmission of the print command, the transmission of the print command is canceled , the unsent print command for the same print job is discarded , and a print stop command is issued. Sending to the printer ;
A print data transmission method having
A computer-readable recording medium carrying a program to be executed by a computer. A printer and a print data transmission device for sending print data comprising a series of print commands to the printer;
The print data transmission device includes:
A transmission control unit for sequentially transmitting print commands of the print data to the printer;
An emergency stop operation unit that provides an emergency stop button to the user and gives an emergency stop command to the transmission control unit in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by the user;
Have
When the transmission control unit receives the emergency stop command while transmitting the print command, the transmission control unit stops transmission of the print command, discards an untransmitted print command related to the same print job, and prints Send a stop command to the printer,
When the printer receives the print cancel instruction, the printer stops processing the print data, and discards unprocessed print data and intermediate data generated during the processing for the same print job in the printer. A printer and a computer capable of transmitting print data comprising a series of print commands to the printer;
The computer
A print spooler that has a print queue and sends print data in the print queue from the beginning,
A transmission control unit that receives the print data sent from the print spooler and sequentially sends print commands of the received print data;
A port for transmitting a print command sent from the transmission control unit to the printer;
An emergency stop operation unit that displays an emergency stop button on a graphic user interface screen and gives an emergency stop command to the transmission control unit in response to an operation of the emergency stop button by a user;
Have
When the transmission control unit receives the emergency stop command in the middle of transmitting the print command, the transmission control unit stops the transmission of the print command, and has not yet transmitted the same print job that has been received from the print spooler and received in the future. The print command is discarded, and a print stop command is sent to the printer,
When the printer receives the print cancel instruction, the printer stops processing the print data and discards unprocessed print data and intermediate data generated during the processing for the same print job in the printer.

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