JP3733547B2 - Document print processing system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a document print processing system that executes print processing from a PC / WS (personal computer / workstation).
[0002]
[Prior art]
A user creates a document or image by using an application on a PC / WS connected directly to a printer, indirectly via a network, or via a printer server, and then coded documents and images. 2. Description of the Related Art Document printing processing systems that transmit data to a printer and decode the data on the printer side to execute printing have been widely proposed.
By the way, in a conventional color printing system, when printing a color, black is printed only with black (K) toner. Therefore, with respect to the printing of text characters, it is possible to reproduce a black clear print without any other color toner.
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
As described above, in a conventional color printing system, when printing a color, black is printed with only black toner.
Accordingly, in an image portion where an image exists in the bitmap format, only black toner is superimposed on black, and CMYK toner is superimposed on other color portions. As a result, as shown in FIG. 7, a large toner level difference D1 occurs at the boundary between the black portion (K only) and the other color portions (CMYK).
As described above, conventionally, since a toner level difference occurs in the image portion, there is a problem that the aesthetic appearance of the printed image is impaired.
Although not directly related to the present invention, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-122526 discloses a pictogram separation function that allows a user to designate a part of a document and optimize the density of the document including characters and halftone images. It is shown.
[0004]
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a document print processing system capable of printing an image more beautifully while suppressing a toner level difference in an image portion.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, the invention described in claim 1 is a printer having an interface connected to the outside such as a network, serial, parallel, etc., and a printer directly or indirectly via a network, or a printer. A host device such as a personal computer / workstation connected via a server, and a print-related module that matches the operating system on the host device and has a function of searching for character and image descriptions in print data; The print-related module extracts an image reproduced in black at the time of printing from print data , changes non-black data in the vicinity thereof to black, and the printer determines the amount of toner in the changed black portion. The printing is limited .
[0010]
In the first aspect of the present invention, an image reproduced in black at the time of printing is extracted from the print data, and the non-black data in the vicinity thereof is changed to black, thereby limiting the amount of toner and other colors. The step of the apparent toner at the boundary with this portion is suppressed.
[0011]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a hardware configuration diagram of a document print processing system.
This system includes a scanner, a printer, a multi-function machine having a copy function, a multifunction machine (a printer function can be used alone) 1, a host device 2, 3, 4 such as a personal computer (PC) or a workstation (WS), A network (such as a LAN) 5 to which the multifunction device 1 and the host devices 2, 3, 4 are connected is provided.
The multi-function device 1 may be directly connected to the host devices 2 to 4 using a dedicated or general-purpose (parallel, bidirectional parallel, etc.) I / F cable. In this case, the connected host devices 2 to 4 can also serve as a printer server.
[0012]
FIG. 2 is a software block diagram of the document print processing system.
This system receives the print data from the spooler 14 that receives the print data from the application 11 that runs on the host devices 2 to 4, the intermediate module (GDI) 12 under the OS management, the printer driver 13, and the intermediate module 12, A printer control unit 15 that controls the actual development of a print image and the like, and a printer 16 that handles paper output (corresponding to the multifunction device 1 in FIG. 1) are provided.
Between the spooler 14 and the printer control unit 15, there is a line for connecting the printer 16 to the host devices 2 to 4 such as a network or serial / parallel.
[0013]
In the above configuration, the present invention performs the following operations.
The print processing approach is as follows. The user executes the application 11 or the like on the OS running on the host devices 2 to 4 to open and display a document, an image, or the like desired to be printed. After the display, printing is selected by a command on the application 11, and printing is executed after adding various options.
The printing options are converted into command information for printing instructions by the printer driver 13 and transferred to the printer 16 by the intermediate module 12. Print data can also be created and transferred by the printer driver 13. The order of both is not particularly defined in the embodiment. It is sufficient that the printer control unit 15 can interpret it. Thereafter, in the processing after the printer control unit 15, printing (printing) on paper is performed.
[0014]
This will be described in more detail with reference to the conceptual diagram of the processing flow in FIG.
The start in FIG. 3 is a state in which the OS is normally started in the host devices 2 to 4 and the printer printing environment is ready. S1 in FIG. 3 is a state in which the application 11 is activated and an action for printing a document or an image is generated. After the process of S1, the intermediate module 12 creates print data using the printer driver process of S3 in the intermediate module process of S2. The created print data is sent to the printer control unit process of S5 via the spooler process of S4. In the printer control unit process of S5, a print image is created from the print data and various information accompanying it, the paper output process (printing) is requested to the printer paper output process of S6, and the printing is completed.
[0015]
Details of the process of the printer driver 13 will be described.
In the spooler process of S4 in FIG. 3, the print data output from the printer driver 13 in the process of S3 is temporarily received, the state of the connected printer 16 is judged, and the print data is transferred to the printer 16 at an appropriate time. It has a function to send to.
The spooler process of S4 also has a function of converting the format of print data if necessary. (This function module is sometimes called a print processor. In the present invention, the spooler 14 It will be described for convenience as a function possessed).
[0016]
In this spooler process of S4, a portion constituting character text in the print data and image data (image data itself or a brush for drawing a pattern) are extracted.
An image exists in a bitmap format at a portion that constitutes (describes) the extracted image. The black part is extracted by searching this image. Bitmap data is generally composed of three colors of red, green, and blue, and in the present invention, these three colors (RGB) will be described for the sake of convenience. Does not change the essence).
[0017]
Here, when R = B = G, it is defined as black (gray) color, and particularly when R = G = B = 0, it is defined as true black. In addition, when printing a color, it is assumed that black is printed only with black (K) toner. This data (R = G = B) is searched and extracted from the image.
[0018]
In order to suppress the toner level difference and print the image more beautifully, as a process following the above process, as a first embodiment shown as a reference , R, G, and B are not matched in the extracted part. It is possible to change the data. That is, in this process, appropriate values are added to R or / and G or / and B, respectively. As a result, the equation R = B = G does not hold and printing of that portion with black toner alone is not performed.
[0019]
As a second embodiment for reference, it is conceivable that the degree of black is increased in the extracted portion, and the printer prints a black image with an increased amount of black toner. In other words, in this process, the value of n of R = G = B = n is decreased (the gray hue becomes darker and approaches black), and the amount of toner is increased by increasing the amount of black toner. It becomes possible to derive a tendency to reduce the level difference.
[0020]
In the present invention, the non-black data in the vicinity thereof is changed to black in the portion extracted as the third embodiment, and the printer prints by limiting the amount of toner in the changed black portion. In the processing of the present invention , the portion around the portion of R = G = B is checked, and an appropriate value equal to each of RGB is added in an appropriate range of the portion around the portion. As a result, the color density changes, and the toner level difference can be reduced. In actual color printing, if processing as described above is applied, there is a tendency that it is impossible to obtain the same image as seen on the screen. However, it can be inferred that it is worth using in special applications. In this case (especially in the case of the second and third embodiments), it is also necessary to adjust the overall density (gamma).
[0021]
The above is an explanation of the case where processing is performed by the spooler 14. In recent years, print data is generally compressed by various types of compression algorithms, and the method of reducing the print data size as much as possible to shorten the print time is generally used. In that case, the processes of the first to third embodiments may not be performed by the spooler 14.
In that case, it can be performed by the processing of the printer driver 13. This is because the compression process is generally performed by the printer driver 13. In other words, the processing of the present invention, including other unique systems, is performed by the module that performs the compression processing.
[0022]
4, 5, 6 is a schematic diagram showing the first and second embodiments, each of the toner application image in the third embodiment is the present invention as a reference. As described above, when R = G = B = 0, true black is assumed. For example, when R = G = B = 255, white. In the meantime, from 1 to 254, there are gray colors corresponding to the gradations. That is, if the value is small, it is dark, and if it is large, it is thin. In the first embodiment, since there is no portion printed only with black toner, there is no toner level difference as shown in FIG. In the second embodiment, since the amount of black toner is increased, the level difference D2 is small as shown in FIG. 5 (D1 in FIG. 7> D2 in FIG. 5). Furthermore, in the third embodiment of the present invention, by adding appropriate values equal to each of R, G, and B around the R = G = B portion, as shown in FIG. The thickness D is reduced, and as a result, the step with K is reduced.
[0023]
【The invention's effect】
According to the first aspect of the present invention, an image reproduced in black at the time of printing is extracted from the print data , and the non-black data in the vicinity thereof is changed to black, so that the amount of toner is limited. because of so that pressing a step of appearance of the toner at the boundary between the portion of the color, is dramatically improved printing performance beautiful text, it is possible to Rukoto improve the appearance of the print contents.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a hardware configuration diagram of a document print processing system.
FIG. 2 is a software block diagram of the document print processing system.
FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of an overall processing flow in a document print processing system.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a toner application image according to the first embodiment.
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a toner application image according to a second embodiment.
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a toner application image according to a third embodiment.
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing a toner application image of a conventional example.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 MFP 2 to 4 Host device 5 Network 11 Application 12 Intermediate module 13 Printer driver 14 Spooler 15 Printer control unit 16 Printer

Claims (1)

A printer having an interface connected to the outside such as a network, serial, parallel, etc., and a host device such as a personal computer / workstation connected to the printer directly or indirectly via a network or via a printer server And a printing-related module that has a function that matches the operating system on the host device and has a function of retrieving the description of characters and images in the print data,
The print-related module extracts an image reproduced in black at the time of printing from print data, changes non-black data in the vicinity thereof to black, and the printer determines the amount of toner in the changed black portion. A document print processing system characterized by printing with restrictions.

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