JP4155514B2 - Electronic document printing system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has a structural description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed, such as an electronic document (PDF data) created in the Acrobat PDF (trade name) format manufactured by Adobe Systems. The present invention relates to an electronic document printing system that prints electronic document data created in the format described at the end of the electronic document. In particular, the electronic document data is transmitted to the printing apparatus as it is, and the electronic document data is interpreted on the printing apparatus side. The present invention relates to an electronic document printing system that uses a printing device having a direct printing function for converting to print data and printing, and that can provide the user with the print output of the first page and the entire print output in a shorter time. is there.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, in a data processing apparatus in a network environment, many documents (documents) are digitized and stored on a memory device of a server device or other computer device, and each computer storing the electronic document represents the Internet. It is now connected to the network, and Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format), XML (eXtensible Markup Language), and HTML (Hyper Text Markup) on HTML (Hyper Text Markup document) are also available on the network. Those that are suitable for reference and distribution have been used.
[0003]
An electronic document created in the above format can be linked to another document specified by a URL on a computer or network by describing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the electronic document. Is configured to be possible. When browsing an electronic document on a computer device, an Internet connection application is started and the address of the electronic document is specified by a URL to display the corresponding electronic document, or when a document including the external reference is displayed If the pointer displayed as a reference is clicked, the referenced document can be displayed and viewed immediately, or the corresponding document can be downloaded to a computer device and saved.
[0004]
In particular, electronic documents created in the Acrobat PDF (trade name) format, which is software developed by the above-mentioned Adobe Systems, will be distributed by “Acrobat Reader” (PC application trade name), which is distributed free of charge by the company. Although it is necessary, since it is generally used widely, it has recently been installed as a standard function in many computer devices (such as personal computers). This software can display documents according to the original layout regardless of the type of computer device, and printed materials such as brochures and instruction manuals distributed over the Internet in the same format as the original printed material. Widely used for display and reference.
[0005]
Conventionally, when printing an electronic document (PDF data) created in Adobe Acrobat's Acrobat PDF format, it can be downloaded from the Internet and loaded into a computer device or created by the user of the computer device itself. Save an electronic document in PDF format, open the corresponding electronic document (PDF data) using Acrobat Reader, check it on the display screen of the computer device, and then send the PDF data to the computer device or the print server on the network. The print driver is reconfigured into print data using a page description language (PageDescription Language) such as PDL that can be interpreted by the printing device, and then connected to the network. To print and send to the device (printer) are common in the electronic document printing system configurations.
[0006]
For example, when a PDF electronic document downloaded and stored in a computer device is printed, the procedure and time relationship shown in FIG. 6 are established. That is, the computer device opens the saved PDF-format electronic document with an acrobat reader. At this time, PDF data is interpreted by the acrobat reader, and the document is displayed on a display or the like. The time required to interpret this PDF data is T11 in the figure. When the user designates printing, the computer device converts the PDF data into a language that can be interpreted by the printing device, for example, PDL data (print data) described in the PDL language by the printer driver. The time required for the conversion to the PDL data is T12 in the figure.
[0007]
This PDL data is transferred to the printing apparatus. The time required for this transfer process is T13 in the figure. When the printing apparatus receives the transferred PDL data, it prints the print document by rasterizing one page (development into bitmap data). The time required for the rasterization is T14 in the figure, and the rasterization process is sequentially performed for each page break of the PDL data when the document page includes a plurality of pages. The time for the printing process based on the bitmap data created by the rasterizing process is represented by T15 in the figure.
[0008]
Printing starts when the first page of print data (PDL data) has been received and the first page has been bitmapped. Each page has received the print data for that page and the print data for that page has been bitmapped. It is done in the place where For this reason, since it takes time to print out all the pages, the user feels a long time to wait. Therefore, an electronic document printing system that can obtain the printed output in a shorter time has been demanded.
[0009]
According to such a general printing system configuration, even an electronic document in a format suitable for network reference and distribution is converted into print data using a PDL language or the like when printing. In this case, the data is larger than the original electronic document size, and the data cannot be received by the low-end printing device with a limited reception buffer or page buffer. May occur and may interfere with printing.
[0010]
From such a background, for example, the following Patent Document 1 directly receives an electronic document such as PDF (Portable Document Format), XML (extensible Markup Language), HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), and the like on the printing device side. A direct printing type printing apparatus having a function of interpreting a format electronic document and converting it into print data is disclosed.
[0011]
In the case of the direct printing method disclosed in Patent Document 1, generally, the PDF data is smaller than the print data reconstructed using PDL or the like, which is a page description language, and therefore, low-end printing with reduced storage capacity. The apparatus can easily receive the entire data, and has an advantage of shortening the data transfer time from the computer apparatus to the printing apparatus.
[0012]
When a PDF electronic document stored in a computer device is printed using this printing apparatus, the procedure and time relationship shown in FIG. 7 are established. In other words, the computer device transfers the stored electronic document in the PDF format to the printing device as it is. The time required for this transfer process is T23 in the figure. When the printing apparatus finishes receiving the entire transferred PDF data, the PDF interpretation unit starts interpreting the PDF data, and rasterizes (develops into bitmap data) one page at a time and prints. The time required for this rasterization is T24 in the figure, and when the page of the document covers a plurality of pages, the rasterization process is sequentially performed for each page configuration of the PDF data. The processing time for the printing mechanism to print based on the bitmap data created by the rasterizing process is represented by T25 in the figure.
[0013]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2002-358183 A (FIG. 3, paragraph number [0005] column)
[0014]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In the printing system that directly transfers the PDF data as described above, printing starts from the point where the PDF data has been received to the end. Therefore, the printing apparatus transfers the PDF data to the time T23 when the print data is transferred via the network or the like. There is a restriction that the time T24 for interpreting the above and actually converting it to a raster (rasterization) cannot overlap.
[0015]
By the way, this is a restriction caused by the structure of the electronic document in the PDF format, and this point will be described below. FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram showing the configuration of an electronic document in PDF format. As shown in FIG. 8, the PDF format is structurally classified into four types: a header part, a body part, an intercompatible table part, and a trailer part. Transfer of PDF data is a header part, a body part, an intercompatible table part, and a trailer. It is done in the order of parts.
[0016]
The header part is version information of the application (Acrobat / PDF) used to create the PDF data, and the body part is a page object describing the page structure of the document, or text or image rendering data (contents) that is the body of the document. ) And data objects that are used to draw these data and describe resources such as fonts, etc., and the inter-compatible table part is information indicating the positions of all objects in the body part, that is, each This is a part in which a list of information (pointer) indicating the position (location) from the top of the PDF data of the object is described, and the trailer part is described in the body part and information indicating the top position of the mutual compatibility table part. This is the part where information indicating the root address of the catalog object is described
[0017]
The catalog object is information that forms the root of the tree structure of PDF data, and has a structure that refers to a page object, a thumbnail object, or the like indicating the page configuration of PDF data (document) from the description of the catalog object.
[0018]
When the PDF interpreter receives the trailing trailer of the PDF data (the true start of the PDF data), the PDF interpreter saves the intercompatible table in the storage device based on the top position information of the intercompatible table, The page structure is traced with reference to the catalog object, the page object of the first page is analyzed, and the data object described in the page object is obtained and rasterized. The PDF analysis unit refers to the stored mutual compatibility table to obtain the contents of each object. That is, the PDF format is configured to analyze the description of the target object by obtaining the current position information in the PDF data from the object described in the mutual compatibility table and its position information. In other words, the electronic document in PDF format has a structure in which a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed is described at the end of the electronic document.
[0019]
Therefore, when interpreting PDF data, it is always necessary to first refer to the trailer part that exists at the end of the data to find out where the intercompatible table and catalog object exist in this data. The arrow in FIG. 8 shows the flow of interpretation of this PDF data. First, as shown by arrow A, the trailer unit inter-compatible table head position information (pointer value following the “startxref” flag indicating where in the entire data is) ) Is used as an index from the beginning of the entire data, a mutual compatibility table is searched, and the mutual compatibility table is stored in the storage unit.
[0020]
Next, the catalog object is referred to as indicated by an arrow B to search for a page object. When there are a plurality of pages, the page object 1 which is the first page is found, the position of the page object 1 is obtained from the mutual compatibility table, the page object 1 is searched as indicated by an arrow C, and the first page is entered from the description. Know the data object, for example data object 1, get the position of data object 1 from the inter-compatible table, search for data object 1 as indicated by arrow D, and rasterize based on the contents, resources, etc. described there To do.
Since the body part object is searched using the mutual compatibility table after the last trailer part is received in this way, the PDF data transfer time T23 and the PDF interpretation part in the printing apparatus receive the PDF data. It cannot be overlapped with the time T24 to be interpreted and bitmapped (rasterized), and it takes time to print.
[0021]
As described above, when printing an electronic document created in an Acrobat PDF (product name) format consisting of a plurality of pages, it takes time to print out the first page, and as a result, to obtain a printed output of the entire document. Since time is required, there has been a demand for an electronic document printing system that can provide a user with print output in a shorter time.
[0022]
The inventor of the present application has conducted various studies to solve the above-described problems, and as a result, in the printing system that interprets PDF data by the computer device of FIG. While the print data transfer time T13 and the printing apparatus actually bitmap (rasterize) the print data can be partially overlapped, the PDF format electronic document in FIG. 7 is directly processed by the printing apparatus. In this case, attention is paid to the fact that the time T23 for transferring the print data via the network or the like and the time T24 for the printing apparatus to actually convert the PDF into a bitmap (rasterization) cannot overlap.
[0023]
Therefore, as a result of various considerations, the present inventor has a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed, such as an electronic document created in the PDF format. When printing, the electronic document data processing unit of the computer device divides the electronic document data constituting one electronic document into at least three data blocks, and transfers them to the printing device in order from the last data block for printing. After receiving the reception notification signal indicating reception of the mutual compatibility table from the device, if the divided data blocks are transferred to the printing device in order from the first data block, the electronic document data interpretation unit of the printing device first The trailer part and the mutual compatibility table are obtained from the data block to be transferred, and then the body part of the data block to be transferred It is possible to start printing when a page object and a data object are retrieved and one page of data objects are prepared, and printing operation (interpretation of electronic document data, page rasterization operation) and divided data It has been found that the block transfer operation can be overlapped, and the present invention has been completed.
[0024]
That is, the present invention aims to solve the above-mentioned disadvantages, and prints electronic document data created in a format in which a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed is described at the end of the electronic document. In an electronic document printing system, a printing apparatus having a direct printing function that transmits electronic document data as it is to a printing apparatus, interprets the electronic document data on the printing apparatus side, converts the electronic document data into print data, and prints it. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document printing system that can shorten the entire printing time by increasing the printing start time.
[0025]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The above object of the present invention can be achieved by the following configuration. In other words, the electronic document printing system according to the present invention comprises a computer device and a printing device connected to the computer device directly or via a network, and the computer device interprets the structure of data to be printed. Was created in a format that was written at the end of the electronic document. Electronic document data is transferred to the printing device To Above In an electronic document printing system for printing with a printing device,
The printing apparatus includes an electronic document data interpretation unit that interprets and rasterizes electronic document data, and the computer apparatus includes an electronic document data processing unit,
The electronic document data processing unit divides data to be printed into at least three or more data blocks, and sequentially transfers them from the last data block to the printing apparatus, Above After receiving the reception notification signal indicating reception of the mutual compatibility table from the printing apparatus, the divided data blocks are sequentially ordered from the top data block. Above It is characterized by being transferred to a printing apparatus.
[0026]
By having such a configuration, Above When the printing device receives the data blocks in order from the last data block and receives the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit, the printing device notifies the computer device of the reception, thereby causing the computer device to start the divided data block this time. The data block is transferred to the printing device in order from the last data block, so that the printing device receives the data block transferred from the computer device in order from the end, and after confirming the reception of the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit, the first data block If the data blocks transferred in sequence are received, the printing apparatus can perform the reception operation and the rasterization operation of the received data block in an overlapping manner, printing the first page, and electronic document data. To provide an electronic document printing system that can reduce the overall printing time Kill.
[0027]
According to another aspect of the present invention, the electronic document data processing unit adds identification information for determining which position in the electronic document data is the divided data block to each data block. It is characterized by that. With this configuration, the transfer order of the divided data blocks can be easily controlled.
[0028]
Furthermore, according to another aspect of the present invention, the number of data blocks to be divided is variable according to the size of electronic document data. With this configuration, it is possible to further increase the probability that the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit are included in the last data block transferred first to the printing apparatus.
[0029]
According to another aspect of the present invention, the electronic document data interpretation unit includes: The data block sequentially transferred from the last data block transferred first is received, and the trailer unit in the last data block or the data block sequentially transferred and the complete compatibility table unit After getting the information The printing of the corresponding page is started when the object data of the page to be printed is received, and according to another aspect, the printing apparatus performs the division in parallel with the printing operation. The received data block is received.
[0030]
With this configuration, the last data block is received, and the data block reception operation from the beginning of the electronic document data sequentially transferred thereafter can be overlapped with the rasterization operation of the received data block. It is possible to provide an electronic document printing system that can shorten the printing time of the first page and the printing time of the entire electronic document data.
[0031]
Still further, according to another aspect of the present invention, the page to be printed is an arbitrary page designated by a user of a computer device, or the page to be printed is a head of electronic document data. It is characterized by being a page. With this configuration, the user can print an arbitrary page or the first page first.
[0032]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, an electronic document printing system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings by taking an electronic document (PDF data) created in the PDF format as an example. However, the embodiment described below exemplifies an electronic document printing system for embodying the technical idea of the present invention, and is intended to limit the present invention to the electronic document printing system of a specific embodiment. The present invention can be applied equally to other embodiments included in the scope of claims.
[0033]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic document printing system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing apparatus, and FIG. 3 is a printing process procedure in the electronic document printing system according to the present invention. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the computer apparatus, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the printing apparatus.
[0034]
An electronic document printing system 10 according to the present invention includes a computer device 20 and a printing device 30 connected via an intra network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) 14 as shown in FIG. The computer device 20 can be connected to the WWW server device 40 and the like via the network 12 such as the Internet, and the computer device 20 itself creates an electronic document according to the PDF format, or the WWW server device via the Internet 12. The electronic document created in PDF format from 40 can be downloaded and saved.
[0035]
The computer device 20 includes an electronic document data processing unit. This electronic document data processing unit is specifically a PDF data processing unit 21 (hereinafter referred to as PDF data processing unit 21). When the computer device 20 prints a multi-page electronic document created in PDF format, The data processing unit 21 simply divides PDF data to be printed into at least three or more data blocks. For example, the division size of the PDF data is, in principle, equal, and the division position of the body part is the division position of the break of the object described in the body part. Further, identification information for identifying the number of the original PDF data is added to the divided data block.
[0036]
Then, the PDF data processing unit 21 first transfers the divided data blocks to the printing device 30 in order from the last data block, and receives a reception notification indicating reception of the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit from the printing device 30. Until then, data blocks divided in this order, that is, sequentially from the rear of the original PDF data are transferred. As a result, the printing apparatus 30 can obtain information on the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit that are usually present at the end of the PDF data before the header unit and the body unit.
[0037]
When there is a reception notification indicating reception of the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit from the printing device 30, the computer device 20 reverses the transfer order of the data blocks, and this time the original PDF data of the divided data blocks is restored. The data block corresponding to the head is transferred to the printing apparatus 30 in order. Accordingly, the printing apparatus 30 obtains the trailer part and the mutual compatibility table part in the data block received in order from the tail, and then interprets the PDF data when the first data block transferred from the computer apparatus 20 is received. The process can be started.
[0038]
The printing apparatus 30 includes an electronic document data interpretation unit for interpreting electronic document data having the structure described above. Specifically, the electronic document data interpreting unit is a PDF interpreting unit 33 capable of directly rasterizing an electronic document created in an Acrobat PDF (trade name) format manufactured by Adobe Systems. The data blocks of the divided PDF data transferred from 20 are sequentially received, the PDF data is analyzed, rasterized, and printed.
[0039]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the printing apparatus 30. The printing apparatus 30 includes an interface unit 31, a PDF data receiving unit 32, a PDF interpretation unit 33, a printing mechanism unit 34, a control unit 35, and a storage unit 36. The control unit 35 is composed of a normal MPU (microprocessor unit), and controls the operation of each unit. The storage unit 36 includes a RAM, a ROM, an HDD, and the like, and a control program for the control unit 35 to control each unit is stored in the ROM. The RAM is used as a temporary storage unit for control, and the HDD is used for storing data.
[0040]
Data blocks transmitted from the computer device 20 (PDF data divided) are received from the LAN 14 via the interface unit 31 by the PDF data receiving unit 32. The PDF data receiving unit 32 sends the received data block to the PDF interpreting unit 33. When a data block transferred from the computer device 20 is received first, the PDF interpretation unit 33 examines the data block, and searches the mutual compatibility table with reference to the trailer unit. When the mutual compatibility table (from the beginning to the end of the description of the mutual compatibility table) is received in the data block transferred in order from the tail, the PDF interpretation unit 33 transmits a reception notification signal to the computer device 20. Receiving the reception notification signal, the computer apparatus 20 reverses the data block transfer order and transfers the data block to the printing apparatus 30 in order from the first data block.
[0041]
The PDF interpretation unit 33 of the printing device 30 stores the mutual compatibility table of the received data blocks in the storage unit 36, and then receives the first data block of the PDF data transferred from the computer device 20, and stores it in the storage unit 36. Refer to the stored inter-compatible table, follow the page structure indicating the page structure and the object structure of each page according to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer section, and describe in the storage section 36 based on the page object description. When the obtained data objects are obtained and the data objects for one page are prepared, the page rasterization is started. The printing mechanism unit 34 can start printing based on the rasterized bitmap data.
[0042]
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the printing procedure and time relationship of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention. In the aspect of the present invention, when PDF data is printed, the PDF data processing unit 21 of the computer device 20 divides the PDF data into at least three data blocks, and the printing device 30 sequentially from the last data block. And after receiving a reception notification signal indicating reception of the intercompatible table from the printing apparatus 30, the divided data blocks are transferred to the printing apparatus in order from the first data block.
[0043]
That is, as shown in FIG. 3, when printing PDF data, if the PDF data includes a plurality of pages, the computer device 20 uses the PDF data processing unit 21 to convert the PDF data into at least three or more data blocks. Divide into Identification information for identifying the data block corresponding to the original PDF data is added to each divided data block. This identification information may be, for example, a sequential number such as 1 / n to n / n, where n is the number of divisions.
[0044]
In addition, it is preferable that the size of the data block to be divided is, for example, equal in principle, and the division position of the body part is the division position of the object break described in the body part. The number of divisions may be set to a predetermined number according to the size of the original PDF data.
[0045]
The time required for the division processing in the PDF data processing unit 21 is T32 in FIG. 3. When the PDF data processing unit 21 finishes dividing the PDF data, the PDF data processing unit 21 first transfers the data to the printing device 30 in order from the last data block. When the reception notification signal indicating reception of the trailer unit and the intercompatible table unit is received from the apparatus 30, the transfer order of the divided data blocks is reversed, and the printing apparatus 30 sequentially starts from the divided data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data. Forward to. That is, the printing apparatus 30 can obtain the information of the trailer unit and the interchangeable table unit that usually exist at the tail end of the PDF data before the header unit and the body unit. The time required to transfer the divided data blocks is T33 in FIG.
[0046]
The printing device 30 receives the divided data blocks transferred in order from the tail by the computer device 20, checks the data blocks by the PDF interpretation unit 33 as described above, and refers to the trailer unit, Search compatible tables. When the cross-compatible table is searched for in the data block for which the cross-compatible table has already been received, the PDF interpretation unit 33 stores the cross-compatible table in the storage unit 36 and transmits a reception notification of the cross-compatible table to the computer device 20. .
[0047]
When the computer device 20 receives the reception notification signal of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device 30, the PDF data processing unit 21 reverses the transfer order of the divided data blocks, and this time, the data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data To the printing apparatus 30 in order. When the printing apparatus 30 receives the first data block of the PDF data transferred from the computer apparatus 20, the printing apparatus 30 refers to the mutual compatibility table stored in the storage unit 36, and also according to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer unit. The page object indicating the page configuration and the object configuration of each page is traced, the data object stored in the storage unit 36 is obtained based on the description of the page object, and the page rasterization is started when the data objects for one page are prepared. .
[0048]
The time required for this page rasterization is T34 in FIG. 3. In this case, the transfer T33 of the divided data block and the page rasterization T34 can be overlapped, and FIG. 3 shows this state. When the page rasterization for one page is completed, the printing mechanism unit 34 performs printing based on the bitmap data created by the rasterization process. This print processing time is represented by T35 in the figure.
[0049]
As described above, the PDF data has a configuration as shown in FIG. 8 and is classified into four types: a header part, a body part, a mutual compatibility table part, and a trailer part. When interpreting the PDF data, first, the trailer part existing at the end of the data is always referred to to check where the intercompatible table exists in this data. Then, from the “startxref” flag of the trailer unit, the value is used as an index (pointer) from the head of the entire data, and the intercompatible table is searched, and this intercompatible table is stored in the storage device. Then, the page object is traced while referring to the mutual compatibility table, the data object included in the page is known, and the substance of the target data is obtained and rasterized by the information described in the data object.
[0050]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the computer device 20 described above. That is, the PDF data processing unit 21 divides the original PDF data in step S10 according to the division number n (n is an integer of at least 3). The size of the data block to be divided may be equal. Then, the last data block divided in step S11 is transferred to the printing apparatus 30, and the control variable I is set to n-1. Next, the PDF data processing unit 21 checks whether there is a reception notification signal of the mutual compatibility table from the printing apparatus 30 in step S12. If there is no reception notification signal, in step S13, the PDF data processing unit 21 prints the data block specified by the control variable I (the data block immediately before the last data block because I = n−1). 30, subtract 1 from the control variable I, and return to step S12.
[0051]
If there is an intercompatibility table reception notification signal from the printing apparatus 30 in step S12, the PDF data processing unit 21 sets the control variable I to 1 in step S14, and the data block (specified by the control variable I in step S15) ( Since I = 1, the first data block of the original PDF data) is transferred to the printing apparatus 30 and 1 is added to the control variable I. Next, the PDF data processing unit 21 checks the number of data block transfers in step S16. If the transfer number is not n, there is an untransferred data block, and the process returns to step S15. If the number of transfers is n, all data blocks have been transferred, and the transfer ends in step S17.
[0052]
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the printing apparatus 30. When the printing apparatus 30 starts to transfer PDF data (divided data blocks) from the computer apparatus 20 according to the procedure of FIG. 4, the PDF interpreter 33 sequentially starts from the last data block from the computer apparatus 20 in step S 21. The transferred data block is received via the interface unit 31 and the PDF data receiving unit 32.
[0053]
Next, the PDF interpretation unit 33 checks the received data block in step S22, and determines whether the trailer unit and the intercompatible table have been received in a complete form. If the entire data table is not included in the received data block, the next data block transferred from the computer device 20 is received in step S23, and the process returns to step S22. If the entire intercompatible table is included in the received data block, the PDF interpreting unit 33 stores the intercompatible table in the storage unit 36, and reception indicating that the computer device 20 has received the intercompatible table in step S24. Send a notification signal.
[0054]
When the printing device 30 notifies the reception of the mutual compatibility table, as described above, the computer device 20 reverses the transfer order of the data blocks and transfers the data blocks in order from the data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data. Therefore, the PDF interpretation unit 33 receives the next data block in step S25, refers to the received intercompatible table, performs PDF data interpretation and rasterization of the received data block in step S26, Printing is performed in step S27.
[0055]
That is, the PDF interpretation unit 33 searches the page object and data object of the received data block by referring to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table stored in the storage unit 36. Obtain page data objects and perform page rasterization. Thereafter, the received data blocks are sequentially interpreted in step S26, and in step S27, printing is performed by the printing mechanism unit 34 every time bitmap data for one page is created.
[0056]
In step S28, it is determined whether reception of the data block is completed. This determination can be made by identifying information attached to each data block or counting the number of data blocks. For example, in the case of the division number n, if the number of n data blocks is received, it is understood that reception of all data blocks is completed.
[0057]
Note that the PDF data processing unit 21 of the computer device 20 can be configured to attach a page number to start printing to the printing device 30 as additional information according to a user's specification. When the PDF interpreter 33 of the printing apparatus 30 receives the information of the print start page, it receives a page object indicating the page configuration of the corresponding page and a data block containing the data object described in the page object. When the rasterization is performed, the printing mechanism unit 34 first performs printing.
[0058]
In this case, the bitmap data rasterized before the designated page is temporarily stored in the storage unit 36, and is controlled to be printed after the designated page is printed. In addition, when there is no designation of a page to be printed first, the configuration can be such that printing is performed in order from the first page of PDF data. Furthermore, it is also possible to configure so that all the print page orders are designated by the user.
[0059]
【The invention's effect】
As described above in detail, according to the electronic document printing system of the present invention, the transfer time and the printing time can be overlapped, and as a result, the user can obtain the printed matter completed in a short time. . This method is particularly effective for printing an electronic document having a large number of pages created in a format such as the PDF format, and has an excellent effect as an electronic document printing system.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the configuration of an electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing apparatus in the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a time chart showing the PDF data printing processing procedure and time relationship of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure in the computer apparatus of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure in the printing apparatus of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a time chart showing a PDF data print processing procedure and time relationship in a conventional general electronic document printing system.
FIG. 7 is a time chart showing a PDF data printing process procedure and time relationship in an electronic document printing system using a printing apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1;
FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of an electronic document created in a PDF format and a procedure for interpreting PDF data.
[Explanation of symbols]
10. Electronic document printing system
12 ... Internet (network)
14 ... LAN (Intranet)
20 ... Computer device
21 ... PDF data processing section
30 ... Printing device
33 ... PDF interpreter

Claims (7)

A computer device and a printing device connected to the computer device directly or via a network. The computer device has a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed at the end of the electronic document. that transmits the electronic document data created in a format to the printing apparatus, in the electronic document printing system for printing by the printing apparatus,
The printing apparatus includes an electronic document data interpretation unit that interprets and rasterizes electronic document data, and the computer apparatus includes an electronic document data processing unit,
The electronic document data processing unit, the electronic document data to be printed is divided into at least three data blocks, and transfers to the printing apparatus in order from the end of the data block, the reception interchangeability table from the printing device after receiving an acknowledgment signal indicating the electronic document printing system being characterized in that none of the divided data blocks from the head of the data block to be transferred to the printing apparatus in order.   2. The electronic document data processing unit is configured to add identification information for determining at which position in the electronic document data the divided data block is to each data block. The electronic document printing system described in 1.   2. The electronic document printing system according to claim 1, wherein the number of data blocks to be divided is variable according to the size of electronic document data. The electronic document data interpretation unit receives the data block sequentially transferred from the last data block transferred first, and the trailer unit in the last data block or the data block sequentially transferred After obtaining the complete information of the inter-compatible table part, a reception notification indicating the reception of the inter-compatible table is sent to the computer device, and printing of the corresponding page is started when the object data of the page to be printed is received. 4. The electronic document printing system according to claim 1, wherein the electronic document printing system is configured to do so.   The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the printing apparatus receives the divided data block in parallel with a printing operation.   5. The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the page to be printed is an arbitrary page designated by a user of a computer device.   5. The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the page to be printed is a first page of electronic document data.

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