JP4572172B2 - Image forming apparatus and printing system for high-speed printing - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a printing system, and in particular, saves bitmap print data converted during printing, and prints using the saved bitmap print data when the same print request is received again. The present invention relates to a technique for reducing the time required for conversion processing and performing high-speed printing processing.

  In the image forming apparatus, the processing time required for the printer job is the processing time for analyzing the page description language and converting it into bitmap data. Therefore, the bitmap print data converted into the bitmap is saved at the time of printing, and when the print request for the same print data is generated again, the bitmap print data after the page description language analysis conversion is transmitted from the saved data to the printing unit. As a result, the printing speed can be increased.

  In the conventional technology, the printing conditions are determined for each page of a newly requested print job and already registered print data, and if there is data that has been converted in the past, conversion processing is omitted and high-speed processing is realized. (See Reference 1).

  However, with this method, when determining the printing conditions, since the determination is performed in units of pages, it takes time for the search process, and even if it is a high-speed process that omits the conversion process, it takes time for another search process. ing. In addition, since high-speed processing is performed only when all job information including operation conditions match, there are cases where the matching conditions are strict and high-speed processing is not performed even though the corresponding print data exists.

JP 2002-55791 A

  In the image forming apparatus, the print data that has been printed once is saved, and when there is a print request again with the same print conditions, the corresponding print data is searched from the saved data and printed to perform high-speed processing. When searching for the corresponding print data, it takes time to determine the print condition for each page. In addition, since high-speed processing is performed only when all job information including operation conditions match, there are cases where the matching conditions are strict and high-speed processing is not performed even though the corresponding print data exists.

The image forming apparatus according to the present invention includes job information storage means for storing job information for each job including page information for each page, and bitmap print data obtained by converting the page description language print data having the job information. Bitmap print data storage means for storing page information and job information in association with each other, and job information comparison for comparing job information of a print request with job information stored by the bitmap print data storage means for each job and each page. When it is determined that either the job or the page matches by comparing the job information and the job information, the bitmap print data related to the matched job information is retrieved from the bitmap print data storage device and Comparison of high-speed print processing means for performing print processing and the job information Normal print processing means for converting the page description language print data having the job information of the print request into bitmap print data and performing normal print processing when it is determined that they do not match for each job or page wherein the job information storing unit, if the page that matches the comparison of each page of the job information is stored across between a plurality of jobs, the order of the pages that the match was recombined in accordance with the print request The job information of the new job is newly generated, and the new job information and the page information of each matched page are linked and stored, and the high-speed print processing unit generates the new job newly generated when the job information matches the job information of the print request, associated with the page information based on the link bitmaps Performing high-speed printing process retrieves the print data from the bitmap print data storing means, and the most important feature that.

According to the image forming apparatus of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus , the print data that has been printed once is stored, and when there is a print request under the same print conditions, the corresponding print data is retrieved from the stored data. In a method of performing high-speed processing by printing, when searching for corresponding print data, the determination processing can be performed at a high speed in order to make a comparison determination based on job information and page information , and the high-speed printing processing can be performed. It was.

  In the image forming apparatus according to the present invention, the job information comparing unit matches the job when the items of the first job information not including post-printing processing match even if all job conditions do not match. This is a problem in which high-speed processing is performed only when all job information including operating conditions match according to the conventional technology, even though there is corresponding print data, and high-speed processing is not performed. Can be suppressed.

In the image forming apparatus, the print data that has been printed once is saved, and when there is a print request again with the same print conditions, the corresponding print data is searched from the saved data and printed to perform high-speed processing. By comparing the print data with the past data based on the job information and the page information and using the matched data, the print process can be performed more efficiently and at high speed.

[Summary of Example]
An example of an image forming apparatus will be described as Example 1 of the present invention.

  When printing with an image forming apparatus, print data described in a page description language created by an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer is transmitted from the personal computer to the image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus The rasterization processing of the page description language print data is performed, and converted into bitmap data for printing.

  When data is transmitted from the personal computer to the image forming apparatus, in addition to the image data in the page description language in the print data, job information such as the file name and file size of the print data, and the print data Contains page information for each page.

In this embodiment, the job information and page information at the time of printing , and the image data that has undergone the bitmap conversion process are saved, and the same image data is searched based on the job information and the page information at the time of a new print request. By using the converted image data, the processing time associated with the rasterization processing of the image data is eliminated, and high-speed printing is achieved.

  Next, job information and page information will be described.

  FIG. 1 shows job information (including page information) transmitted to the image forming apparatus. The job information includes first job information not including post-print processing, second job information regarding post-print processing, and page information attached to each page of print data.

  The first job information includes the following items.

  Job ID: An ID uniquely assigned to each job, and there is no two that are the same. This item is not included in the comparison conditions.

  File name: The file name of the file when the print data is transmitted from an information processing terminal device such as a personal computer.

  Time stamp: The date and time when the file to be transmitted was last updated.

  Application name: The file name of the application software that created the file to be transmitted.

  File size: The size of the file to be transmitted.

  In addition, although there is no description in the figure, there is also a designated emulation item indicating emulation during page processing.

  The second job information includes the following items.

  Staple setting: Setting whether to perform stapling.

  Punch setting: Setting whether or not to perform punching (drilling).

  Booklet setting: Setting for whether or not to perform booklet processing.

  Electronic sort setting: Setting whether to perform sorting (sorting process).

  The page information consists of the following items, and there are as many printed pages as one print job.

  Job ID: Job ID in the description of the first job information described above, and is inserted into each page information to refer to which job information the page information belongs. This item is not included in the comparison conditions of the page comparison means.

  Page ID: An ID uniquely assigned to each page, and there is no two that are the same. Similarly, this item is not included in the comparison condition of the page comparison means.

  Number of copies: The number of copies.

  Paper size: The size of paper to be printed.

  Resolution: There is a designation of what resolution (600 dpi, etc.) per unit length at the time of printing.

[Flow of operation]
The operation flow of the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS.

First, when print data generation is started, step S11 is executed at the stage of acquiring job information. (Figure 2)
Next, step S12 is executed, a step of comparing the first and second job information with the saved first and second job information in the job information acquired in S11. (Job information comparison means)
Next, step S13, the step of determining the comparison result in the previous step S12, is executed.

If it is determined in S13 that the first and second job information match, the process proceeds to S15, and step S15 is executed, in which a high-speed printing process is performed using the stored bitmap print data. . (High-speed printing processing means)
When the printing process in S15 is completed, step S17 is executed, a step of determining whether or not page recombination is being performed. The page recombination will be described in detail with reference to step S23 in FIG. 2 and the flowchart in FIG.

  If the process directly moves from S13 to S15, the process does not pass through S23, so the determination in S17 is NO and the process is terminated.

If the first and second job information does not match in S13, step S19 is executed to determine whether or not the first job information in S19 matches. (Job information comparison means)
In S19, the job information comparison unit determines whether or not the matched first job information is found. If they match, the process proceeds to S15, where high-speed processing is performed and the processing ends.

If the first job information does not match in S19, step S20 is executed, a step of comparing the page information of the job information acquired in S11 with the saved page information. ( Job information comparison means)
In S21, it is determined whether the page information matches as a result of the previous step S20. If they match, the operation proceeds to S23.

  In S23, page recombination processing is performed. Details of S23 will be described with reference to FIG.

  If the page information does not match in S21, step S25 is executed to determine whether all data has been compared.

  If the comparison of all data has not been completed in S25, the process returns to S20 to proceed to the next page information in the job information, and the process of comparing the page information with the saved page information is repeated.

Finally, when the comparison of all the data is completed in S25, printing is performed by the normal process of S27. (Normal processing printing means)
In step S29, the job information that has undergone the printing process is saved (job information saving unit) , and the bitmap print data after the conversion process in which the printing process has been performed is saved in association with the job information. (Bitmap print data storage means)
Thus, the printing process is completed.

  Next, a case where page recombination has occurred will be described.

  In the image forming apparatus of this embodiment, even if each page of new print request data matches a page of a different job in the past, high-speed printing can be performed by performing recombination processing of those pages.

  As shown in FIG. 4, a page of new print request data may straddle a plurality of past print job pages. In FIG. 4, the first page of new print request data matches the second page of saved data A, the second page of new print request data matches the third page of saved data B, A case where the third page of the new print request data matches the fifth page of the stored data C is shown.

If the data transmitted as described above exists in three pieces of past saved data, the respective matching pages are acquired and created as one job. Here, the created job can newly store job information and the like, link the image data of the page, and store it as a new job. (Job information storage means)
A flow of page recombination processing will be described with reference to FIG.

  When the page recombination process of S23 of FIG. 2 is executed, the operation shifts to the first stage of the flowchart of the page recombination process of FIG. 3, step S41.

  In S41, it is determined whether a search target job exists.

  If there is a target job in S41, step S43 is executed to determine whether there is a page to be compared.

If no matching job or page is found in S41 or S43, the process proceeds to S61 and normal print processing is performed. (Normal print processing means)
If there is a page to be compared in S43, the step of comparing page information, step S45 is executed.

  If there is no matching page information in S45, the process proceeds to S43 to repeat the step of determining whether there is a different page to be compared.

  If there is matching page information in S45, step S47 is executed, a step of acquiring data of the matching page.

Next, step S49 is performed at the stage of high-speed printing. (High-speed printing processing means)
Next, step S51 is executed when it is determined that a new job ID has been generated.

  If the determination in S51 is NO, step S53 is executed, a stage for generating a new job ID.

  Next, the step of linking the page ID and the new job ID, step S55 is executed.

  If the determination is YES in S51, S53 is skipped and the process moves to S55 to link the page ID and job ID.

  When the process of S55 is completed, step S57, which is a stage for determining whether or not there is still a comparison target page, is executed.

  If the determination in S57 is YES, the process returns to S45 and the subsequent processes are repeated.

  If the determination in S57 is NO, the page recombination process ends.

  Thus, the page recombination process is completed.

[About job information storage]
A description will be given of how the S29 job information storage process described above is actually performed using a specific example.

  FIG. 5 is a storage table of first job information, second job information, and page information recorded by the job information storage unit in the image forming apparatus. New items are added to each storage table by the storage processing in S29. Further, when linking in S55, the bitmap image data is copied by placing the job ID already in the table on the page ID of the newly created job ID in the page information table of FIG. Thus, a new job ID can be generated.

  In addition, the main storage process corresponds to the parallel processing. If the processing time to be saved is awaited, the original print job processing will be delayed, so the job information addition processing is basically background processing.

[Effect of Example]
According to this embodiment, the image forming apparatus stores bitmap print data that has been subjected to conversion processing of print performed in the past together with the job information and page information. If they match, printing can be performed at high speed without performing data conversion processing.

  In addition, since only the necessary items of job data are compared in this method, comparison processing can be performed at high speed.

  In addition, when a match is found by comparing each page, the page ID of the page that matches the job information storage table of the new job is saved, so that the memory consumption can be reduced without duplicating the bitmap print data. Can be suppressed.

[Others]
If the specified emulation settings included in the first job information are different, but the other job information is the same, printing using different bitmap print data of the specified emulation stored in advance is also possible. It is possible by setting.

  The page information comparison process in step S20 in FIG. 2 may be integrated with the job information comparison process in step S12.

  In the job information comparison process in step S12 of FIG. 2, all or a part of the items included in the job information can be arbitrarily selected and compared, but the job ID is not a comparison target.

  Regarding comparison and determination of job information, after all items to be compared are compared, a match may be determined, or comparison and determination may be performed for each of several items.

Explanation of first job information, second job information, and page information (Example 1). It is a flowchart of the flow of operation | movement of a present Example (Example 1). It is a flowchart of a recombination process (Example 1). It is description of a page recombination process (Example 1). (Example 1) It is description of the recording method of 1st job information, 2nd job information, and page information.

Explanation of symbols

101 First job information 103 Second job information 105 Page information S12 Job information comparison processing (job information comparison means)
S15 High-speed processing (high-speed printing processing means)
S20 Page information comparison process (page information comparison means)
S27 Normal processing (normal printing processing means)
S29 Storage processing (job information storage means, bitmap print data storage means)
S45 Page information comparison process (page information comparison means)
S49 High-speed processing (high-speed printing processing means)
S61 Normal processing (normal printing processing means)

Claims (4)

Job information storage means for storing job information for each job including page information for each page;
Bitmap print data storage means for storing bitmap print data obtained by converting page description language print data having the job information in association with the page information and job information;
Job information comparing means for comparing the job information of the print request with the job information stored by the bitmap print data storage means for each job and each page;
When it is determined by the comparison of the job information that either the job or the page matches, the bitmap print data related to the matched job information is taken out from the bitmap print data storage unit and the high-speed printing process is performed. High-speed printing processing means to perform;
When it is determined that the job information does not match for each job or page, the page description language print data having the job information of the print request is converted into bitmap print data, and normal print processing is performed. Normal print processing means;
With
The job information storage means, when matching pages are stored across a plurality of jobs by comparing the job information for each page, the order of the matching pages is changed according to the print request. The job information is newly generated, the new job information and the page information of each matched page are linked and stored,
The high-speed print processing means stores the bitmap print data related to the page information based on the link when the newly generated job information of the new job matches the job information of the print request. Take out from the means to perform high-speed printing processing,
An image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1,
The job information includes first job information that does not include print post-processing, and second job post-process second.
Job information, and
The job information comparing means is a job ID for identifying individual jobs in the job information.
Compare all items except for, and when they match, let the high-speed print processing means perform the high-speed print processing,
An image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1,
The job information includes first job information that does not include post-processing of printing,
The job information comparing means is a job ID for identifying individual jobs in the job information.
Compare all items except for, and when they match, let the high-speed print processing means perform the high-speed print processing,
An image forming apparatus. A printing system comprising the image forming apparatus according to claim 1,
The job information and the page description language print data are created on a computer terminal.
The printing system is transmitted to the image forming apparatus .

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