JP4595610B2 - Variable printing apparatus and variable printing system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a variable printing apparatus and a variable printing system that embed variable data in a form for printing, and more particularly to a variable printing apparatus and a variable printing system capable of variable printing with a prohibition process.

  A personal computer (PC) generally has a document creation function, and can create a document using a document creation application. In this case, prohibition processing can be performed in order to improve the appearance of the document or make it easy to read.

  For example, the character at the right end of the range into which the character string is to be flowed is dedicated to the prohibited character at the beginning of the line. When the line ends with other characters, the rightmost character is left empty so that prohibited processing can be performed at any position. Is known (for example, see Patent Document 1).

In general, a document created by a PC is printed on paper or the like by a printer connected to the PC, but recently, variable printing has attracted attention (see, for example, Patent Document 2). In the variable printing, printing is performed by partially replacing the output contents of each sheet as necessary. For example, it is suitable for printing by replacing only a part of a direct mail such as an address, ticket numbering, an employee ID card, and a membership card, so that a printed material can be created efficiently.
JP-A-8-221391 JP 2004-199274 A

  However, according to the conventional variable printing device, variable printing, which is performed on the variable printing device, does not accept line breaks when various fonts and encodings such as Japanese, English, Chinese, etc. are used. It was difficult to do in.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a variable printing apparatus and a variable printing system capable of variable printing with a prohibition process.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention embeds a storage unit for storing a plurality of prohibition information corresponding to a form and encoding of each country language, and embeds variable data transmitted from the outside in the form, and designated prohibition information A variable data processing unit that performs prohibition processing in accordance with the data processing unit, and a printing unit that prints data processed by the variable data processing unit on a sheet. The variable data processing unit analyzes and uses the variable data. An encoding analysis unit that obtains a language encoding; a selection unit that selects prohibition information specified by the encoding from the plurality of prohibition information stored in the storage unit; and a character based on the selected prohibition information. JP that a letter printing position determining portion that determines the printing position Providing variable printing device to.

Prohibition rule information, because they are expressed in the same encoding as variable data, by analyzing the variable data, it is possible to know the encoding used, it is possible to obtain the prohibition information in this encoding.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a variable data generation device that generates variable data including prohibition information , a storage unit that stores a plurality of prohibition information corresponding to encoding of forms and national languages, and the variable data generation A variable data processing unit that embeds the variable data generated by a device in the form and performs a prohibition process according to the prohibition information, and a variable unit that prints data processed by the variable data processing unit on a sheet. The variable data processing unit of the variable printing device analyzes the variable data and obtains the encoding of the language being used, and the prohibition information specified by the encoding Memory A selection unit for selecting from said plurality of prohibition information stored in the variable printing system which is characterized in that a character print position determination unit that determines the printing position of the character based on the selected constraint information provide.

  According to the present invention, variable printing with prohibition processing becomes possible.

  FIG. 1 shows a variable printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The variable printing system 100 includes a variable printing apparatus 1 capable of variable printing, a PC 2 as a variable data generation apparatus connected to the variable printing apparatus 1, and a user connected to the variable printing apparatus 1 while the user is prohibited from And a UI (user interface) unit 3 used for registering the form.

  The “prohibition information” here is information for prohibiting line breaks, is included in variable data, is in a form, or has a default, and is given priority as necessary. It is specified for each font set and encoding.

  The “form” is a fixed part such as an image or a table in print data in variable printing, and may include programming data such as PDL (page Description Language) and prohibition information.

  “Variable data” consists of variable print data, such as address and name, which is delimited by delimiters such as commas and includes form specification information. The embodiment may include programming data such as PDL, prohibition information, and the like.

  The variable printing apparatus 1 includes a variable data processing unit 10 that converts variable data described in a variable print language into a printable format, a storage unit 20 that stores prohibition information and a form, and registration / deletion of prohibition information. / Prohibit information management unit 30 that manages acquisition, form management unit 40 that manages registration / deletion / acquisition of forms, and PDL data such as variable print language is expanded into printable bitmap data ( A PDL interpreter 50 that performs rasterization, and a printing unit 60 that prints data developed by the PDL interpreter 50 on a sheet by an electrophotographic method or the like.

  Although not shown, the variable printing apparatus 1 is provided with a control unit such as a CPU, and the control unit is configured to control the entire apparatus. In addition to the printing unit 60, a FAX unit and a display for outputting print data may be provided.

  The UI unit 3 is a module for the user to register prohibition information and forms. For example, a Web UI or a normal application UI can be used.

The variable data processing unit 10 analyzes the variable data 70 from the PC 2 and the form to obtain a font set and encoding, and is included in the variable data and form, or is registered in the prohibition information management unit 30. The prohibition information acquisition unit 12 for determining the prohibition processing to be used preferentially, the character print position determination unit 13 for determining the print position based on the prohibition information, the font set, the encoding, and the like; And a synthesizing unit 14 that generates PDL data obtained by synthesizing the form. A plurality of font encoding analysis units 11 may be provided. The character printing position determination unit 13 and the combining unit 14 may be configured so that the printing position determination and the combining are performed at the same time.

  The storage unit 20 is configured using a storage medium such as a hard disk, and includes a prohibition information storage unit area 20a in which a plurality of prohibition information 21 and 22 are registered, a form 23 including prohibition information, and a form 24 not including prohibition information. , 25 are registered in a form storage area 20b.

  FIG. 2 shows an example of the prohibition information 21 and 22 registered in the storage unit 20. The registration data 80 includes prohibition information 81 using Shift-JIS Japanese encoding, prohibition information 82 using EUC Japanese encoding, prohibition information 83 using Chinese encoding, prohibition information 84 using EUC Korean encoding, and prohibition information using EUC Taiwanese encoding. 85 and the like are included.

Table 1 shows the types of line breaks and their operations. Here, the contents of the forbidden character, processing condition, end-of-line prohibition processing, and punctuation prohibition processing for “chase”, “chase”, and “chase + hang” are shown. Note that there are characters that close parentheses such as “}” and “]”, etc., and there are characters that start parentheses such as “(” and “[”, etc. Has punctuation characters such as “,” and “.”.

(Variable printing process)
Next, the operation of the variable printing system 100 shown in FIG. 1 will be described. First, prohibition information and a form are registered by the user using the UI unit 3. The variable printing apparatus 1 stores the prohibition information and the form from the UI unit 3 in the storage unit 20 via the prohibition information management unit 30 and the form management unit 40.

  Next, the user creates a document using the PC 2, generates variable data 70 from the document, and issues a print instruction to the variable printing apparatus 1. The variable data 70 may be performed before registration by the UI unit 3 or may be obtained from another variable data generation device.

  The variable printing apparatus 1 receives the variable data 70 from the PC 2 by the font encoding analysis unit 11, analyzes the variable data and form, and acquires the font set and encoding used. Based on the analysis result, the prohibition information acquisition unit 12 is used as variable data from the prohibition information storage unit 22 through the prohibition information 70a or the prohibition information management unit 30 when it exists in the variable data 70. Get prohibition information corresponding to the encoding.

  The prohibition information acquisition unit 12 selects corresponding prohibition information from the font that is currently set in the PDL. For example, it is determined when the current font is set by the / Font Name-RKSJ-H setfont command of PDL. Alternatively, there are methods such as programming by PDL and determining by automatically recognizing character string encoding.

  In addition, as a determination method when a plurality of prohibition information is designated, a priority order is determined in advance or programming is performed using PDL. In the case of programming, the default is used depending on conditions, or the data in the variable data is used.

  The character printing position determination unit 13 analyzes the form of the variable data from the prohibition information acquisition unit 12, and based on prohibition information or prohibition information 70a, font set, encoding, etc. registered in advance in the prohibition information storage unit 22. Adjust the print position. For the variable data for which the character printing position is determined, the synthesis unit 14 obtains a form corresponding to the analysis result from the form storage unit 23 through the form management unit 40, and synthesizes the variable data with this form. This combining process can be performed simultaneously with the printing position determination in the character printing position determination unit 13.

  The PDL interpreter 50 expands the PDL data into printable bitmap data or the like with respect to the variable data from the synthesis unit 14. The data developed by the PDL interpreter 50 is printed on a predetermined sheet by the printing unit 60.

(Effect of embodiment)
According to this embodiment, the following effects can be obtained.
(A) Even when various encodings are mixed in variable data, a line feed prohibition can be performed.
(B) A line feed prohibition can be specified for all font sets and encodings, such as Chinese and Korean, regardless of language.
(C) Line breaks can be correctly performed even in data mixed with multiple languages.
(D) It is possible to flexibly specify designation of prohibition of line breaks in advance, inclusion in a form, determination at the time of variable data printing.
(E) The user can specify an algorithm for determining line breaks.

[Other embodiments]
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from or changing the technical idea of the present invention.

  In the above embodiment, the printer has been described as an example of the variable printing apparatus. However, the present invention is not limited to the variable printing apparatus. The present invention is also applicable. The variable printing apparatus may be an electrophotographic system, an ink jet system, or the like, and the type of printing system is not limited.

1 is a block diagram showing a variable printing system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the prohibition information memorize | stored in the memory | storage part of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

1 Variable printing device 2 Personal computer (PC)
3 UI unit 10 variable data processing unit 11 font encoding analysis unit 12 prohibition information acquisition unit 13 character print position determination unit 14 synthesis unit 20 storage unit 20a prohibition information recording area 20b form storage areas 21, 22 prohibition information 23, 24, 25 forms 30 prohibition information management unit 40 form management unit 50 PLD interpreter 60 printing unit 70 variable data 80 registration data 81, 82, 83, 84, 85 prohibition information 100 variable printing system

Claims (3)

A storage unit for storing a plurality of prohibition information corresponding to the form and encoding of each language ,
A variable data processing unit that embeds variable data transmitted from the outside in the form and performs prohibition processing according to specified prohibition information;
A printing unit that prints data processed by the variable data processing unit on paper ;
The variable data processing unit is configured to analyze the variable data and obtain an encoding of a language being used, and the plurality of prohibition information stored in the storage unit including prohibition information specified by the encoding. A variable printing apparatus , comprising: a selection unit that selects from the above; and a character printing position determination unit that determines a character printing position based on the selected prohibition information . The selection portion before Symbol variable data processing unit, when a plurality of prohibition information is specified by said encoding according to claim 1, characterized by selecting the prohibition information in accordance with preset priority Variable printing device. A variable data generation device that generates variable data including prohibition information;
A storage unit that stores a plurality of prohibition information corresponding to a form and encoding of each language, and variable data processing that embeds the variable data generated by the variable data generation device in the form and performs prohibition processing according to the prohibition information A variable printing apparatus having a printing unit that prints data processed by the variable data processing unit on paper ,
The variable data processing unit of the variable printing apparatus stores the prohibition information specified by the encoding and an encoding analysis unit that analyzes the variable data and obtains encoding of a language used in the storage unit. A variable printing system , comprising: a selection unit that selects from the plurality of prohibition information; and a character print position determination unit that determines a character print position based on the selected prohibition information .