JPH01294082A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate setting or modification of an operating mode, by providing a mode output means for printing out settable operating modes, and adding an identification indication of one of the outputted operating modes which is set at present. CONSTITUTION:When printout of operating mode data is instructed by an instructing part 71, a mode data fetching part 75 fetches data of settable operating modes and data of an operating mode set at present from a storage part 74, then an adding part 76 adds identification data to the operating mode set at present, and these pieces of data are stored into a data file 77. In response to an input from an instructing part 72, an output data forming part 78 reads the operating mode data to be outputted, from the data file 77, based on output range data stored in the storage part 73, and the operating mode data thus read is printed out by a printer engine 63 through an output page buffer 79. Thus, it is possible to easily set or modify the operating mode.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer in which an operation mode can be set using an operation panel.

In general, in an electrophotographic image forming device such as a laser printer, the operation mode for executing the print operation is determined to match the connected host, for example, the type of interface, when using a serial interface. The baud rate, line pitch, character pitch, etc. can be set.

In such image forming apparatuses, the operation mode is set while referring to an operating manual, but this cannot be done unless the operating manual is nearby.

Therefore, the currently set operating mode is printed out as a summary sheet as shown in Figure 13, but this alone does not allow you to set any type of operating mode when changing the operating mode. Since I don't know what it is, I still need an operating manual, which is an inconvenience.

This invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned points, and it is possible to easily set or change the operation mode by making it possible to understand the settable operation modes even without an operating manual. The purpose is to

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 1 is provided with a mode output means for printing out the settable operation modes, and the invention according to claim 2 further comprises a mode output means for printing out the currently set operation modes. The device is equipped with identification adding means for adding an indication for identifying the mode in which the mode is being used.

Hereinafter, a detailed explanation will be given based on one embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are an external perspective view of a laser printer as an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and a schematic sectional view showing its internal configuration.

This laser printer consists of a printer body 1 and a table 2. There are two paper feed trays (
cassettes) 3 and 4 are removably provided, and a first cassette that constitutes a large quantity output unit (LCOT) 5 is provided at the upper part. Two stacked second paper stackers 6 and 7 are provided, and a third paper stacker 8 is provided at the rear so that it can be opened and closed with respect to the paper discharge port 9, and an operation display panel is provided on the upper front surface for setting the operation mode. 11 is attached, and a font cartridge 12, 13 and an emulation card 14 are detachably attached to the upper side.

Inside the printer main body 1, a photosensitive drum 20, a charging section 21. Laser writing section 22. Developing section 23, transfer section 2
4. Fixing section 25. A paper ejection conveyance section 27 consisting of a large number of conveyance rollers, paper guide plates, etc., and a power supply section 27. A printer controller 28, an engine driver 2 board, etc. are provided.

Also, a large paper feed unit (LCI) is installed on the side of table 2.
T) 31, and inside there is a reversing section 32 for double-sided printing.
A reversing paper feeding section 33 and the like are provided.

This laser printer is controlled by the printer controller 28.
The printer controller 28 creates print data based on data from the host, and sends a print start request signal to the engine driver 29 as well as a paper feed tray selection signal, a paper output stacker selection signal, etc. The print operation starts when the engine driver 29 receives these signals.

When the printing operation is started, paper is fed from the tray selected from the paper feed trays 3 and 4 and the mass paper feed unit 10 at a predetermined timing, and is temporarily stopped when it hits the registration roller. .

Meanwhile, the photosensitive drum 20 rotates in the direction of the arrow in FIG.
The charging unit 11 uniformly charges the surface of the photosensitive drum 20, and the laser writing unit 22 applies a laser beam modulated in accordance with print data from the printer controller 28 to the charged surface of the photosensitive drum 20 in the direction of the drum axis. It is irradiated and exposed while main scanning to form an electrostatic latent image.

The electrostatic latent image formed on the photoreceptor drum 20 is developed by adhering toner in the developing section 23, and then transferred to a sheet of paper fed at a predetermined timing in the transfer section 24, and further transferred to the fixing section 25. The heat-fixed print paper is transferred to paper ejection transport section 2.
6 etc., the paper is conveyed to a selected one of the paper discharge stackers 6 to 8 and discharged.

Normally, the first paper stacker 6 or the second paper stacker 7 is selected as the paper stacker, but in special cases, such as when using paper that easily curls, such as envelopes or postcards, the third paper stacker 6 or the second paper stacker 7 is selected.
Paper discharge stacker 8 is selected. In addition, near each paper ejection port, there are paper ejection sensors SL, sz using photo sensors, etc.
+S3 is provided to detect when paper is ejected from the machine.

4 and 5 are plan views showing different examples of the operation panel 11 shown in FIG. 2.

The operation panel 11A shown in FIG. 4 includes a liquid crystal display device (LCD) 41 for displaying various information, an online/offline switch 42 consisting of a momentary switch for switching online/offline, and a reset switch 43 for instructing a reset port. Boat rate/land switch 44 to switch between rate and landscape.
Form feed switch 45 for instructing form feed. Font switch 4B for changing fonts, Setup/Test switch 47 for changing between setup and testing. Prepure Sinch to Instruct Prepure 48. Next switch 49 for instructing next.
It includes a home switch 50 for instructing home, a select switch 51 for instructing selection, and a mode print switch 52 for instructing to print out the operating mode.

The operation panel IIB shown in FIG.
Although it is equipped with an LCD 4i and switches 42 to 51 similarly to the above, it does not include a unique mode print switch 52 for instructing printing out of the operation mode.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control system of this laser printer.

The printer controller 28 has an interface (I/F).
), a host interface 61 for connecting to the host HT, a panel interface 62 for connecting to the operation panel 11, and an engine interface 64 for connecting to the printer engine 63 consisting of various parts related to the image forming process described above. It is equipped with

The host interface 61 is an office computer,
An interface for connecting to a host HT such as a personal computer or word processor.
Select various parallel interfaces or serial interfaces according to T.

The operation panel interface 62 takes in input information from the above-mentioned various switches 42 to 52 provided on the operation panel 11A (or various switches 41 to 51 provided on the operation panel IIB), sends display information to the LCD 41, etc. in charge of

The engine interface 64 controls data transmission and reception between the printer controller 28 and the printer engine 63.

The option interface 65 is in charge of transmitting and receiving data between the font cartridges 12 and 13, the emulation card 14, and the like.

The CPU 65 is a microcomputer that centrally controls the entire printer controller 28, and uses a general-purpose 16-bit or 32-bit microcomputer.

The ROM 67 stores various processing programs for the CPU 6B to operate the printer controller 28 and resident font data necessary for the printer.

RAM58 is a large capacity random access memory,
The working area of the CPU 13 [3, which includes an input buffer for temporarily holding data such as character codes and control codes transferred from the host HT2, and the font data in the ROM 57, etc., are used by the data in the input buffer. Page buffer area for creating page-by-page video data (bitmap data) to be sent to the printer engine 63, download fonts or font cartridges from the host HT 12-13
It is used as a font memory etc. to store fonts from etc.

The non-volatile memory 6 stores information regarding the operation modes that can be set in this laser printer and the currently set operation mode among them.

This non-volatile memory is NVRAM.

RA backed up by EEPROM or battery
Use M etc.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram functionally showing the portions related to printout in the operating mode of this laser printer. However, this is a case where the operation panel 11A is used.

The mode information output instruction section 71 instructs to print out the operation mode information. The output range instruction section 72 inputs output range information that indicates the range of operation modes to be printed out. The output range storage section 73 stores output range information of the operation mode manually input from the output range instruction section 72 .

The mode information storage unit 74 stores information on settable operation modes and information on currently set operation modes.

The mode information import section 75 includes the mode information output instruction section 71
When an instruction is given to print out the operation mode information, the settable operation mode information and the currently set operation mode information are taken in from the mode information storage section 74 and sent to the current mode identification information addition section 76 .

The current mode identification information addition section 76 is the mode information acquisition section 7
Based on the information received from 5, data with identification information added for the currently set operation mode among the settable operation mode information is created and stored in the data file 77.

The output data creation unit 78 reads out the data of the operation mode information to be printed out from the data file 7F based on the output range information stored in the output range storage unit 73, and creates output data (video data). This output data is sent to the output page buffer 779 and printed out by the printer engine 63.

Next, the operation of this embodiment configured as described above will be explained with reference to FIG. 7 and subsequent figures.

First, in this laser printer, the settable operation modes have a hierarchical structure as shown in the mode list of FIG.

Here, the operation mode refers to items or printing conditions for controlling printing operations, such as font, 9-character pitch (character pitch), 2-line pitch, input i-tray, paper output tray, emulation, etc. There is.

Emulation refers to imitating the functions of the target printer from among the input control codes, since even if printers perform the same printing, the control codes input from the host vary from company to company. For this printer, "D630J (daisy printer)" and "rHP 1aser jet" (HP laser printer) can be selected.

And for rD630J, the font (Font
) as Courier 10 and Times Roman as Auto LF (ON) and Off (O
FF) as pitch (Pitch) 10, 12.1
5 can be selected respectively, rHP 1as
For er jetJ, Fourier 1 is used as the font.
You can choose between 0 and Times Roman.

The interface (INTERFACE) is a host interface, and in this printer there are a serial interface rR5-232CJ and a parallel interface rCentronics.
nix) can be selected, rR8-232CJ
For example, the baud rate is 2400,4800.9600, and the data bit (Da
te bit) can be selected from 8 pits and 7 bits, respectively.

What is job control?
This is the control of the printer's paper handling, and includes items such as the location of the paper feed tray, the location of the paper ejection tray, the path through which the paper passes depending on whether duplex copying is performed or not.

Sorting mode is the control of paper sorting and collation, and is enabled.
It is possible to select between "able" and "disable".

Next, regarding the operation mode setting procedure, use the operation panel 11A in FIG.
An example of changing the data bits from 8 bits to 7 bits will be explained.

First, assume that you are online. At this time,
The LCD display in FIG. 4 is rOn 1ineJ. From this state, perform the next switch operation.

■Go offline.

Key operation: Press online switch 42.

LCD display: Off 1ine (Set up the display.

Key operation: Press the setup/test switch 47.

LCD display; 5etup ■Search for emulation.

Key operation: Press Next Switch 4th until emulation is found.

LCD display; EMULATION ■Search for interfaces.

Key operation: Press the next switch 49 until the interface is found.

LCD display; INTERFACE ■Select an interface.

Key operation: Press select switch 51.

LCD display; R5-232C ■Select R8-232C.

Key operation: Press select switch 51.

LCD display; baud rate ■Search for data bits.

Key operation: Press the next switch 4 days until the data bit is found.

L CD display; Data Bits ■Select the data bit.

Key operation: Press select switch 51.

LCD display; 8bits ■ Search for 7 bits.

Key operation: Press the next switch 4 days until the data bit is found.

LCD display; 7bits [Phase] Select 7 bits.

Key operation: Press select switch 51.

LCD display: 7bxts Next, printing out of operation mode information when using the operation panel 11A will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 8.

First, use each switch on the operation panel 11A to specify the range of operation mode information to be printed out.For example, when printing out all operation mode information, press the online switch 42 to change the display on the LCD 41. , then press the mode print switch 52.

Also, when printing out only partial operation mode information, for example, only emulation, press the online switch 42 in the same way as described above and display the
Set the display on LCD 41 to ruff 1ineJ, press the setup/test switch 47, and change the display on LCD 41 to rS.
etuρ" and press the next switch 49 until the emulation is found to change the display on the LCD 41.
After setting ULATION J, press the mode print switch 52. The designation of printing out other parts of the operation mode information can be done in the same way.

Then, when the mode print switch 52 is pressed, the control section retrieves the data of the settable operation mode information from the mode information storage section, as shown in FIG. After changing the data to black and white inverted data, the operation mode information is stored in the data file.

After that, if the specified printout range is the entire range, all data is extracted from the data file and sent to the output server sofa for printing, and if it is emulation (EMULATION), the emulation data in the data file is stored. If the interface is an interface (NTIERFACE), the data of the interface is stored in the data file and the data is retrieved from data file 2. It is taken out and sent to the output page buffer for printing. Similar processing is performed for partial outputs for other operation modes.

As a result, for example, when the entire output is specified, a list of settable operation modes is printed out, with the currently set mode identified by outline printing, as shown in Figure 9 or Figure 10. be done.

In the list shown in FIG. 9, the current emulation is D630 and the font is Fourier 10. Auto LF is OFF, pitch is 12, interface is R3-232C, baud rate is 4800. This indicates that the data bits are set to 8 bits and the sorting mode is enabled.

Also, the list shown in FIG. 10 currently shows the emulation as D630 and the font as Fourier 10. Auto LF is OFF, pitch is 12, and the interface is R8-232C and baud rate is 4800. This indicates that the data bits are set to 7 bits and the sorting mode is enabled.

For example, when partial output only for emulation is specified, for example, as shown in FIG. , a list of the parts about emulation will be printed out.

Next, printing out of operation mode information when using the operation panel 11B will be described with reference to FIG. 5.

This operation panel IIB does not have a mode print switch 52, so when setting the operation mode
By pressing the test switch 47, all settable operation mode information is printed out, and the operation mode to be printed out is displayed on the LCD 41 in the same manner as when the mode print switch 52 shown in FIG. 4 is provided. By pressing the setup/test switch 47 in the displayed state, the displayed settable operation mode information is partially printed out.

In this case, when selecting the operation mode for partial output, in order to prevent all settable operation mode information from being printed out every time the setup/test switch 47 is pressed, it is necessary to select whether to print in the mode settings. What is necessary is to make it possible to select whether or not to do so.

Note that the format of the printout is not limited to that of the above embodiment; 1 For example, as shown in Figure 12, each operating mode is listed, and the currently set mode is indicated with square brackets 〉. It can also be used to display identification.

In this way, this printer is equipped with a function that prints out the configurable operation mode information, so you can change the operation mode settings without an operating manual, and you can also change the currently set operation mode information. Adding a function to identify and display the operating mode will make it easier to change the setting of the operating mode.

In the above embodiment, an example in which the present invention is applied to a laser printer has been described, but the invention can be applied to any image forming apparatus in which an operation mode can be set.

Hiroki As explained above, the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is
Since the settable operation modes can be printed out, the settable operation modes can be known even without an operation manual, and the operation modes can be easily set or changed.

Furthermore, if the currently set mode is identified and displayed among the settable operation modes that are printed out, changing the operation mode becomes easier.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram functionally showing the parts related to print output in the operating mode of a laser printer embodying the present invention, and FIGS. 2 and 3 similarly show a perspective view of the external appearance and internal configuration of the laser printer. Schematic sectional view. 4 and 5 are plan views showing different examples of the operation panel, FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control system, and FIG. 7 is a mode list printed out according to this embodiment. An explanatory diagram. FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating how printing is performed in the same operation mode. 9 to 12 are explanatory views showing different examples of mode lists that identify and display currently set modes, respectively, and FIG. 13 is an explanatory view showing an example of a conventional summary sheet. 1... Printer body 11, IIA, IIB... Operation panel 28... Printer controller 52... Mode print switch 63... Printer engine 71... Mode information output instruction section 74... Mode information Storage section 75...Current mode identification information addition section 78...Output data creation section Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Indication of the case Japanese Patent Application No. 63-125419 2, Name of the invention Image forming device 3, Person making the amendment Relationship to the case Patent applicant 1-3-6 Nakamagome, Ota-ku, Tokyo (674) Riko Co., Ltd. - 4. Agent Address: 5-5 Higashiikebukuro 1-chome, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 170 (Telephone 986-2380) 6. Contents of amendment (1) Change the phrase "provided" on page 4, line 12 of the specification to "provided". (2) Correct "engine driver 40" in line 18 of the same page of the circular to "r engine driver 29". (3) Correct "operation manual" in line 6 of page 21 of the same circular. ”. Correct “Operating Instructions J.”

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus equipped with an operation panel for setting an operation mode, characterized by comprising a mode output means for printing out settable operation modes. 2. In an image forming apparatus equipped with an operation panel for setting an operation mode, a mode output means for printing out settable operation modes, and a currently set mode among the settable operation modes output by the mode output means. An image forming apparatus comprising: identification adding means for adding an identification display.