JPH02144574A - Electrophotographic system printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To optionally save toner and to reduce a running cost by suppressing toner consumption by performing the thinning processing of dot data according to the specification of a toner saving mode. CONSTITUTION:Whether or not the dot data stored in an image buffer 14 is processed to be thinned is controlled according to the specification of the toner saving mode by a specification means 20. When the toner saving mode is specified, the dot data is processed to be thinned and printing processing is executed. Therefore, in the case of performing printing based on the dot data processed to be thinned, the quantity of toner by the amount equal to the number of thinned dots is saved. When the toner saving mode is specified in the case of temporary printing, where the quality of printing is not considered, for example, the confirmation of a printing format or the confirmation of a formed document, etc., printing where the toner consumption is suppressed is performed. Then the running cost is drastically reduced as compared with a conventional device where toner is not optionally saved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to an electrophotographic printer device suitable for saving toner.

(Prior Art) The principle of an electrophotographic printer device, typified by a laser printer, will be briefly explained.

First, data such as character codes, pattern data, and drawing command strings are received from the host computer, and the corresponding dot data (print pattern data) is stored in the image buffer (RAM) as bitmap data on a line-by-line or page-by-page basis. Expand to. Next, the developed data is scanned by a rask scanning method using a laser beam or the like on a rotating photosensitive drum to draw an image based on the potential on the photosensitive drum. Then, charged toner (powdered ink) is attached to the image drawn on the photosensitive drum using electrostatic force to make it visible, and an electric field is applied from the back side of the paper to transfer the visible toner image on the surface of the photosensitive drum to the paper. Transfer to. By transferring this toner image, dot characters are formed on the paper.

By the way, in such an electrophotographic printer device,
Since toner is used, the amount of toner consumed greatly affects running costs (operation 1!),
Particularly when performing temporary printing regardless of printing quality, such as checking the printing format or checking a created document, it is required to suppress the amount of toner erased.

However, conventionally, in this type of printer device, C,
The process from data reception to printing is standardized, so whether the printing purpose is printing an official document, for example,
Even in the case of temporary printing for confirmation such as ql, the process described above will be followed. Therefore, the amount of toner consumed is always the same, and there is a drawback that it is not possible to save toner arbitrarily depending on printing purposes or the like.

(Problems to be Solved and Attempted by the Invention) As described above, in the past, since it was not possible to arbitrarily save toner, there was a drawback that running costs increased depending on the amount of toner consumed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an electrophotographic printer device that can arbitrarily save toner, reduce toner consumption, and reduce running costs. purpose.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In other words, the electrophotographic printer device according to the present invention determines whether or not to thin out dot data stored in the image buffer in accordance with the designation of the toner saving mode. If the toner saving mode is specified, the dot data is thinned out (17) and printed.

(Operation) According to the configuration described in item 1-1, when the toner saving mode is specified, the dot data thinning process is executed. The thinning process is a process of thinning out the number of dots that make up a character. Therefore, this thinned-out
- When printing is performed on the basis of I-day and evening, the toner space corresponding to the number of thinned out dots can be saved.

(Embodiment) Hereinafter, an electrophotographic h' type printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration. The CPU II, which controls the entire device, has a system bus 12
Through the memory 13, image buffer 14, interface 15, I10 boat 1G, thinning processing unit 17,
Mechanism drive units 18 are connected to each.

Memory 13 is dot day/evening (character pattern data)
It stores various data necessary for printing, and has a flag storage area 13a in a part thereof. This flag storage area 13a stores a toner saving flag that is turned on in the toner saving mode. The image buffer 14 stores images of characters to be printed line by line or page by page, and dot data corresponding to character codes.

The interface 15 sends and receives data to and from a host device (host computer) 19.

The I10 boat 1G controls the signal input of the toner saving switch 20. The toner saving switch 20 is a switch for specifying a toner saving mode, and is provided on an operation panel (not shown). The thinning processing unit 17 thins out the image buffer 1 under the control of the CPU II.
The dot data stored in 4 is thinned out. The mechanism drive section 18 drives the mechanism sections necessary for print processing under the control of the CPU II.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, the CPU II manually inputs a signal to the toner saving switch 29 through the 10 boat 1B and confirms the state of the toner saving switch 29 (step AI), according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 2(a).

Here, if the toner saving switch 20 is in the on state,
The CPU 11 determines that the toner saving mode has been designated, and turns on the toner saving flag stored in the flag storage area 13a of the memory 13 (step A2). On the other hand, if the toner saving switch 20 is in the OFF state, the CP
The UII determines whether or not a toner saving command has been received from the host device 19 (step A3), and if so, it determines that the toner saving mode has been designated and turns on the toner saving flag in step A2. ), if it is not received, it is determined that toner saving mode is not specified and the toner saving flag is turned off (step A4).

Here, when the CPU II receives the letter code from the host device 19, it reads dot data (character pattern data) corresponding to the received character code from the memory 13 according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 2(b). This is expanded into the image buffer 14 (step B1).

An example of the pattern developed at this time is shown in FIG. 3(a).

Then, when the dot data corresponding to this character code is developed in the image buffer 14, for example, line by line or page by page, the CPU II checks the state of the toner saving flag (step B2), and depending on the state of this flag. After thinning out the dot data stored in the image buffer 14 (step B3), print processing is executed (step B4).

In other words, if the toner saving flag is on, the CP
The UII thins out the dot data through the thinning processing section 17 as shown in FIG. 3(b), for example (step B3). This thinning process is a process of thinning out the number of dots that make up a character, and the method will be described later. The CPU II reads out the dot data after the thinning process from the image buffer 14, and uses the read out dot data!・
The mechanism drive unit 18 is driven based on the data, and printing is performed (step B4). On the other hand, when the toner saving flag is off, the CPU II reads the dot data from the image buffer 14 as usual without performing thinning processing, and the mechanism drive unit 18 uses the read dot data to
is driven to perform printing (step B4).

Here, the method of thinning processing will be explained with reference to FIG.

When the dot row of the dot data of the image buffer 14 shown in FIG. C5 First, the data of dot row A is read out, its level is inverted, and the logical product with the data of dot row B is calculated. Then, as shown in the same figure (b), the result is B-
(B--A-B) and stored at the position of dot row B. Next, perform the same process as above for dot row B' and dot row C, and store the result as C-(C--B"・C) at the position of dot row C. In this way,
By performing the same process as above for all dot rows A, B, C, etc., the dot data on the image buffer 14 is thinned out in the vertical direction, and adjacent dots are thinned out as shown in FIG. will be deleted.

Therefore, when printing is performed based on this thinned dot data, it is possible to save the amount of toner corresponding to the number of thinned dots. By specifying toner saving mode when performing temporary printing, such as document confirmation, where print quality is not an issue, printing with reduced toner consumption becomes possible, and compared to conventional devices that cannot arbitrarily save toner, running time is reduced. This can significantly reduce costs.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the method of thinning processing, and the direction of thinning may be not only the vertical direction as in the first embodiment, but also the horizontal direction.

In printer devices such as serial dot matrix printers, thinning processing is used for the purpose of increasing the processing speed, so it is forced to thin out the dot data horizontally, and it is not necessary to thin out the dot data vertically. is meaningless. On the other hand, in an electrophotographic printer device such as the present invention, thinning processing is used to save toner, so regardless of the method of thinning dot data,
For example, the same effect can be achieved by thinning vertically or horizontally.
5s is something that can be done.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, since the dot data is thinned out by specifying the toner saving mode, toner can be saved arbitrarily, and running costs are reduced by reducing toner consumption. It is possible to reduce the

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the thinning process in the embodiment. It is a diagram. 11...CPU, 12...System bus, 13...
・Memory, 13a... Flag storage area, 14... Image buffer, 15... Interface, 1B.
... ■10 boats, ■7... thinning processing section, 18...
- Mechanism drive unit, I9... host device, 20... toner saving switch. Applicant's agent Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue (a) (b)

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an electrophotographic printer device that prints using toner, there is provided a specifying means for specifying a toner saving mode, and an image of characters to be printed is stored as dot data on a line-by-line or page-by-page basis. control whether or not to thin out the dot data stored in the image buffer according to the specification of the toner saving mode by the specifying means, and when the toner saving mode is specified, An electrophotographic printer device comprising a thinning processing control means for thinning out dot data, and a printing processing means for performing printing processing based on the dot data read by the thinning processing control means.