JPH022051A - Serial printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To suppress the wastefulness of a printing time to the min. and to prevent the deterioration of printing quality due to positional shift by a method wherein unidirectional printing is performed only in such a case that a judge means detects data easy to exert effect on the whole quality of a printing result by the accuracy of a printing position and bidirectional printing is performed other than said case. CONSTITUTION:Received data is analyzed by a control code analyzing means 1 and, when there is a control code, the analytical result of the content thereof is sent to a printing control means 4. When the received data is printing data, said data is sent to a judge means 2 to judge whether the printing data is sensitive to the accuracy of a printing position. In the case of sensitive printing data, the designation of unidirectional printing is performed to a printing control means 4 and the printing data is arranged to a printing buffer 3. Hereinbelow, the same processing is performed to each input data but, if the judge means 2 designates unidirectional printing once, the processing of the judge means 2 is unnecessary with respect to input data on and after up to the completion of one line and skipped.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a device for preventing deterioration of print quality caused by print position accuracy, particularly in printing by a serial printer.

[Conventional technology: Print position misalignment in bidirectional printing is not felt as a misalignment during normal character printing, but when the pattern of each printing pass is continuous, such as vertically connected ruled line symbols, vertically enlarged characters, or graphic printing, If the same pattern is printed multiple times in the same location, such as mixed color printing, this deviation becomes visually obvious and greatly deteriorates the print quality.

A simple way to prevent this source is to print unidirectionally, thereby eliminating the above-mentioned difference in direction, but unidirectional printing increases the distance the printhead travels, and in the worst case , the time required for printing is twice the time required for bidirectional printing.

In conventional serial printers, it is possible to switch between bidirectional and unidirectional directions by manually specifying commands or other means, and the user is allowed to select the desired one.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] However, the conventional unidirectional printing designation uniformly prints in one direction regardless of the content of the print, so unless the user judges the direction setting for each line and sends a command, , ordinarily, a lot of time is wasted printing lines containing only characters.

An object of the present invention is to have a printer automatically select a printing path that requires particularly high printing position accuracy, and print only that printing path in one direction, thereby saving the user the trouble of frequently inputting commands. It is an object of the present invention to provide a device that prevents deterioration of printing quality due to printing position shift while minimizing wasted printing time without causing any problems.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The serial printer of the present invention includes a means for determining whether the pattern to be printed has a clear negative effect on the overall printing quality due to a deviation in the printing position. It is characterized in that only lines including such a pattern are printed in one direction.

[Example] Hereinafter, details of embodiments of the present invention will be explained.

First, an overview of the configuration and processing flow will be explained. In FIG. 1, received data is analyzed by control code analysis means 1 to determine whether it is a control code or print data.

If it is a control hood, the analysis result of its contents is further sent to the printing control means 4. This includes conventional unidirectional printing designation commands. - On the other hand, if the received data is print data, it is sent to the determining means 2. The determining means 2 is a feature of the present invention, and determines whether the print data is sensitive to print position accuracy. If the print data is such, unidirectional printing is specified to the print control means 4. After receiving the determination, the print data is arranged in the print buffer 5. Hereinafter, the same processing is performed for each input data, but once the discriminating means 2 specifies unidirectional printing, the discriminating means 2 does not need to process the subsequent input data up to the end of the - line. , will be skipped. - The end of a line is when a control code that commands the start of printing is input, when the remaining capacity of the print buffer 3 is exhausted, etc., and the print control means 4 then prints the contents of the print buffer 3. Start processing for. If the information from the control code analysis means 1, the discrimination means 2, and the printing direction specifying means 5 using a conventional switch or the like includes a unidirectional printing specification, the printing control means 4 changes the printing direction from left to right. If there is no unidirectional designation, the printing direction that provides the shortest distance movement is selected based on the current print head position and the length of the data in the print buffer, and processing is performed.

Next, the discrimination criteria of the discrimination means 2 will be explained. Print data that is sensitive to print position accuracy can be roughly divided into the following two types.

a) When printing part of a pattern that is continuous in the vertical direction b) When performing multiple printing operations at the same vertical position Specifically, in α), a) Vertical direction driver) L-4 formation is printed. When printing characters that exceed the number of dots in the head in multiple prints.

b) When printing characters such as ruled line symbols for the purpose of creating tables and frames.

1) When printing in graphic mode, which is often used for printing figures and tables. However, this does not apply when all patterns are blank data.

Regarding b), when one color is expressed by mixing multiple colors in color printing.

e) When highlighting characters by double printing.

However, in this case, a moderate deviation in the printing position has the effect of thickening the characters and increasing the effect of emphasis, so this should be adopted as appropriate depending on the printer.

The determining means 2 recognizes the character code of the input data.

By referring to the table you already have or looking at the character decoration information from the control code analysis means 1,
When it is determined that the print data satisfies any of the above conditions a) to e), a request for unidirectional printing is sent to the print control means 4.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the serial printer according to the present invention can appropriately switch between bidirectional printing and unidirectional printing without placing any burden on the user.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 shows the blocks (1') of an embodiment of a serial printer according to the present invention.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a serial printer that has a print control means that can print whether the print head is moving in either the left or right direction (hereinafter referred to as bidirectional), the quality of the overall print result depends on the accuracy of the position where the data to be printed is printed. It has a means for determining whether or not it is likely to have an influence, and only when the determining means detects the above data,
A serial printer is characterized in that it prints in one fixed direction (hereinafter referred to as unidirectional), and otherwise prints in both directions.