JPH02235668A - Printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up overall processing by providing a means maintaining data in any form other than a dot image form that can be printed without processing a character, a figure, etc., a means converting data into the dot image and a means permanently or temporarily storing data. CONSTITUTION:A character, a figure, etc., input as a code from a data input part 6 are converted into a dot image form that can be printed without processing from any form other than the dot image form, and are stored in a font cache 8. They are transferred to a plotting memory area in a RAM 3, output from a printing part 5 via a printing interface 4. When the same character and figure are input from the data input data 6 afterward, they are transferred to the plotting memory area in the RAM 3 without converting them into the dot image that can be printed if they are permanently stored, and are output from the printing part 5 via the printing interface 4. Consequently, the overlapping of conversion is eliminated to speed up overall processing.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention is a method for preserving characters, figures, etc. in a form other than dot images that can be printed without any processing, and The present invention relates to a printer device that, after converting into a dot image, permanently or temporarily stores the converted dot image depending on the reusability of characters, graphics, etc.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, printer devices that hold characters, figures, etc. in a form other than a dot image form that can be printed without processing, such as an outline font, do not have the ability to print the characters, figures, etc. In order to avoid duplication of processing for converting to dot images, there is an area (usually called a font cache) to temporarily store the converted dot images, and the converted dot images are temporarily stored in that area and reused. This process (usually called online caching) is performed.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve] However,
In the conventional example above, all characters, figures, etc. are treated as temporary storage, so characters, figures, etc. that do not have dot images in the font cache are converted to new dot images, and the dot images are stored in the font cache! When storing, dot images such as characters and figures with high reusability may be deleted from the font cache, resulting in redundant processing to convert characters and figures with high reusability into dot images. However, there was a drawback that the overall processing speed decreased.

[Means (and operations) for solving the problem] According to the present invention, there is a means for holding characters, figures, etc. in a form other than dot images that can be printed without any processing, and a means for holding characters, figures, etc. in a form other than a dot image form that can be printed without any processing, and A means for converting characters, figures, etc. into printable dot images, and dot images such as characters, figures, etc. converted by the above means, according to reusability such as frequency of use of the characters, figures, etc., conversion time, etc. By providing a means for determining whether to permanently or temporarily store the dot image, and a means for permanently or temporarily storing the dot image according to the decision made by the above means, highly reusable characters, figures, etc. can be converted into dot images. This avoids duplication of conversion processing and improves overall processing speed.

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 to 6 are diagrams showing an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the apparatus of the present invention, and in the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU that performs overall control.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a ROM, which stores programs, characters, graphic data, etc. shown in flowcharts to be described later. ROM
2 does not necessarily have to be a ROM as long as it has the function of storing programs, characters, graphic data, etc. 3 is a RAM, which is used as a work area for the CPUI, a font cache management table, a font cache, and the like. 4 is a printing section interface, and 5 is a printing section. , the printing unit 5 is a part of a printing mechanism such as a wire dot printer, a thermal transfer printer, a laser beam printer, etc., and the printing unit interface 4 is a part that converts a dot image into a format suitable for the mechanism of the printing unit 5, for example, converting parallel data. Perform processing such as converting to serial data. Reference numeral 6 denotes a data input section from a host computer and the like.

Figure 2 is an example of retaining the shapes of characters, figures, etc. in a format other than the dot image format that can be printed without any processing, and is an example of retaining the ring of the letter "A" in ROM 2 using a straight line. be.

Figure 3 shows the letter ゜“A” represented by the data in Figure 2.
It represents the shape of

The method of holding shapes such as characters and figures in a form other than the form of dot images that can be printed without any processing is not limited to the above example, and various methods can be considered.

FIG. 4 is an example of converting the character "A" held in the format shown in FIG. 2 into a printable dot image.

FIG. 5 is a diagram in which the dot image converted into a printable form as shown in FIG. 4 is stored in a font cache on RAM 3, and 7 is a font cache management table for managing the font cache. Each entry in the table consists of a save flag that indicates whether the printable dot image is to be saved permanently or temporarily, character attribute information that indicates the character code, size, type, etc., and a pointer that indicates the save location of the dot image. be done.

A font cache 8 stores printable dot images. Incidentally, "permanently stored" as used in the present invention means that the data is stored as long as the caching conditions do not change.

FIG. 6 shows the flow of converting characters, figures, etc. held in a form other than a printable dot image form into a printable dot image and storing it in the font cache 8 without any processing in this printer device. It is something that

In the first step S501 of the flow, the CPU 1
The font cache management table 7 stored on the M3 is searched and it is determined whether there are dot images such as unnecessary characters or figures in the font cache 8. If not, empty space is left in the font cache 8 in S502. Check to see if it exists. If there is no free space in the font cache 8, the font cache 8 is cleared in S503. Dot images corresponding to entries whose storage flag is "temporary storage" on the management table 7 are deleted. If there are multiple entries with the save flag set to "temporary save," for example, the dot image to be deleted is determined by the LRtJ algorithm, which deletes the least recently used dot image first. Regarding the prioritization of deletion, any method may be used as long as there is a method for deleting dot images corresponding to entries whose storage flag is "temporary storage".

Next, in 5504, characters, figures, etc. in a form other than printable dot images are converted into printable dot images and stored in the empty area of the font cache 8 without any processing.

Furthermore, in S505, it is determined whether or not the characters, graphics, etc. of the dot image are reusable. As an example of reusability determination, characters, figures, etc. used in the so-called form overlay, which is a registered format and is overlaid when printing each page, are reusable, and other characters, figures, etc. are reusable. There are cases where it is assumed that there is no gender.

If it is determined in S505 that there is reusability, the storage flag in the relevant entry on the font cache management table 7 is set to "permanent storage" in S507, and if it is determined that there is no reusability, the storage flag is set to "temporary storage". as phone l.
Update the cache management table 7.

The operation of this printer device including the above flow is as follows.

Characters, figures, etc. manually entered as codes from the data input unit 6 are shown in FIG. 4 in a form other than the dot image form that can be printed without any processing, as shown in FIG. 2, according to the flow shown in FIG. 6. The image is converted into a printable dot image and stored in a font cache 8 as shown in FIG. Further, the dot image stored in the font cache 8 is transferred to a drawing memory area on the RAMB, and outputted from the printing section 5 via the printing section interface 4. Furthermore, if the same character, figure, etc. code is entered manually from the data input section 6 later, if the character, figure, etc. is set to "permanently save", that character, figure, etc. can be printed without any processing. The characters, figures, etc. are transferred to the drawing memory area on the RAM 3 and output from the printing unit 5 via the printing unit interface 4 without performing any process of converting forms other than the dot image into printable dot images. will be done.

The above embodiment eliminates duplication of processes for converting highly reusable characters, graphics, etc. into dot images.

[Other Embodiments] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without changing the gist thereof.

For example, methods for preserving the shapes of characters, figures, etc. in forms other than dot images that can be printed without any processing are limited to methods that represent them as closed continuous straight lines, or combinations of straight lines, various curves, or ridges. Any method may be used as long as it retains the shapes of characters, figures, etc. in a format other than the dot image format that can be printed without any processing, such as the method represented by .

Furthermore, the configuration of the font cache and the flow of storage in the font cache are not limited to those shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. FIGS. 7 and 8 show an example of this, in which the font cache management table 7 of the above-mentioned example is divided into two parts. In FIG. 7, 9 is a permanent storage cache management table, and 10 is a temporary storage cache management table.

FIG. 8 shows how characters, figures, etc. held in a form other than printable dot images are converted into printable dot images without any processing, and font cashico 48
This shows the flow of storing the data in the file.

In the first step S801 of the flow, the CPU 1
The permanent storage font cache management table 9 and the temporary storage font cache management table IO on M3 are searched to determine whether or not there are required dot images such as characters and figures in the font cache 8. If not, in S802 Check if there is free space in the font cache.

If there is no free space in the font cache 8, the dot images registered in the temporary storage font cache management table 10 are deleted in S803.

Next, in 3804, literature, graphics, etc. in a form other than printable dot images are converted into printable dot images and stored in an empty area of the font cache 8 without any processing.

Furthermore, in 3805, it is determined whether or not the dot image is reusable.

If it is determined in S805 that there is reusability, in 5807 the permanent storage font cache table 9 and the temporary storage font cache table 10 are updated as necessary. S
If it is determined in 805 that there is no reusability, in 3806 the temporary storage font cache table 10 and the permanent storage font cache table 9 are updated as necessary.

The configuration of the font cache can be further modified by dividing the font cache 8 into two parts, one for permanent storage and one for temporary storage.

Regarding the determination of reusability of characters, figures, etc. in FIG. 5 3505 and FIG. 8 3805, various modifications are possible in addition to the form overlay in the embodiment described above. For example, the primary font used in the first order is considered reusable; characters, figures, etc. specified by host computer commands are considered reusable; frequently used fonts (regular, etc.) are considered reusable. ) may be reusable, frequently used characters (for example, lowercase letters in English) may be reusable, and so on. It is also possible to determine whether or not there is reusability based on a combination of some of these.

Even if these transformations are performed, the process of converting highly reusable characters, figures, etc. into dot images will not be duplicated.

[Effect of the invention] As explained above, characters, figures, etc. are held in a form other than dot images that can be printed without any processing, and after converting the characters, figures, etc. into dot images, By providing a means to permanently or temporarily store dot images converted according to the reusability of characters, figures, etc., it is possible to print dot images without processing the characters, figures, etc. that have high reusability. The process of converting a form other than the form into a printable dot image is not duplicated, which has the effect of improving the overall processing speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the device of the present invention, Figure 2 is an example of characters held in a format other than dot images that can be printed without any processing, and Figure 3 is a diagram of the data in Figure 2. Figure 4 is an example of converting the data in Figure 2 into a printable dot image, Figure 5 is a configuration diagram of the font cache, and Figure 6 is the operation of the device of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a font cache in another embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a part of the operation flow in another embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention. 1 is a CPU, 2 is a ROM, 3 is a RAM, 7 is a font cache management table, 8 is a font cache, 9 is a permanent storage font cache management table, and 10 is a print storage font cache management table. Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] A printer device that prints characters, figures, etc. as a set of dots, means for holding the characters, figures, etc. in a form other than a dot image that can be printed without any processing, and characters/figures held by the above means. etc. into printable dot images, and whether to permanently preserve the dot images of characters, figures, etc. converted by the above means, depending on the frequency of use of the characters, figures, etc., conversion time, etc. A printer apparatus comprising means for determining whether to temporarily store the dot image, and means for permanently or temporarily storing the dot image according to the determination by the means.