JPH028068A - Handy printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the capacity of a storage element required, enable a smaller apparatus size and reduce a cost by providing printing font data in a compressed condition, and providing a means for printing by compounding the printing font data. CONSTITUTION:To compress printing font data, the printing font data 7 is divided (blocked) into units based on certain rules such as columns and rows, and conversion of Huffman codes or the like is applied to the entire body 8 of the blocks thus obtained, thereby forming a data set 9. The compressed printing font data 10 comprises a set of three pieces of data, namely, a table comprising as data the addresses of each character or symbol in a storage region for the encoded data 9, the codes to be used at the time of decoding, and a table for correspondence between the codes and the data before the encoding. Data capacity can be further reduced by applying this method to the compressed printing font data a plurality of times. A controlling part 5 performs control of an input part 1 for inputting the characters or the like to be printed, a display part 2, a printing part 3 and a data part 4, decoding of the compressed printing font data 4, and the like.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention compresses the data of a printing font in a handy printer that prints by manually moving the printer, and stores it in a read-only memory element (hereinafter referred to as ROM). etc. related to memorization.

[Summary of the invention]

In a printer that prints by manually moving a frame having a print head, the present invention compresses the data of the printing font of the printer and reduces the memory capacity, thereby saving the memory element or reducing the capacity. It is intended to store many types of printing fonts in a limited memory element.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, it is used in printers that perform printing by manually moving a frame having a print head.

The printing font was stored on the storage element without any operation being applied to the data of the printing font.

Furthermore, when printing in many types of printing fonts, data for the various types of printing fonts are supplied by connecting an external storage element such as a ROM card to the main body.

Therefore, it has been difficult to miniaturize a printer that performs printing by manually moving a frame having a print head, and to supply a plurality of printing fonts to develop a variety of fonts.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Without any manipulation of the aforementioned printing font data,
The conventional method of storing data on a memory element has the problem of large storage capacity, and the data of the printed font cannot be stored in the RO.
The method of supplying using an external storage element such as an M card is RO
This requires a connector, mechanism, etc. for connecting an external storage element such as an M card to the main body, making it difficult to downsize and increasing costs.

Therefore, the present invention aims to solve these problems.
The purpose is to compress the data of the printing font to reduce the capacity for storing the data of the printing font.

[Means to solve the problem]

A printer that prints by manually moving a frame having a print head, characterized by having means for printing by compressing data of a printing font and decompressing the data. .

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on examples.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a handy printer according to the present invention.

1 is an input section for inputting characters to be printed, 2 is a display section for monitoring input information, 3 is a printing section for printing input information, 4 is compressed printing font data,
A data section 5 stores input information, and a control section 5 controls the input section, display section, printing section, and data section, as well as decoding compressed printing font data.

FIG. 2 is an example of a printing typeface. Here, the part displayed in white is "0°", the part displayed in black is "Il+", and each target character and symbol is represented by this "1"0°". is the data of the printing font.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a method of compressing data of a printing font.

7 is a set of printing font data that has not been subjected to any operations as shown in FIG. 8 is a set in which the printing font data 7 is divided into units (hereinafter referred to as blocks) based on a certain rule such as columns or rows. 9 is a set of data obtained by performing encoding such as Huffman encoding on the entire divided block. 10 is compressed data of the printing typeface, which is data in which each character, each symbol, etc. of the printing typeface is encoded, and the storage area of each character and each symbol in the storage area where the encoded data is stored. It consists of a set of three data: a table whose data is the address used for decoding, and a table which associates the code used for decoding with the data before encoding.

Furthermore, by applying the method shown in FIG. 3 multiple times to the data of the compressed printing typeface, the data capacity can be reduced.

In the present invention, compression is performed on JIS first level characters such as 24 x 24 dot Mincho font and 48 x 48 dot brush font, and the compression is approximately 1/2 compared to printing font data without any operations.
A compression of 3 was achieved.

Note that although this example describes a printer that prints by manually moving a frame with a print head, it can also be applied to devices that require typeface data that has a printing function or a display function. It can be applied.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, by compressing the data of printing fonts, the capacity of the required memory element is reduced, making it possible to downsize the device and reduce costs. have an effect.

Furthermore, since a storage element such as a ROM card is not supplied externally, there is no need for a connector for connection on the main body, the mechanism is simple, and the cost can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a handy printer according to the present invention. Figure 2 is an example of a typeface for printing. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a method for compressing data of a printing font according to the present invention. 1...Input section 2...Display section...Print section...Data section...Control section...For printing Examples of typefaces...Printing font data...Blocked data...Encoded data...Compressed printing font data or more Applicant Seiko Epson Corporation Representative Patent Attorney Kizobe Suzuki and 1 other person

Claims (1)

[Claims] A printer that prints by manually moving a frame having a print head, characterized by having means for compressing data of a printing font and decompressing it to print. Handy printer.