JPH03278968A - Manual printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily perform a uniform layout printing and a right-justification printing only by a manual printer by providing a means for measuring the magnitude of a required printing area, a means for storing printing data, and a means for allocating the printing data into the required printing area. CONSTITUTION:A manual printer is set to a printing area measuring mode, and a required printing area is scanned. In the printing area measuring mode, a signal from a head position detection circuit 4 is not transmitted to a printing timing signal generation circuit 7 but to a printing width measuring circuit 5, and therein the width of the printing area is measured. In accordance with the printing area width, the printing data in a buffer memory 9 is suitably laid out. In a trial product, a right-justification and a uniform-layout are changed over for use. The printer is changed over to a printing mode, the required printing area is again scanned. In this case, a signal from the head position detection circuit 4 is transmitted to the printing timing signal generation circuit 7. A head 3 prints the data in the buffer memory 9 in accordance with this printing timing signal.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] This invention relates to a manual printer used as an output device for a code processor or a personal computer.

[Prior Art] A manual printer is used by manually moving a head for printing characters and figures on an arbitrary screen.

At this time, the position of the head is detected using an encoder, and printing is performed in synchronization with the head movement speed.

Unlike regular printers, it can print on any paper, regardless of paper thickness, as long as the printing surface is flat. It is used for printing on notebooks, notebooks, labels, etc.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In conventional manual printers, the printing character spacing can be adjusted by inserting blank characters into the character string.

However, when a print area is defined, such as on a label, there is no way to directly know how many characters the print area corresponds to, so a string of characters evenly distributed within the print area is printed. It was very difficult to do so. In addition, if you want to perform right-aligned printing, you need to use a ruler, etc. to find the position to the left of the right edge of the print area by an amount corresponding to the print character string width, and then print with that position as the printing start position. The present invention is intended to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the present invention is intended to solve the above-mentioned problems. The purpose is to make it easy to implement using only a printer.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The manual printer of the present invention has a head for printing characters and figures, and can print characters and figures by pressing this head against an arbitrary screen and manually operating it. The manual printer is characterized by comprising means for measuring the size of a desired print area, means for storing print data, and means for allocating print data within the desired print area.

Hereinafter, the details of the present invention will be shown by examples.

[Embodiment] As an embodiment of the present invention, a flowchart of a control device for a prototype manual printer is shown in FIG.

In the figure, 1 is a control device, 2 is an encoder for head position detection, 3 is a print head, 4 is a head position detection circuit, 5 is a print area measurement circuit, and 6 is a mode switch for switching between area measurement mode and print mode. 7 is a print timing signal generation circuit, 8 is an allocation calculation circuit, 9 is a buffer memory 18, and 1o is a head drive circuit. Explain the necessary means according to the operating procedure.

(1) Set the manual printer to print area measurement mode and scan the print area you want to print. In the print area measurement mode, the signal from the head position detection circuit is sent not to the print timing signal generation circuit but to the print width measurement circuit to measure the print area width.

(2) Appropriate allocation is made to the print data in the buffer memory according to the print area width. In this prototype, we switch between left alignment and equal allocation.

(3) Switch to print mode and scan the print area you want to print again. In this case, the signal from the head position detection circuit is sent to the print timing signal generation circuit. The head prints the data in the buffer memory according to this print timing signal.

The data in the buffer memory is saved until it is reset, which is convenient when printing the same characters on many sheets. By recording the print width data in memory, you can print the same width multiple times, etc.
This is effective because it eliminates the need to enter print width measurement mode many times.

The head in this embodiment uses a thermal transfer/thermal head, but the present invention is not limited to this embodiment. In addition, an impact type head, an inkjet head, etc. It is possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, there is provided a means for distributing a T-En bucket in a manual printer, a means for storing print data, and a means for storing print data. Since the present invention is provided with a means for allocating print data within a desired area, it has the effect that uniform character layout printing and right alignment printing can now be easily performed using only a manual printer.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a control device for a manual printer showing one embodiment of the present invention.・Control device・Encoder・Print head・Head position detection circuit・Print area measurement circuit・Mode switching circuit・Print timing signal generation circuit・Allocation calculation circuit・Buffer memory

Claims (1)

[Claims] A means for measuring the size of a desired printing area in a manual printer that has a head for printing characters and figures, and presses this head against an arbitrary screen and manually operates it to print characters and figures; A manual printer comprising means for storing print data and means for allocating print data within the desired print area.