JPH035315B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Technical Field] The present invention relates to a printing device, and particularly to an improvement in a printing device that can print in both directions. [Prior Art] Conventionally, printing devices have been developed mainly in mechanical technology, and generally print in the right direction, similar to typewriters. However, with the recent development of electronic technology, printing control has come to be computerized. On the other hand, word processors with character creation functions have been developed, and their functions have been enhanced. Furthermore, when printing an edited document, the printing device of a word processor generally prints one line to the right, then just a line feed, and then prints a line in the opposite direction to the left. It is possible to perform so-called bidirectional printing. However, with such a printing device that can print in both directions, when creating, for example, a table T on a paper surface PP, as shown in Fig. 1, the printing device such as a carriage has imperfect stopping precision, so it is difficult to print on an enlarged view M. As shown, the printing alignment of ruled line characters in both directions is difficult to achieve, resulting in an unsatisfactory table. If you try to improve the stopping accuracy of the printing means to improve this, you will need to add expensive hardware. As a result, printing devices that can print in both directions, such as those used in word processors, have the drawback of being expensive to manufacture. [Object of the Invention] In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, an object of the present invention is to provide a printing device that is inexpensive and has high print quality. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a printing device that can print in both directions with high print quality even if the printing device or typewriter does not have complete stopping precision to support printing in both directions. . [Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 shows an example of application of the printing device of the present invention. Here, TW is a printing device of the present invention, and WP is a main body of a word processor having a document creation function, and these are electrically connected to each other via a signal line L. In addition, KB is a keyboard with various keys arranged as an input method, PP is printing paper, and HD is a printing device TW.
Furthermore, CPT is a CRT display device as a display means, and FD is a floppy disk device as a storage means. The operator selects the CRT display device from the keyboard KB.
After inputting a document while looking at a CRT, after editing the document using a floppy disk device FD, etc., the edited document is printed on the printing device TW of the present invention.
It is possible to print on printing paper PP. This printing device TW is capable of printing in both directions, and prints individual characters sequentially. Furthermore, the printing device TW incorporates a control means, which will be described later, in order to control bidirectional printing according to the present invention. FIG. 3 shows an example of the configuration of the control section of the printing apparatus of the present invention. Here, 1 is a control unit according to the present invention, and input terminal 1 receives and inputs a character code IN from the outside.
A. Similarly, when the input character code IN is a specific character code, the output signal is output at a predetermined timing.
Output terminal 1B output as OUT, character code
Equipped with a terminal 1C that outputs IN at a predetermined timing, a gate opening/closing signal DISABLE that opens and closes gate 2, and a print head HD that is used as a printing means prior to printing when the input character code IN is a specific code. Instruction signal SBK and
It has terminals 1D and 1E for sending out SFD, respectively. Reference numeral 3 denotes a character buffer that receives a characteristic character code from the control section 1 or a general character code from the gate 2 and temporarily stores it. The character code stored in the character buffer 3 is read out to the printing unit 4 in response to an instruction to print, and
In this case, the character code is printed in the form of a pattern by driving the print head. This printing section 4 can print in both directions. 5 is read from the character buffer 3 and sent to the print head.
This is a carriage control section that instructs to move the carriage of the printing section 4 by a predetermined amount in a desired direction after printing by HD. This carriage control section 5
When receiving the instruction signals SBK and SFD from the control unit 1 according to the present invention, in addition to the above-mentioned general control, it also sends an instruction signal to move the carriage, that is, the type head, as described below, prior to printing.
Send CS to printing section 4. FIG. 4 shows details of the control section 1 shown in FIG. 3. Here, reference numeral 11 is a read-only memory that stores in advance a stroke of a ruled line character "1" as a specific character according to the present invention, for example. A comparator 12 compares the external character code signal IN with the output signal from the read-only memory 11, and sends the comparison result to the latch 13 and the sequencer 14 as a control signal. The latch 13 inputs the character code IN sequentially and stores it once in memory, and when the input character code IN is a specific character code according to the present invention, the sequencer 1
At the instruction timing from 4, enter that specific code in the 3rd step.
This is to be output to the character buffer 3 shown in the figure. The sequencer 14 is configured to time-sequentially send out various control signals as described below in response to instructions from the comparator 12. Here, the character code is input to the input terminal of the comparator 12.
When IN is supplied, the comparator 12 compares the character "1" stroke from the read-only memory 11 with its character code IN. If the comparison results do not match, the signal DISABLE for opening/closing control is not supplied from the sequencer 14 to the gate 2 shown in FIG. 3 and the gate 2 remains open, so the character code IN is supplied to the character buffer 3 and printed. When read out to the printing unit 4 according to an instruction, normal printing operation is performed. On the other hand, when the character code input to the comparator 12 is a stroke as a specific character according to the present invention, a matching output is output from the comparator 12 and sent to the sequencer 14.
4 starts. At this time, the load terminal L of the latch 13 becomes active due to the coincidence output from the comparator 12, so that the character code indicating a stroke is held in the latch 13. The sequencer 14 sends the opening/closing control signal DISABLE to the gate 2, which closes the gate 2, so that the character buffer 3 with the character code IN from the outside is
supply will be stopped. Each subsequent operation will be explained with reference to the timing chart of FIG. 5 and the flow chart of FIG. 6. First, in step S1, the sequencer 14
Prior to printing, sends a signal SBK to the carriage control section 5 instructing the carriage of the printing section 4 to move by a predetermined amount to the left.
As a result, the carriage control section 5 instructs the printing section 4 to this effect, so that the carriage of the printing section 4 moves by the minimum amount of movement leftward from the desired printing position, which has already been moved. Next, in step S2, sequencer 1
4 is a signal that instructs to move the carriage of printing unit 4 by a predetermined amount of movement in the right direction.
The SFD is sent to the carriage control unit 5. As a result, the carriage control section 5 instructs the printing section 4 to that effect, so that the carriage moves by the minimum amount of movement in the direction back to the desired printing position, that is, in the right direction. Furthermore, in step S3, the sequencer 14
sends a print command signal CHENABLE to the latch 13, so that the character code according to the present invention stored in the latch 13 is sent to the character buffer 3. Thereafter, the character code read from the character buffer 3 is printed in the form of a pattern by the print head HD of the print section 4 based on the drive of the print head HD. As described above, according to this embodiment, in addition to the existing character buffer 3 and carriage control section 5, printing control means in the form of hardware consisting of the control section 1 and gate 2 according to the present invention can be added. It can be applied very easily to existing equipment. Furthermore, this example is suitable for a printing device equipped with a daisy wheel. According to the above examples, as shown in Table 1, the misalignment of print alignment was 0.1 mm or more in all of the devices A to E before the improvement, but the misalignment was improved by applying the present invention to the same devices A to E. In all cases, the misalignment of print alignment was less than 0.03 mm. As a result, even if the printing device of the present invention is applied to, for example, a word processor and provided with a tabulation function, it can be fully utilized.
Moreover, a word processing system with high functionality and high print quality can be realized at a low cost.

[Table] In the above example, the control was applied to the printing device in the form of hardware, but it may also be applied to the word processor itself instead, or it can be easily applied using software. Therefore, the effect will not change no matter which method is adopted. Furthermore, if the carriage movement mechanism is a linear pulse motor, the amount of horizontal movement of the carriage prior to printing may be the minimum amount of movement, and if the carriage movement mechanism is a servo motor, the minimum amount of movement is sufficient. Experiments have revealed that the above effect can be obtained by increasing the amount of movement by 5 to 10 times. [Effects] As explained above, according to the present invention, even though the printing device is capable of printing in both directions, when printing a lined line character, it is possible to eliminate the misalignment of the print alignment before printing the lined line character, and then Since it is possible to print high-quality prints at a relatively low price, especially when tabulating tables.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of printing by a conventional device;
The figure is a perspective view showing an example of application of the printing device of the present invention.
The figure is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the control section of the printing apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the control section of the apparatus of the present invention shown in FIG. 3, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a timing chart showing an example of the operation of the control section shown in FIG. 4, and FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing an example of the operation of the control section shown in FIG. TW...printing device, WP...word processor body, PP...printing paper, HD...printing head,
KB...Keyboard, CRT...CRT′ display device,
FD...Floppy disk device, L...Signal line,
1... Control section, 2... Gate, 3... Character buffer, 4... Printing section, 5... Carriage control section, 1
1...Read-only memory, 12...Comparator, 1
3...Latch, 14...Sequencer.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A storage means for storing character information, and the print head is mounted, and moves alternately in both directions line by line to print the character information stored in the storage means on a recording medium. a printing means; a detecting means for detecting whether character information to be printed by the printing means is ruled line character information; and when the detecting means detects that the character information to be printed is ruled line character information; . A printing device comprising: printing control means for printing the ruled line character information after swinging the printing means to the left or right by a small amount of movement.