JPH04310764A - Character pattern expanding method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate an external memory of a microcomputer and reduce the cost by employing an attribute area smaller than an expansion area for 1 line so as to obtain the same print result as in the case that an expansion area for 2 lines is provided and to reduce memory use quantity. CONSTITUTION:An expansion area 10 for expanding print pattern and an attribute area 11 for indicating attribute of the print pattern are provided. The print pattern is expanded in the expansion area 10 as full size character and printing is done by bringing the contents of the expansion area 10 into full size character or double height size character in accordance with the contents indicated by the attribute area 11 at printing.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer that forms characters using a dot matrix, and more particularly to a printing pattern development method for a printer that prints double-height characters.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this type of technology uses two lines of print pattern development area when full-width characters and double-height characters are mixed in one line, as shown in FIG.
Place the upper half of the double-height characters in development area A60, and place it in development area B6.
1, the pattern for the lower half of the double-height characters is developed, and in the case of full-width characters, the printing pattern is developed in the development area B61, and so on, two lines of the development area constitute one line of printed characters. there were.

0003

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, a development area of two lines is required in order to print a mixture of full-width characters and double-height characters in one line. Therefore, there is a problem in that a large amount of memory is used, and the memory inside the microcomputer is not enough and memory external to the microcomputer must be used, which increases costs. The present invention has been made to solve these drawbacks, and it provides an attribute area that is smaller than a development area for one line and indicates whether full-width characters or double-height characters are printed in one line of printing. The purpose is to eliminate one line and reduce memory usage.

0004

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a developing means 12 for developing an original character pattern 13 into a pattern to be actually printed.
The present invention is characterized in that the developing means has a developing area 10 in which the printing pattern is developed, and an attribute area 11 that indicates the attribute of the line to be printed when the developing means develops the printing pattern in the developing area.

[0005]

[Operation] According to the above structure of the present invention, when the developing means 12 develops a printing pattern, the dot pattern of full-width characters to be actually printed is developed in the developing area 10, and the characters to be printed are in the attribute area 11. Stores information on whether is a full-width character or a double-height character.

When printing, full-width characters and double-height characters are mixed in one line according to the information in the attribute area 11.

By providing the attribute area 11 that indicates whether full-width characters or double-height characters are printed in one line of printing, the same printing result as when two lines of expansion area are used can be obtained. The expansion area can be eliminated by one line.

Memory usage can be reduced by making the attribute area smaller than the expansion area for one line.

[0009]

Embodiment FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a printer to which the present invention is applied.

The microcomputer 20 has an internal RAM.
I have 22. The ROM 21 stores original character patterns, print routines, print pattern development routines, and received data processing routines, and the RAM 22 stores an area for storing received data (hereinafter referred to as receive buffer 30) as shown in FIG. The area for storing the pattern expanded by the pattern expansion routine (hereinafter referred to as image buffer 31) is one line of full-width characters, and the area for indicating the attributes of the image buffer (hereinafter referred to as attribute buffer 32) is as shown in FIG. 1 per 311 bytes of image buffer
Bits are reserved.

[0011] The print data received from I/F 24 is RA
The data is stored in the reception buffer 30 in the M22. At the same time, according to the data processing routine stored in the ROM 21, the data in the reception buffer 30 in the RAM 22 is
The first received data is processed, and in the case of character data, it is developed into a pattern to be actually printed by a development routine stored in the ROM 21, and then stored in the image buffer 31 secured in the RAM 22.

The printing routine stored in the ROM 21 drives the mechanism 23 to perform printing in response to a printing command or when the image buffer 31 for one line becomes full.

Next, the case of developing a print pattern will be explained based on one line of print data as shown below.

1) Character A 2) Double-height character printing designation 3) Character BC 4) Double-height character printing designation canceled 5) Character D...Z 6) Print command The processing of this line starts with the character "A". It begins. The print pattern "A" is developed from the beginning of the image buffer 31, and no processing is performed on the attribute area 32 corresponding to the image buffer 31 developed at this time.

Next, after processing the double-height character printing designation, “BC
The printing pattern of the character "" is developed following the character "A".Here, it is developed in the image buffer 31 in the same pattern as the full-width characters.Since double-height character printing is specified, "BC" is developed. In the attribute buffer 32 corresponding to the image buffer 31, a corresponding bit is turned on to indicate that the character is a double-height character.

Next, after the process of canceling the double-height character printing designation, "
The printing pattern for characters from "D" to "Z" is developed, but since the double-height character printing designation has been canceled here, no processing is performed on the attribute buffer 32.

The next print command completes the print pattern development process for this line.

Through the above processing, the image buffer 31 and the attribute buffer 32 become as shown in FIG. 4. In the figure, the ● in the image buffer 31 represents a dot to be printed, and the ● in the attribute area 32 indicates that the bit is turned on. , indicates that the image buffer 31 corresponding to that bit is a double-height character.

When printing, first it is determined whether or not there is a bit that is turned on in the attribute area. If no bit is turned on, there will be no double-height characters on this line and the contents of the image buffer 31 will be printed as is.

If there is a bit that is turned on, it is determined that there is a double-height character and the character is printed. In this case, first, the upper half of the double-height characters is printed as one line.

The portion of the image buffer 31 where the bit of the attribute buffer 32 is off is not printed, and the data of the image buffer 31 where the bit of the attribute buffer 32 is on is processed for double-height characters. The upper half pattern is printed.

Next, the lower half of the double-height characters is printed as one line.

The part of the image buffer 31 where the bit of the attribute buffer 32 is off is printed as-is, and the data of the image buffer 31 where the bit of the attribute buffer 32 is on is processed for double-height characters. is performed, and the lower half pattern is printed.

By printing these two lines, printing of one line including double-height characters is completed.

The lines developed in the image buffer 31 and attribute buffer 32 as shown in FIG. 4 produce a printing result as shown in FIG.

[0026]

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, the development area is reduced by one line instead of the conventional development area of two lines, and a small attribute area is provided instead. The same printing result as using two lines of is obtained,
Furthermore, since the amount of memory used can be reduced, there is no need to use an external memory, which has the advantage of simplifying the circuit configuration and reducing costs.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a memory map of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the prior art of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Deployment area 11 Attribute area 12 Deployment means 13 Original character pattern

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claims: 1. A printer that configures characters using a dot matrix, comprising a developing means for developing an original character pattern into a pattern to be actually printed, and a developing area for developing the printed pattern, the developing means comprising: A printing pattern development method characterized by having an attribute area indicating an attribute of a line to be printed when the printing pattern is developed in the development area.