JPH04371866A - Printing control method in journal receipt printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce noise and to shorten a printing time by using a standard font in receipt paper and using a draft font wherein a reduntant black dot is reduced from the standard font in journal paper and subjecting the same transaction data to printing output in parallel. CONSTITUTION:Character codes are successively taken out of a data buffer 1 one at a time to read the data of the corresponding standard character font from a character font memory 2 to set the same to a printing buffer 3 on a receipt side. Next, the same standard character font is converted to a draft font in a draft font converting processing part 5 to set the draft font to a printing buffer 4 on a journal side. Receipt paper is printed using the standard font, whereas the draft font is roughly expressed by decimating black dots in a carrier moving direction. Therefore, the drive frequency of pins is reduced and noise is lowered. Since a carrier speed is also increased, a printing time can be shortened as a whole.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention is an ECR,
OS, SWS (Store Work Station)
) related to journal/receipt printer devices used in systems such as systems, especially printing to reduce noise and shorten printing time when printing out the same transaction data in parallel on journal paper and receipt paper. The present invention provides a control method.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 9 shows a printing mechanism of a conventional journal/receipt printer. FIG. 9(a) is an example of a serial dot impact mechanism. receipt paper 6
and journal paper 7 are arranged in parallel, and a single print head 22 moves across the entire print range in the horizontal direction row by row to print dots of the same data on each of receipt paper 6 and journal paper 7.

FIG. 9(b) is an example of a shuttle type mechanism. Equipped with multiple print heads on a single carrier,
Lines are divided and printed by each print head. In the illustrated example, each of receipt paper 6 and journal paper 7 has 3
Each print head is assigned a separate print head. and 3 each
The same data is supplied to each print head for each line, and dots are printed in parallel.

The print head on the receipt side and the print head on the journal side are supplied with character font dot data from separate print buffers. For example, data requested by an ECR to be printed by a printer device, generally transaction processing data, consists of a character code string. The printer device accesses the character font memory (ROM) using each character code for each line, reads the corresponding character font (dot pattern), and sequentially fills each print buffer on the receipt side and journal side. Perform editing control. FIG. 10 shows the flow.

[0005] When one line of character font is set in each print buffer, a printing operation is performed. Figure 11 is similar to Figure 9 (
The relationship between carrier speed and printing time in the case of a) serial dot impact printer type printer device is shown. After driving the carrier and reaching a constant speed state, first perform printing on the receipt paper 6 according to the contents of the print buffer on the receipt side, then move to the journal paper 7 and perform printing according to the contents of the print buffer on the journal side. do. In this case, the carrier speed is set at a speed that allows the print head to continuously record all black dots.

FIG. 12 shows the configuration of a motor drive control mechanism for driving a carrier in a conventional device. The carrier drive motor 21 is ON/OFF controlled by the CPU 18 via a motor ON/OFF control circuit 19. FIG. 13 shows a control flow of the CPU 18, in which the carrier drive motor 21 is turned on for each line and turned off when printing of one line is completed.

[0007]

In conventional journal/receipt printers, the printing mechanisms on the journal side and the receipt side are made identical. Generally, receipts are issued to customers, so they use high-density fonts (character patterns) that are clean and easy to read. Journal records are therefore similarly printed using the same high-quality, high-density font.

[0008] For this reason, there are problems in that the noise accompanying the printing operation becomes large and the printing time is required to be more than twice the printing time on the receipt side. The present invention is based on the journal
The purpose is to improve the efficiency of printing control of receipt printer devices, reduce noise, and shorten printing time.

[0009]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides that journal records are created as management data of a user (individual, store, or company) of a journal/receipt printer device, and are readable when necessary. Focusing on the fact that cleanliness and legibility are not as important as receipts, we thin out the black dots in the font used for printing on the journal recording side to reduce the amount of black dots printed and, as a result, reduce noise. At the same time, the moving speed of the carrier can be increased to shorten the printing time.

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention. Figure 1
1 is a data buffer in which one line of print data output from a processing unit such as an ECR (not shown) is stored in character code format.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a character font memory in which dot pattern data of standard character fonts are stored in correspondence with character codes. It is usually made from ROM. Reference numeral 3 denotes a receipt side print buffer, in which font data for one line of characters to be printed out on receipt paper is set.

4 is a journal side print buffer;
Character font data for one line to be printed on journal paper is set. Reference numeral 5 denotes a draft font conversion processing unit, which thins out redundant black dots in the standard character font read from the character font memory 2 to generate a draft font having a simplified dot pattern.

6 is a receipt paper. 7 is journal paper. The printing operation is performed as follows.

Character codes such as "Kan" are taken out one by one from the data buffer 1, and the data of the corresponding standard character font is read from the character font memory 2.
First, set it in the receipt print buffer 3. Next, the same standard character font is converted to the draft font conversion processing unit 5.
Convert it to a draft font and set it in the journal side print buffer 4. In the diagram, draft fonts are represented as 'Kan'.

After all character codes in the data buffer 1 are converted into character fonts and set in each print buffer, printing is performed.

[0016]

[Operation] The operation of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG. Figure 2 (a) is an example of the standard font for the character "Kan", Figure 2
(b) is an example of a draft font. As shown in the figure, the standard font is made with a normal font and thick for easy viewing, and the stroke lines are also expressed with high density by continuous black dots. For this reason, in serial dot impact type printers, the pins of the print head are driven more frequently and the noise becomes louder. Printhead carrier movement is also limited to a speed that allows continuous movement of the pins.

Printing on the receipt paper is performed using this standard font in the same manner as in the past. On the other hand, in the draft font shown in FIG. 2B, the black dots in the carrier movement direction (horizontal direction) are thinned out and displayed roughly. This reduces the frequency of driving the pins and reduces noise. Furthermore, since the carrier speed can be increased, the overall printing time can be shortened.

[0018]

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described using FIGS. 3 to 8. FIG. 3 shows the configuration of a journal receipt printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 3 (a) and (b)
The journal/receipt printer device 9 is EC
The system configuration is when it is externally connected to the R/POS/SWS8, and the system configuration is when it is integrated into the ECR/POS/SWS8.

FIG. 3(c) shows the hardware configuration inside the printer device, in which the control section 10 has a CPU 11 and a ROM.
12, RAM 13, etc., receipt printing mechanism 1
4, receipt paper feeding mechanism 15, journal printing mechanism 1
6. Control each journal paper feeding mechanism 17 to perform a printing operation.

FIG. 4 shows a flow of print character editing control according to an embodiment of the present invention, which corresponds to the flow of the conventional apparatus shown in FIG. The difference from the flow of the conventional apparatus shown in FIG. 10 is that character fonts are set to the journal-side print buffer after conversion to draft fonts.

FIG. 5 shows draft font conversion processing according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5A shows the draft font conversion logic, which thins out the black dots of two adjacent columns of standard fonts by converting the right side to white dots if there are consecutive black dots. In this case, the overall font size does not change.

FIG. 5(b) shows the structure of character font data for one character. Each font is composed of a matrix of j rows and n columns. FIG. 5C shows the data structure for one character in the print buffer, and corresponds to the font matrix shown in FIG. 5B.

FIG. 5(d) is a flowchart of draft font conversion processing. Assuming that black is '1' and white is '0', for each row i of rows 1 to j, the element (i,
Pay attention to the value of print buffer (i, m-1) on the left.
), then ANDs the result with the value of the element of self (i, m), and sets the result as an element of the print buffer (i, m). It is.

FIG. 6 shows the relationship between carrier speed and printing time in the embodiment of the present invention, and corresponds to that of the conventional apparatus shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, by setting the carrier speed higher in journal side printing than in receipt side printing,
Printing time is reduced.

FIG. 7 shows a motor drive control mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention. Unlike the conventional device shown in Fig. 12, Fig. 6
A motor speed control circuit 20 is provided to perform control corresponding to carrier speed switching.

FIG. 8 shows the control flow of the carrier drive motor in the embodiment of the present invention. This corresponds to the flow of the conventional device shown in FIG. The difference from the flow in Figure 13 is that after the motor is turned on, printing on the receipt side and printing on the journal side are distinguished, and printing is performed by controlling the motor speed low on the receipt side, and printing is executed at a high motor speed on the journal side. This is to execute printing. When all printing is completed, the motor is turned off.

In the explanation of the above embodiment, the draft font was obtained by converting the standard font, but it is also possible to create a draft font for each character in advance and store it in the character font memory together with the standard font. Then, the access destination for reading may be divided depending on whether printing is on the receipt side or printing on the journal side.

[0028]

According to the present invention, the printing duty of printing on the journal side is reduced, so that noise caused by pin impact can be reduced. Furthermore, when the carrier speed is increased, printing time can be shortened. Furthermore, since the life of the ribbon and the print head are extended, running costs can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an example of a standard font and a draft font.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a journal/receipt printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of print character editing control according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of draft font conversion processing according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between carrier speed and printing time in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of a motor drive control mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a control flow diagram of a carrier drive motor in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of the printing mechanism of the journal/receipt printer device.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of print character editing control in a conventional device.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of the relationship between carrier speed and printing time in a conventional device.

FIG. 12 is a configuration diagram of a motor drive control mechanism in a conventional device.

FIG. 13 is a control flow diagram of a carrier drive motor in a conventional device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Data buffer 2 Character font memory 3 Receipt side print buffer 4 Journal side print buffer 5 Draft font conversion processing section 6 Receipt paper 7 Journal paper

Claims (3)

[Claims] [Claim 1] In a dot-format journal/receipt printer device that prints out the same transaction data on journal paper and receipt paper in parallel, the character font of the transaction data that is printed out on the receipt paper has a font that is provided in the device. A journal receipt characterized in that a draft font with redundant black dots removed from the standard font is used as the character font for transaction data to be printed on journal paper, and printing is performed on each journal paper. A printing control method in a printer device. [Claim 2] In claim 1, the draft font is created by applying logic to reduce one of the adjacent black dots in a standard font provided in the device for each character of transaction data requested to be printed. A method for controlling printing in a journal/receipt printer device, characterized in that: [Claim 3] In claim 2, when printing on the receipt side, the carrier speed is set to a first speed that allows the print head to continuously record all black dots of the standard font, and printing on the journal side is performed. In the journal/receipt printer device, the carrier speed is set to a second speed higher than the first speed so that the print head can continuously record all black dots of the draft font. Printing control method.