JPH0448629B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Technical Field) The present invention relates to a printing method for a dot printer.

(Prior Art) The printing method of a conventional serial dot printer will be explained. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printing head having nine printing elements in the vertical direction, and the pitch of the printing elements is P. In general, the character line pitch of a printer is 6 character lines per inch (6LPI) or 8 character lines per inch (8LPI). The line pitch is 9 times (9P) the character line pitch of 8LPI. From this, P=1/72 inch. FIG. 2a is a print pattern diagram illustrating the relationship between pitch P, print pattern, and line pitch when printing is performed at 6LPI, and FIG. 2b is a print pattern diagram when printing is performed at 8LPI. Note that the numbers indicate dot lines that constitute one character line.

Figure 3a is an example of superscript printing, and is an example of A squared printing, where the character “2” printed in superscript is shifted up the 2P pitch compared to the character “A” printed in the normal printing position. It will be printed at the specified position. FIG. 3b is an example of subscript printing, and is an example of printing from H ₂ O to H ₂ representing the molecular formula of water. In contrast to the character "H" printed in the normal printing position, the character "2" printed in the subscript is printed in a position shifted 2P pitch downward. Therefore, if superscript or subscript and normal printing are mixed on the same line, 3a
If you refer to Figure or Figure 3b, it will be clear that
Since the number of dots is 11 and a print head with nine vertical printing elements cannot print in one printing pass, one of the characters is printed in a second printing pass.

Note that if a print head with 11 vertical printing elements is used, printing can be performed in one printing pass, but the print head becomes larger and weighs more, so it is difficult to realize a small high-speed printer. That's not a good thing.

Furthermore, if the subscript shown in Figure 3b is printed overlapping the superscript shown in Figure 3a above and below consecutive character lines, the dot rows of the character "2" will be printed continuously above and below. This causes deterioration in print quality and also makes it unclear.

(Objective of the Invention) The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and its object is to print with a small and lightweight print head so that vertically adjacent character lines are not printed consecutively. Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer capable of simultaneously printing two character lines.

(Structure of the Invention) The present invention uses a printing head having 10 printing elements in the vertical direction to perform reduced printing in the vertical direction using a basic dot matrix pattern.

(Example) The present invention has 10 printing elements vertically, fixes the pitch P of these printing elements to achieve both 6LPI and 8LPI printing, and also prints two character lines at the same time. This will be explained below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic block diagram of the printing device, 1
is a microcomputer (CPU), 2 is a ROM that stores programs, 3 is a character generator (CG) that stores character patterns, 4 is an interface (INTF), 5 is a line feed motor (LF motor), and 6 is a Spacing motor (SP motor),
7 is a print head. A printing device having such a configuration drives the SP motor 6 to position the print head 7 at a predetermined position when a print command and print information such as a character code and character attributes are transferred from the outside, and print the character. The character pattern corresponding to the code is read from CG3 and printed. The present invention is constructed with ten printing elements of the printing head 7 as shown in FIG. 5a, and normal characters are printed as shown in FIG. 5b. At this time, printing elements 1 to 7 are used for printing. When the superscript or subscript is specified as an attribute transferred from the outside, a character reduced in vertical direction to 1/2 of a normal character is printed as shown in FIG. 5c. 5th c
To print the vertically reduced characters in the figure, referring to FIG. 6a, in the first printing pass the printing elements 1 to 4 of the print head 7 print the dot rows r ₁ , 5b of FIG.
Basic dot matrix patterns corresponding to r ₃ , r ₅ and r ₇ are printed respectively. Next, after the print head 7 or printing paper is moved vertically by 1/2P to the relative position shown in Figure 6b, in a second printing pass, printing elements 1, 2 and 3 print the dot rows shown in Figure 5b. Basic dot matrix patterns corresponding to r ₂ , r ₄ and r ₆ are printed over the pattern printed by the first printing pass.

The vertically reduced pattern of FIG. 5c is printed using FIGS. 6a and 6b. When printing the subscript, printing is performed in the same manner using printing elements 4 to 7.

Now, using this print head, adjust the character line pitch.
By printing at 6P and 12LPI,
A method for printing two character lines at the same time will be explained. _For example _, to print "A" and "D" in FIG. ₅ and _r7 , print elements 1 to 4 for "A", and print elements 1 to 4 for "D".
is applied to the printing elements 7 to 10 for printing. Next, as above, move the print head 7 or print paper 1/
Move vertically by 2P, dot rows r ₂ , r ₄ and r ₆
Dot data corresponding to "A" is printed on printing elements 1 to 3, and "D" is printed on printing elements 7 to 9.
and print it. It should be noted that the details of character pattern readout, transfer, and print operations such as line feed and line feed operations are well known and therefore no further explanation is necessary here.

FIG. 8 is another example of printing according to the present invention, and is an example in which printing that was impossible with conventional printing methods is possible. That is, this is an example in which superscript printing and subscript printing are simultaneously printed for the character "Σ" printed at the normal printing position. FIG. 9 shows an example of printing in which superscript printing and subscript printing are simultaneously reduced vertically and horizontally using the prior art technique of horizontally reducing. In this embodiment, the normal pitch d in the horizontal direction is reduced to 1/2d.

(Effects of the Invention) The present invention provides a blank line of at least one dot line between vertical and lowercase character lines using a printing head having 10 printing elements vertically, and a predetermined pattern in the reduced character line in the first printing pass. The printing head or paper is moved vertically, and in the second printing pass, a predetermined pattern following the pattern printed in the first printing pass is printed. It is possible to clearly distinguish successive reduced character lines, and these two character lines can be printed simultaneously.

Note that printing two character lines at the same time in 2-pass printing also leads to printing 1 character line in 1 pass, so even though it is 2-pass printing, it is equivalent to 1-pass printing. This will result in faster printing speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a configuration diagram of a printing element consisting of 9 pins, Figure 2a is a 6LPI printing pattern diagram, and Figure 2b is a diagram of a 6LPI printing pattern.
8LPI printing pattern diagram, Figure 3a is a conventional superscript printing pattern diagram, Figure 3b is a conventional subscript printing pattern diagram, Figure 4 is a block diagram of the printing device, and Figure 5a is a printing element consisting of 10 pins. Figure 5b is a basic character pattern diagram, and Figure 5c is a diagram of the basic characters in Figure 5b vertically 1/
2. FIGS. 6a and 6b are explanatory diagrams for explaining reduced printing, and FIGS. 7 to 9 are diagrams of printing patterns according to the present invention. 1...CPU, 2...ROM, 3...Character generator, 5...Line feed motor, 6...Spacing motor, 7...Print head.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A basic dot matrix with a character line pitch of 6 character lines or 8 character lines per inch by a print head having vertical printing elements and a pitch of the printing elements of 1/72 inch. In the printing method of dot printers that print character patterns using patterns, the number of printing elements is 10, and the character line pitch is 6 × (1/72) inches, which is obtained by vertically dividing one character line into two, with 6 character lines per inch. One reduced character line, at least one dot blank line is provided between the reduced character lines, and a basic dot matrix pattern of every other dot line is printed on each successive reduced character line in the first printing pass. , Print head or printing paper (1/72) x (1/2)
A printing method for a dot printer, characterized in that, in a second printing pass, a basic dot matrix pattern of every other dot row is printed following the pattern printed in the first printing pass.