JPH0452726A - Print control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To accurately predict the end of a printing job with a host computer by predicting the time needed for completing the print of the data transferred from the host computer with a printer and reporting this predictive time in reply to the inquiry from a host computer. CONSTITUTION:A host machine 10 inquires of the controller 1 of a printer about the time needed for printing all data remaining in the printer after the end of transfer of the data. Then the controller 1 sends the predictive time to be stored in a RAM 6 to the machine 10 at the reception of the inquiry from the machine 10 about the predictive time needed for the completion of the print. Thus the machine 10 can accurately predict the end of the print.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] This invention relates to a print management method in a network system of host computers and page printers.

[Prior Art] In a network system of a host computer and a page printer, when data is sent from the host computer to the printer at a constant communication speed, the sent data is temporarily stored in a large capacity buffer of the printer. The printer sequentially takes out data from the large-capacity buffer and sends it to the print processing section for analysis and processing. Furthermore, since the printing speed of the printer is determined by the processing speed of the printer engine, the data processed by the print processing unit is stored in a page buffer prepared for several pages and waits for output to the printer engine.

The data in this page buffer is sent to the printer engine and printed.

Printing of data sent from the host computer ends when all of the data in the input buffer is analyzed and processed by the print processing unit, and all of the data in the page buffer has been output to the printer engine. That's when it happened. For this reason, it takes time from the end of data transfer from the host computer to the end of printing of that data.

As a print management method between the host computer and the Hage printer, as shown in the time chart in Figure 4, when the transfer of data A and data B from the host computer to the printer is completed, the data is transferred from the host computer to the printer. Conventionally, a method has been adopted in which a message indicating the completion of transfer is sent to notify the operator.

Further, as shown in the time chart of FIG. 5, after data A is transferred from the host computer 5, the host computer waits until information indicating the end of printing is returned from the printer.

When the printer has printed all of the sent data, it sends information indicating the end of printing to the host computer, and based on this information, the host computer issues a message indicating the end of printing. JP-A-64-88823 discloses a method of repeating this process for each piece of data to be printed to notify the operator that printing has actually been completed.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As shown in FIG. 4, in the method of issuing a message when data transfer from the host computer is completed, in some cases, the printer may not be able to complete the process after the operator receives the message. It may take a considerable amount of time to finish printing. Therefore, when the operator receives a message and decides that printing has finished and goes to the printer to pick it up, printing has not finished yet, so he has to wait in front of the printer until all the data has been printed. There was a drawback.

Furthermore, as shown in Figure 5, if a message is issued after data is transferred and all of the data has been printed, the above disadvantages will be resolved, but printing will end after data transfer. The host computer is in a waiting state until
The drawback is that it is not possible to transfer data across the board, and the processing efficiency of the host computer is extremely low.

This invention has been made to solve these shortcomings, and provides a print management method that can issue a print completion message when printing is completed without putting the host computer to which data has been transferred in a waiting state. The purpose is to

[Means for Solving the Problems] A print management method according to the present invention allows the printer to predict the time it will take to finish printing all data transferred from the host computer to the printer, and to respond to inquiries from the host computer to the printer. When there was
It is characterized by reporting the predicted time to the host computer.

Further, it is preferable that the host computer inquires of the printer about the estimated time when data transfer from the host computer to the printer is completed, and that the host computer notifies the printer of the end of printing when the reported estimated time has elapsed.

"Operation" In this invention, the printer predicts the time it will take to finish printing the data transferred from the host computer, and reports this predicted time when the host computer makes an inquiry. It is possible to predict the end of printing.

In addition, when the data transfer from the host computer to the printer is completed, by sending the predicted time for printing end to the host computer, the host computer can notify the end of printing when the predicted time has elapsed. can continue processing without waiting after data is transferred to the printer.

[Tora Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a printer controller according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the printer controller 1 includes a CPU 2 that manages the entire device and interprets received data, a ROM 3 that stores a control program for the CPU 2, and a RAM 4 that stores temporary variables used by the control program of the CPU 2. , a font ROM 5 storing character font data used for printing, an option RAM 6, an input buffer, and a page buffer 8. The controller 2 is connected to a host machine 10 via a host interface 9, and has an engine interface. 1
1 and a panel interface 12 to a printer engine 13 and a panel 14 having an operation section 1 and a display section, respectively.

Before explaining the operation of the controller 1 configured as described above, an example of a method for predicting the time it will take for the controller 1 to finish printing data transferred from the host machine 10 will first be explained.

The easiest way to predict the time it will take to finish printing the transferred data is to calculate the time required for the printer engine 13 to print 1 page and 5 the page output by all the data existing in the printer at that time. It is a method of multiplying numbers.

The number of pages that will be output here is determined by the number of pages in the page buffer 8 that has been determined when the data transfer is completed and has not yet started outputting to the printer engine 12, and the number of pages that will be output at that time. This corresponds to the number of form feet coats present in 7.

Next, the printer controller using the above prediction method
The operation of the host machine 9 and the host machine 9 will be explained by focusing on the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 and the time chart shown in FIG.

When the data A to be printed by the host machine 10 is sent to the controller l of the printer (step S1.5ll), the controller l performs a check and identification process called a blip parser before inputting the data A to the input buffer 7. (Step S12.513). The CPU 2 determines whether the sent data is a form feed code (hereinafter referred to as FF) (step 512). If the sent data is an FF, the CPU 2 counter 2
Add rlJ to a (step 513) When the blip parser is completed, the data is temporarily stored in the input buffer 7. Therefore, the counter 2a indicates the number of FFs existing in the input buffer.

Next, the data in the human buffer is sequentially retrieved and processed by a program called a parser, separated by data type, and transferred to each type of processing (step S
15-517).

When one of the data is retrieved from the human buffer buffer (step S15), the CPU 2 selects the retrieved data from the F
It is determined whether or not F (step 516). If the data is an FF, this means that the number of FFs in the input buffer 7 has decreased by one, so rlJ is subtracted from the counter 2a (step 517). Thereby, the counter 2a always indicates the number of FFs in the input buffer 7.

Thereafter, the data is processed (step 518).
), it is determined whether one page has been completed based on the data (step 519).

When one page has been completed, rlJ is added to the counter 2b of the CPU 2 (step 320), and the data is stored in the page buffer 8 (step 521).

The data stored in the page buffer 8 is converted into a scanned image (step 522) and then sent to the printer engine 13. When the printer engine 13 starts outputting data, rlJ is subtracted from the counter 2b (step 523). In this way, counter 2b always indicates the number of pages stored in page buffer 8.

Next, the CPU 2 predicts the time it will take to finish printing the data transferred from the host machine IO (step 5).
24) The time required to print one page of data is determined by the specifications of the printer engine 13. for example,
Assuming that the printing speed of the printer engine 13 is 6 pages/second, it takes 10 seconds to print one page, and 10
A pages per second engine would take 6 seconds to print 51 pages. Therefore, counter 2a and counter 2
The value obtained by multiplying the number of pages shown in b by the time it takes for the printer engine 13 to print one page becomes the predicted time T for printing completion.

For example, the printing speed of the printer engine 13 is 6 pages/
Assuming that the count value of the counter 2a is "F2" and the count value of the counter 2b is "4", the predicted time T is 36 seconds. The predicted time T calculated in this way is sequentially RA
The predicted time T is stored in M4 and sequentially rewritten as the stored predicted time T is printed.

On the other hand, after the transfer of data A is completed (step S2), the host machine 10 continues to use the printer controller l.
At that time, the host machine 10 finishes printing one job and can start sending the next data group to the printer (step S3). become possible.

When the controller l receives an inquiry from the host machine 10 about the predicted time for printing to end, it sends the predicted time T stored in the RAM 6 to the host machine 1o (steps S25 and 5).
26) When the host machine 1 inputs the predicted time T, it checks whether the predicted time T has elapsed or not in step S.
4. S5), when the predicted time T has elapsed, a message indicating the end of printing γ is output (step S6). By predicting the time required by the printer and reporting this predicted time when an inquiry is received from the host computer, the host computer can accurately predict the end of printing.

Furthermore, when the data transfer from the host computer to the printer is completed, by sending the predicted time for the end of printing to the host computer, the host computer can notify the end of printing when the predicted time has elapsed. After the computer transfers the data to the printer, it can continue processing without waiting, improving processing efficiency.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a controller of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the above embodiment, FIG. 3 is a time chart showing the operation of the above embodiment, FIG. FIG. 5 is a time chart showing the operation of each conventional example. l...Controller, 2...CPU, 4...
-RAM, 7...input buffer, 8...page buffer, 10...host machine, 13...printer engine. Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. The printer predicts the time it will take to finish printing all the data transferred from the host computer to the printer, and when the host computer makes an inquiry to the printer, the host computer Features print management methods that report on. 2. The print management method according to claim 1, wherein when the data transfer from the host computer to the printer is completed, the printer is inquired about the predicted time, and when the reported predicted time has elapsed, the host computer notifies the end of printing.