JPH0523957B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field The present invention relates to a printing control device, and particularly to a control method for printing a form.

Conventional technology Conventionally, when printing business documents (reports, slips, invoices, invitations, etc.) on a printer, one line is treated as one record, and a program requests output for each record. The task was to assemble the forms. Further, output requests were made sequentially from the beginning (top) to the end (bottom) of the form.

However, the forms required in actual business processing are not necessarily printed line by line (for example, one page is further divided into small sections or blocks to form pages within a page, etc.). Furthermore, the printing order is not necessarily from the top to the bottom of the form (for example, statistical information such as the total of input data is printed first, etc.).

As the computerization of society progresses, there will be an increasing number of opportunities for documents printed directly by computers to be seen by people who are not familiar with traditional EDP documents. There is a strong demand for printing. However, as mentioned above, in order to create a form that is human-friendly, it is necessary to create a complicated program for each individual form, which requires a great deal of expense.

Purpose of the Invention The present invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to divide the page of a form into a plurality of blocks in place of the conventional method of printing from top to bottom. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing control device which prints each block and can be easily realized at a low cost in a printing format that is easy to see and familiar to.

Structure of the Invention The print control device according to the present invention divides one page of a form to be printed into a plurality of blocks including nested blocks, and specifies in advance the size of each block and the print start position of the block. a specifying means, an allocating means for sequentially allocating input data within the blocks specified by the specifying means and allocating the overflow data to another block when data overflows from the block; and means for managing headings and footings in the form and controlling updates of the headings and footings in the other block when data overflows from the block, and when printing a predetermined page of the form. The printing is performed sequentially for each block.

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.
Input section 1, input data storage section 2, generation section 3, input data inspection section 4, data allocation section 5, page management section 6, output data storage section 7, output section 8, printing section 9, and output data storage control section 10, solid lines indicate the flow of data, dotted lines indicate the flow of control, and diagonal lines indicate that the device section containing it contains an instruction sequence or data generated by the compiler. It shows.

An input unit 1 sequentially reads records on a magnetic disk, magnetic tape, or other recording medium, and stores them in an input data storage unit 2. At this time, the type of recording can be classified based on the specific length of data on the record.
Based on this classification, it is possible to exclude a specific type of record from the processing target, or to control the form generation method on the condition that a specific type of record has been input.

The input data storage section 2 stores records classified by type by the input device 1. Generation section 3 is input section 1
operates each time it reads a record or according to generation conditions included in the generation section in advance, and drives the input data inspection section 4 and data allocation section 5.
The generation unit 3 controls a generation cycle for generating one detail of a form.

The input data inspection unit 4 inspects the input data for out-of-control according to information regarding control groups included in advance. When a control failure is detected as a result of the inspection, the control heading and control footing corresponding to the control group are stored in the output data storage control unit 10.
According to the instructions, the output data is transferred to a specific location in the storage section 7.

The data allocation section 5 includes information on which data in the input data storage section 2 is to be transferred to the output data storage section 7 at what timing, and based on this information, output data is stored under the control of the generation section 3. Control part 1
Using the information of 0, the data in the input data storage section 2 is transferred to the output data storage section 7.

The page management section 6 manages the pages of the form in the output data storage section 7, and includes information about the page, the structure of pages within the page, page headings, and page footing.
If overflow of pages as determined by the output data storage control section 10 occurs due to the input data inspection section 4 transferring print data one after another to the output data storage section 7, page switching, page headings and footings may be changed. Make a transfer. Additionally, the output section 8 is activated in order to print the completed page on the printing section 9.

The output data storage section 7 stores n pages of print data constituting a form in page units.
Allocation is controlled by the output data storage control section 10. The output section 8 takes out one page of data from the output data storage section 7 and prints it using the printing section 9. The printing unit 9 is a device that actually performs printing.

The output data storage control unit 10 includes layout information of the pages of the form in advance, and manages the n pages stored in the output data storage unit 7 and the pages within the pages (up to an arbitrary level). All data transfer to the output data storage section 7 is performed using the information of the output data control section 10.

In this embodiment, specific non-procedures regarding the layout of a form are described using a language (described later), and the description is converted into a series of instruction sequences and data descriptions using a specific translation program, and then the above-mentioned means are used. It has become a method to incorporate it into some of the equipment. In FIG. 1, the shaded portions indicate that this generated information is included, and in the above description of each section, the information that these sections contain in advance means this generated information.

Details of data allocation to the output data storage section 7 will be described below.

In this embodiment, a form is assumed to have the following form.

(1) A page consists of any type/any number of headings, any type/any number of footnotes, and any type/any number of details.

(2) Several pages can be collected to form a larger containing page.
Furthermore, this inclusion relationship can be defined to any level.

(3) If the page contains pages, the outer pages have the following structure:

(b) Any type/any number of page headings (b) Inner pages (n pages) (c) Any type/any number of page footing specifications are only possible for pages that do not contain pages (innermost page) It is.

(4) Both page headings and footings can be printed anywhere on the page.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a form layout. In this example, outer page A1 has page heading PH-A
1. Consists of inner pages B1, B2, B3, B4 and page footing PF-A1, inner page B
1 is page heading PH-B1, inner pages C1, C2, C3 and page footing PF-B1
(same for pages B2, B3...),
Page C1 has page heading PH-C1 and details DF
(repeated n times) and page footing PF-C
Consists of 1. In this case, as the details DE are printed, if page C1 overflows, pages C2 and C3 are subsequently printed. When page B1 overflows, pages B2, B3, and B4 are subsequently printed. When page A1 overflows, printing continues on page A2 and subsequent pages. Headings and footing are performed at the beginning and end of printing on that page.

For example, in order to create a form having such a configuration, in this embodiment, the output data storage section 7, output data storage control section 10, and data allocation section 5 function as follows.

Referring to FIG. 3, the output data storage unit 7 stores, for example, a page image of a form as shown in FIG. is controlled by the output data storage control section 10. This will be explained below based on an example.

The output data storage control unit 10 stores in advance a page address table T1 indicating the nesting relationship of pages included in the pages of the form and the position currently being printed;
It includes page tables (levels 1, 2, and 3) T2 to T4 that indicate the start address of the page at each level. In the example, the page address table T1 includes three elements, and each element is in order relative to the starting address A1 of the page currently being printed, and the starting address A1 of the page one level inside (level 2) that is currently being printed. Displacement B1, B at the beginning of the page inside the second row (level 3) currently being printed
1, including the relative displacement C1 from 1. That is, A1+
B1+C1 allows the address of the innermost page currently being printed to be known.

The page table (level 1) T2 includes the start addresses A1, A2, . . . of the outermost page. The page table (level 2) T3 includes the addresses (relative displacement from the level 1 page start address) of the level 2 pages among the level 1 pages B1, B2, B3, and B4. Similarly, the page table (level 3) T4 is the address of the level 3 page among the level 2 pages (relative displacement from the level 2 page start address) C
1, C2, and C3.

When a page overflow occurs due to repeated printing of data, etc., the next element of the page table corresponding to the overflow page is taken out by the page management device and set in the corresponding element of the page address table. For example, if page C1 overflows, the next element C2 in the page table (level 3) is taken out and set as the third element in the page address table. By doing this, it is possible to always obtain the first address of the page to be printed currently using A+B+C for repeated data. Also, regarding data to be arbitrarily printed on each page, A.
The first address of the corresponding current page can be obtained by A+B or A+B+C.

The data allocation unit 5 includes information regarding the allocation position within the page for each piece of data to be printed in advance, and uses this information and information from the output data storage control unit 10 to obtain the position to be printed.

The relationship between the non-procedural language and data allocation in this embodiment will be explained.

FIG. 4 shows a form of the form shown in FIG. 3 written in the non-procedural language of this embodiment. The first line is the name of the form, and the second to 22nd lines are the description of the page layout. The second line is the page size (vertical).
60 lines, 120 columns horizontally), the 3rd to 4th lines describe the page heading, the 5th to 20th lines describe the level 2 page shown in Figure 2, and the 21st to 22nd lines describe the page foot. This is a written description. The same goes for the level 2 page descriptions in lines 5 to 20. 3rd row, 34th column,
26th row, 2nd column, 26th row, 26th column, 34th column). Lines 6 to 7 are descriptions of the heading of this page, lines 8 to 17 are descriptions of the level 3 page in FIG. 3, and lines 18 to 19 are descriptions of the footing of this page. The description of the level 3 page in lines 8 to 17 is that the 8th line specifies the size and position of the page, the 9th to 10th lines describe the heading, and the 11th to 14th lines describe the repeated data. , lines 15-16 are the footnote description. In the 11th line, the size (WINDOW) and position (POSITION) of the repeated data are specified, and in the 12th line, a line feed is specified.

The above is information regarding pages and pages within a page, and these are generated as information in the output data storage control unit 10 after language translation.

Regarding the allocation of each print data, follow the descriptions of each heading, footing, and repeat data.
This can be divided into the concepts of blocks and fields. The field can contain a single item (e.g. variable length characters, n
(including dimensional arrays, etc.), and a block includes an arbitrary number of fields at arbitrary positions. Blocks are the parts indicated by example characters such as PH, UH, DE, UF, and PF in Figure 4. For example, PH in the third line
indicates the definition of the page heading block, and <1
> indicates that this block is printed in the first row and first column of the page. For repeated blocks, it is also possible to specify where to print relative to the previous block position, for example, the 12th block.
<+1> in a line indicates that printing is to be performed with one line feed relative to the previous printing. A field specifies where to print within the containing block. For example, the description on the fourth line indicates that the field "Page Heading" is to be printed in the 40th column of the first line in the PH block.

The above information regarding blocks and fields is generated as information in the data allocation device after language translation.

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to control printing of one page of a form block by block.
This enables printing of forms in a format that suits the actual situation.

In addition, whereas in the past, a form with even a slightly complicated form had to be printed by creating a complicated program, it can now be easily printed by instructions in a concise non-procedural language or the like. Compared to creating the same form in COBOL language using the non-procedural language shown in the example, the number of lines of coding is reduced by approximately 1/2.
An effect of 37.5 has been obtained. Furthermore, by simplifying the description, even users who are not familiar with programming can create complex forms.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing one structure of a page of a form, Fig. 3 is a diagram explaining a method of allocating data to a form, and Fig. 4 is a diagram showing data allocation. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a form description in a non-procedural language for marking. Explanation of symbols of main parts, 1... Input section, 2...
Input data storage unit, 3... Generation unit, 5... Data allocation unit, 6... Page management unit, 7... Output data storage unit, 10... Output data storage control unit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A specification means for dividing one page of a form to be printed into a plurality of blocks, including nested blocks, and specifying in advance the size of each block and the printing start position of that block; An allocation means for sequentially allocating input data in the blocks created and allocating the overflow data to other blocks when data overflows from the block, and an allocation means for managing the headings and footings of these blocks and distributing the data. means for controlling the updating of the heading and footing in the other block when an overflow occurs from the block, and when printing a predetermined page of the form, printing is performed sequentially for each block. A printing control device characterized by: