JPH05270111A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable the user to correctly recognize the occurrence of an error by printing error information on a printing sheet, if the error occurs during printing in a printer which prints the sheet. CONSTITUTION:Print data from a host computer 1 is written into a page buffer 6 through an editing part 3 or an image drawing part 5, and then is printed on the printing sheet at a printing part 7. If an error occurs during printing, a control part 8 outputs error information ER, and an erroneous printing action control part 10 suspends the printing action of the printing part 7. An error message retrieval part 11 retrieves a corresponding error message to the error information ER from the incorporated data. Further, an error display setting part 12 allows this message to be displayed on an LCD display part 9. At the same time, an error print setting part 13 enables the message to be printed on a printing sheet using the printing part 7.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly to a printer for printing on a sheet of paper such as a personal page printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when an error occurs during printing, a printer such as a personal page printer receives an error signal from a control unit in the printer via a video interface and selects an error message corresponding to the error. Printing is stopped by displaying on an LCD display (liquid crystal display), blinking an LED lamp, or generating a warning sound. In addition, if the drawing speed for expanding the drawing data in the page buffer is slower than the printing speed for printing on paper, that is, if an overrun error occurs when the drawing process is overtaken by the printing process, printing is canceled even if an error message is displayed. However, I was only ejecting the paper. In this case, it was not possible to determine that the error occurred simply by looking at the printed paper.

[0003]

In the conventional page printer, when an error occurs during printing, the cause of the error is displayed in characters on the LCD display of the printer, the LED lamp blinks, and a sound is generated. I was warning. However, if there is no person on the spot when the error occurs, or if there is an error and the display unit is not seen, there is a risk that it may be determined that the printing was successful. Also L
Since the CD display is a liquid crystal display,
Since it was possible to express only the characters and the display format was fixed, the variety of expressions was poor. Therefore, since the number of words that can be displayed as an error message is limited, the user, especially a beginner who is not familiar with the printer, cannot understand the meaning of the error message and has to inconveniently read the attached manual.

[0004]

A printer according to the present invention is a printer having a printing unit for printing on a sheet of paper, and is a control for detecting a failure occurring during printing on the paper and outputting corresponding error information. Copy, an error printing operation control means for stopping printing and forcibly discharging the paper being printed in the printing section according to the error information, and an error message corresponding to the error information for storing data of a plurality of types of error messages And an error print setting unit that prints the error message output from the error message search unit on the paper via the printing unit.

Further, in the above structure, it is possible to have a display unit for displaying a message and display the error message output from the error message search unit on the display unit.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The printer of this embodiment receives print data from the host computer 1 and stores it in the reception buffer 2. The editing unit 3 interprets the print data stored in the reception buffer 2 according to a predetermined command sequence and writes it in the page data unit 4. Drawing unit 5 is page data unit 4
When the data of 1 is for one page, a drawing pattern is created and written in the page buffer 6. The printing unit 7 prints on paper. The control unit 8 controls the processing of each unit inside the printer, and if any error occurs during the printing process, the built-in hardware diagnostic unit 8a detects the error and outputs the error information ER.
Is output. The error printing operation control unit 10 controls the printing unit 7 based on the error information ER to stop printing or forcibly eject the paper being printed. The error message search unit 11 searches the data stored therein for an error message to be displayed on the LCD display unit 9 or printed on a sheet based on the error information ER from the control unit 8. The error display setting unit 12 makes various settings such as display interruption to display the error message on the LCD display unit 9, and causes the LCD display unit 9 to display the error message. The error print setting unit 13 sets the print position on the paper or the next paper when an error occurs in the selected error message, and the margin, character attribute, etc. The drawing pattern of the error message is expanded in the drawing memory 13a, the printing process is switched from printing by the page buffer 6 to printing by the drawing memory for error printing 13a, and the printing unit 7 prints on paper.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the operation when an error occurs in the embodiment of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the details of the error processing step 25 of FIG. The operation will be described with reference to FIGS.

First, the control unit 8 checks whether an error has occurred in the printer (step 21). When an error occurs, the cause of the error is interpreted from the error code sent from the part where the error occurred and the error information ER is output (step 22). The error message retrieval unit 11 retrieves the corresponding error message from the error message data in which the error message for printing on the paper is stored based on the error information ER (step 23).
If the corresponding error message is found (Step 2
4), go to step 25 of the error handling routine.
If no corresponding error message is found (N in step 24), search again.

The error processing routine 25 performs a series of error processing. First, it is checked whether print data exists in the page buffer 6 (step 10).
1). If so, the printer checks whether it is printing on the paper (step 102). If printing, then
It is checked whether to stop printing (step 103). If the printing is stopped, the printing is stopped and the LED display 9
The state of the LED lamp inside is changed to stop the operation of the engine unit which is a part of the printing unit 7 (step 10).
4). Next, it is checked whether the paper stopped in the printing unit 7 is forcibly discharged (step 105). If it is forced discharge, forced discharge processing is performed (step 106). As described above, steps 101 to 106 are performed by the error printing operation control unit 10. Next, it is determined whether or not to display an error message on the LCD display unit 9 (step 107). If the data is to be displayed on the LCD display unit 9, the data displayed on the LCD display unit 9 in the error message retrieved in step 23 is L
The data is displayed on the CD display unit 9 (step 108). The error display setting unit 12 performs steps 107 and 108. Next, it is determined whether to print on paper (step 109). If printing is performed on a sheet of paper, the current position is set when the sheet is stopped in the printing unit 7, and the printing position is set to a preset printing position of the next sheet if the printing unit 7 has no sheet (step 110). ). Drawing memory 1 for error printing that sets character attributes and graphics such as character emphasis and character size expansion that are set in advance for each type of error.
It is expanded to 3a (step 111). The error message printed on the paper is composed of an error number, an error name, an error cause, and a coping method. Next, the printing from the page buffer 6 to the error printing drawing memory 13
The control is switched to printing by a (step 112).
An error message is printed on the paper by the error printing drawing memory 13a (step 113). Step 109
The error print setting unit 13 performs steps to 113. The LCD display unit 9 displays a simplified version of the error cause. Here, the error processing routine 25 is exited and the process returns.

The error printing operation control unit 10 checks whether error recovery is possible after the error processing is completed (step 26). If error recovery is possible, it is checked whether or not an error countermeasure has been taken (step 27). Check whether the error condition has been released by the error countermeasure (Step 2
8). When the error state is released, the error display on the LCD display unit 9 is terminated and the original display state is restored. Further, the drawing memory for error printing 13a is released, the page buffer 6 is returned to the printable state, and the error interruption process is terminated (step 29). If the error state is not released in step 28, it is checked whether or not the phenomenon is a recurrence phenomenon (step 30). If the error recovery is impossible in step 26, or if the error recurs in step 30, the power of the printer is turned off to end the error interruption (step 31).

[0012]

As described above, according to the present invention, an error message can be printed on a sheet of paper, so that when an error occurs in the printer, even if there is no person, the error occurs. I can judge. Therefore, it is possible to prevent a mistake in determining an erroneous print result as a correct print result. In addition, error information can be expressed more when printed on paper than when it is displayed on the LCD display. Character attributes such as character emphasis and character size enlargement can be selected, and graphic expression can be used, allowing various expressions. Therefore, the explanation can be more easily explained to the user.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation when an error occurs in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a detailed operation of an error processing step 25 of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Host Computer 2 Receive Buffer 3 Editing Section 4 Page Data Section 5 Drawing Section 6 Page Buffer 7 Printing Section 8 Control Section 8a Hardware Diagnostic Section 9 LCD Display Section 10 Error Printing Operation Control Section 11 Error Message Search Section 12 Error Display Setting Section 13 Error Printing Setting Section 13a Error Printing Drawing Memory

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A printer including a printing unit for printing on a sheet of paper, a control unit for detecting a failure occurring during printing on the paper and outputting corresponding error information, and the control unit according to the error information. An error printing operation control means for stopping printing and forcibly discharging the paper being printed by the printing section, and an error message searching section for storing data of a plurality of types of error messages and searching for and outputting an error message corresponding to the error information. A printer comprising: an error print setting unit that prints the error message output from the error message search unit on the paper via the printing unit. 2. A display unit for displaying a message, wherein the error message output from the error message search unit is displayed on the display unit.
The listed printer.