JPH05305750A - Tape printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance an operability for a label printing and a working efficiency without the need for previously again setting the number of text lines to be transmitted by a method wherein a means for setting a label printing mode and a means for setting the number of lines for a label printing are provided, and dot pattern data is formed for every character string based on the set number of lines. CONSTITUTION:A mode setting means 47 sets a label printing mode for printing one or more text lines in a label form on a tape. A line setting means 44 sets the number of lines for printing text in a label printing mode. A printing control means C forms dot pattern data based on the number of lines set by the setting means 44. As a result, there is no need for two or more lines of document data stored in a computer to be divided into a predetermined number of lines to be previously again formed, and an operability for a label printing and a working efficiency are enhanced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a tape printer, and more particularly to a tape printer which receives document data from an external computer and prints a character string in a label on a printing tape.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a personal computer or the like, a keyboard, a display, a large-sized printer, etc. are connected, and the document data and various data input from the keyboard are stored in the data memory in the control device, while the selected specific data is stored. The data can be printed by the printer. In addition, a plurality of shipping information such as address, name, telephone number, etc. are created for each customer so that the invitations and invitations can be shipped to a large number of customers, and a plurality of shipping information are stored in the data memory. On the other hand, a printing paper in which a plurality of labels are arranged in a matrix is set in a printer, a predetermined printing format is set, and each of the plural pieces of shipping information is sequentially printed on each label. Computers are in practical use.

By the way, the applicant of the present application has found that
As described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 050, a tape printer which can print characters and symbols on a tape (for example, a width of about 10 mm or about 24 mm) as a print medium has been put into practical use. It is suitable for making a tape having a file name printed on its back cover.

[0004]

Here, the inventor connects the personal computer and the tape printer, and based on the shipping information for each customer received from the personal computer, the inventor creates a character string relating to an address and a name. The idea was to print a label on the tape. However, in the tape printing by this tape printer, the tape width is about 24 mm at the maximum, so the number of printing lines of the character string in the label printing is limited to several lines at the maximum, and a plurality of characters stored in the data memory of the personal computer are stored. The shipping information for each item must be recreated by dividing it into several print lines per item, and the print character size must be set again each time. There is a problem that the data change operation becomes troublesome.

According to the present invention, it is possible to print these character strings on the printing tape in the form of labels for each desired number of printing lines without resetting the number of printing lines of the character strings transmitted from an external computer in advance. To provide a simple tape printer.

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a tape printer including an input means for inputting at least various commands, and a print means including a print head for printing a tape as a print medium in a dot pattern. In a tape printer having a print control means for receiving dot or character data from an external computer to create dot pattern data and printing the dot pattern data, a character string of one or a plurality of lines is formed into a label on the tape. A mode setting means for setting a label printing mode for printing and a line number setting means for setting the number of printing lines when printing in the label printing mode are provided, and the print control means is set by the line number setting means. The dot pattern data is created based on the number of lines to be printed.

A tape printer according to a second aspect is the tape printer according to the first aspect, wherein the tape printer further comprises size setting means for setting a character size when printing in the label print mode. , Print control means,
The dot pattern data is created on the basis of the number of printing lines set by the line number setting means and the character size set by the size setting means.

[0008]

In the tape printer according to the first aspect, the mode setting means sets the label printing mode for printing the character string of one or a plurality of lines on the tape in the form of a label, and further the line number setting means performs the label printing. When the number of lines to be printed when printing in the mode is set, the print control means, based on the number of print lines set by the line number setting means, sets the print line number for the character and symbol data received from the external computer. Dot pattern data is created for each, and the printing means prints it in the form of a label. In this way, a character string consisting of characters and symbols received from an external computer is created as dot pattern data for each set number of print lines, and is printed in a label on the tape. Since it is not necessary to divide the document data consisting of 3 into a predetermined number of lines and recreate it in advance, operability and work efficiency for label printing are improved.

In the tape printer according to the second aspect, the tape printer has a size setting means for setting the character size when printing in the label printing mode,
The print control means creates the dot pattern data based on the print line number set by the line number setting means and the character size set by the size setting means. Therefore, it is not necessary for the computer to reset the character size for printing the document data consisting of a plurality of lines, and the operability and work efficiency for printing the label are improved.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In this embodiment, the present invention is applied to an English-only tape printer capable of printing a large number of characters such as alphabetic characters and symbols on a printing tape (tape as a printing medium). As shown in FIG. 2, a keyboard 3 is arranged in the front part of the main body frame 2 of the tape printer 1, a printing mechanism PM is arranged in the main body frame 2 behind the keyboard 3, and the keyboard 3 A liquid crystal display 22 capable of displaying characters and symbols is provided on the rear side. The keyboard 3 includes character keys for inputting alphabets, numbers and symbols, space key, return key, cursor movement key for moving the cursor to the right or left, document creation key for creating document data, and printing format. Format setting key for setting,
A size setting key for setting the size of the print character, a type setting key for setting the font of the print character, a mode switching key for switching the label printing mode and the normal printing mode, a printing key for executing printing, and a tape 5 for printing tape. A tape feed key for feeding and a power key for turning the power on and off are provided.

The printing mechanism PM will be briefly described with reference to FIG. 3. A rectangular tape storage cassette CS is detachably attached to the printing mechanism PM, and the tape storage cassette CS is transparent. Width of about 2 films
Tape spool 6 around which 4mm printing tape 5 is wound
And a ribbon supply spool 8 around which the ink ribbon 7 is wound.
And a take-up spool 9 for taking up the ink ribbon 7,
A supply spool 11 in which a double-sided tape 10 having the same width as the printing tape 5 is wound with a release paper outside and a joining roller 12 for joining the printing tape 5 and the double-sided tape 10 are rotatably provided. Has been. A thermal head 13 is erected at a position where the printing tape 5 and the ink ribbon 7 overlap each other, and a platen roller 14 that presses the printing tape 5 and the ink ribbon 7 against the thermal head 13, and the printing tape 5 are provided. A feed roller 15 for pressing the double-sided tape 10 against the joining roller 12 is rotatably supported by a support body 16. In this thermal head 13,
A heating element group including 128 heating elements arranged in the vertical direction is provided.

Therefore, when the tape feed motor 24 (see FIG. 4) is driven in the predetermined rotation direction, the joining roller 12 and the take-up spool 9 are driven in synchronism with each other in the predetermined rotation direction, and the heating elements are energized. When printing tape 5
Characters are printed by a plurality of dot rows on the upper side, and the printing tape 5 is fed in the tape feeding direction A with the double-sided tape 10 joined. For details of the printing mechanism PM, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-106555.

Next, the control system of the tape printer 1 is shown in FIG.
The block diagram of FIG. The keyboard 3, a display controller (LCDC) 23 having a video RAM 23a for outputting display data to a liquid crystal display (LCD) 22, and a thermal head 13.
Drive circuit 25 for driving the tape feeding motor 24
A drive circuit 26 for driving the control device C and a drive circuit 21 for the warning buzzer 20 are connected to the input / output interface 27 of the control device C, respectively. Further, the input / output interface 27 is connected to a personal computer PC via a communication interface 35 such as RS-232C.
Is connected, and the document data transmitted from the personal computer PC can be received. However, it is assumed that the data memory of the personal computer PC stores document data including a return code and a space code in addition to printable character codes such as characters and symbols. Further, it is assumed that this document data is composed of a plurality of character strings for label printing. The control device C includes the CPU 29 and the CPU 2
9, an input / output interface 27, a CGROM 30, a ROM 31 which are connected via a bus 28 such as a data bus.
32 and RAM 40.

CGROM (pattern data memory) 30
For each of a large number of characters, the dot pattern data for display is stored in the column corresponding to the code data. A ROM (outline data memory) 31 has contour data (outline data) that defines the contour of each character for printing characters, such as a Gothic typeface and a Mincho typeface. It is classified for each and stored corresponding to the code data.

In the ROM 32, a display drive control program for controlling the display controller 23 in correspondence with character code data such as characters, numbers and symbols inputted from the keyboard 3, a personal computer PC.
Image data for converting the outline data corresponding to each code data in the text memory 41 into the receiving control program for receiving the document data transmitted from A processing control program, a print drive control program for sequentially reading the data in the print buffer 46 to drive the thermal head 13 and the tape feed motor 24, a control program for tape print control, which will be described later and is unique to the present application, are stored. Further, in the ROM 32, as shown in FIG. 5, when printing is performed using the printing tape 5 having a tape width of 24 mm, the number of print lines "1" to "3" is associated with the character size. The size table TB is stored in advance.

In the text memory 41 of the RAM 40, code data of characters and symbols input from the keyboard 3,
Alternatively, print data transmitted from an external personal computer PC is stored as document data. The print format memory 42 stores a plurality of print format information such as set character size data and typeface data. The set character size data PZ is stored in the character size memory 43. The set line number memory 44 stores the print line number PL set for label printing. The line counter 45 stores the number of lines of document data transmitted from the personal computer PC. The print buffer 46 stores dot pattern data of a plurality of characters and symbols which have been image-developed. Therefore, in the print buffer 46, 1 is printed in the vertical direction (dot row direction).
A memory capacity of 128 bits (16 bytes) corresponding to 28 dots and a predetermined bit of 50 characters in the horizontal direction is provided, and dot pattern data of one line or a plurality of lines of printed characters is developed. The flag memory 47 stores the flag data of the print mode flag MF that is set (the data is "1") when the label print mode is set. Further, the RAM 40 is provided with a buffer, a counter, a pointer, etc. for temporarily storing the calculation result calculated by the CPU 29.

Next, the outline of the tape print control routine executed by the controller C of the tape printer 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the figure, reference numeral Si (i = 10, 20, 30, ...) Indicates each step. When the power is turned on by operating the power key, this control is started, and the print mode setting process for selectively setting the label print mode or the normal print mode is executed (S10), and the label print mode is set. Sometimes (S20: Yes), label dot pattern data creation processing control is executed (S30), and the process returns to S10. However, when the normal print mode is set (S20:
No), after the operation of the document creation key, the document data inputting / editing process of storing the code data corresponding to the operated character key or space key as the document data in the text memory 41 is executed (S70). Next, by operating the format setting key, a process of setting a print format such as a character size, a typeface, and a decoration designation is executed (S9).
0). Therefore, this print format setting process includes a plurality of format setting processes such as character size setting process and typeface setting process. Next, the print dot pattern data for printing the document data is expanded in the print buffer 45 by the operation of the print key, and the print processing for outputting the dot pattern data read from the print buffer 47 to the print mechanism PM is executed. (S100).

Next, the print mode setting process control routine will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When this control is started, the print mode setting screen is first displayed on the display 22 (S11). For example,
As shown in FIG. 11, the title “<< PRINTMOD
E >> ”, the mode currently set on the second line, that is,“ LAB
“EL PRINT” is displayed on the display 22. Then, when the mode switching key is operated (S12 / S1
3: Yes), when the print mode flag MF is reset and the label print mode is not set (S
14: No), the print mode flag MF is set (S
15), "Label print" is displayed (S16), and the process returns to the tape print control of FIG. On the other hand, when the print mode flag MF is set and the label print mode is set (S14: Yes), the print mode flag MF is reset (S17) and "normal print" is displayed (S18), as shown in FIG. Return to tape print control of.

Next, the label dot pattern data creation processing control routine executed in S30 will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to the flowchart of When this control is started, the print line number setting process control (see FIG. 9) is first executed (S31). When this control is started, a print line number setting screen is first displayed on the display 22 (S4).
0). For example, as shown in FIG. 12, the title "<< LABEL PRINT LINES >>" is on the first line and the number "1" on the second line.
The number of lines for printing the label is displayed corresponding to each "3". Next, when the number key effective for setting the number of print lines is operated (S41 / S42: Yes), the set number of print lines PL is stored in the set line number memory 44 (S4).
3). When the return key is operated (S
41: Yes, S42: No, S44: Yes), the process returns with the end of this control and shifts to S32.

Next, the dot pattern data creation processing control executed in S32 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When this control is started, "0" is first stored in the row number count value LC of the row number counter 45 (S50). Then, the personal computer P
When the document data transmitted from C is received (S5
1: Yes), and when the code data is a character code other than the return code (S52: No), the received character code is stored in the text memory 41 (S5).
6) and returns to S51. When the received code data is a return code (S52: Yes), the line number count value LC is incremented by 1 (S53), and when the line number count value LC is not equal to the set print line number PL, that is, the line is printed. When the number count value LC has not reached the set print line number PL (S54: No), the return code is additionally stored in the text memory 41 (S5).
5) and returns to S51.

The document data received by repeating S51 to S56 is sequentially stored in the text memory 41, and when the line number count value LC and the set print line number PL become equal (S54: Yes), this setting is performed. A character size for printing is set on the basis of the print line number PL and the size table TB (S57), and a base line position for developing an image is printed on the print buffer 46 based on the set print line number PL. It is obtained for each row (S58). next,
Based on the baseline position of each print line, the text memory 4
The code data of the character string of each print line is read from 1, the outline data is enlarged / reduced, the dot pattern data for printing is created from the outline data, and the dot pattern data is sequentially expanded in the print buffer 46. (S59), the data in the text memory 41 is cleared (S60), and after this control is completed, the printing process is executed based on the dot pattern data stored in the print buffer 46 (S61). still,
In this print processing control, in order to provide a predetermined margin between the labels, after the character string for each label is printed, the tape is fed by a predetermined margin amount. After that, if the document data is transmitted from the personal computer PC (S
62: Yes), and the process returns to S52. On the other hand, if the document data is not transmitted from the personal computer PC (S62: No), the process returns to S10 of tape print control.

For example, when "1 print line" is set as the set print line number PL, as shown in FIG. 13, the character string "AB" transmitted from the personal computer PC is displayed.
"C", "DEF", "GHI", ... Are sequentially printed on the printing tape 5 one label at a time in the form of a label with a character size of 44 points. When "2 print lines" is set as the set print line number PL, as shown in FIG. 14, the character strings "ABC", "DEF", "GHI", ... Sets the character size to 20 points and sequentially prints on the printing tape 5.
Each print line is printed in a label. Here, when it is instructed to print the frame ruled line surrounding the character string for each label, the print is performed as shown in FIGS. 15 and 16. Incidentally, S
In 51, when the document data is not transmitted from the personal computer PC for a predetermined time or more, it is determined whether or not the code is stored in the text memory 41, and the dot pattern data is determined based on the code stored in the text memory 41. May be created and the printing process may be performed.

As described above, since the dot pattern data is created so that the character size is set for the character string for each set print line number PL, the document consisting of a plurality of lines stored in the external personal computer PC. There is no need to divide the data for each predetermined number of rows and recreate it in advance,
Further, it is not necessary to reset the character size for printing the document data, and the operability and work efficiency for label printing are improved.

It is also possible to provide a plurality of size tables corresponding to various tape widths other than 24 mm and label-print on the printing tape 5 having various tape widths.
It is needless to say that the present invention can be applied to various tape printers such as a tape printer that stores a character or symbol print image as dot pattern data.
A cutting mechanism for cutting the printing tape 5 is provided, and each time the label is printed, the printing tape 5 is set for each set label length.
May be configured to be cut. The character string of the document data transmitted from the personal computer PC can be sequentially displayed on the display 22. Also,
It is possible to change the mode by interrupting the process with the mode setting key or the cancel key during the dot pattern data creation / printing process for printing or the dot pattern data creation / printing process for labels.

[0025]

As described in the above section of the operation, the following effects can be obtained according to the present invention. According to the tape printer of the first aspect, the mode setting means for setting the label printing mode and the line number setting means for setting the number of printing lines for label printing are provided, and characters based on the set number of lines are provided. Since dot pattern data is created for each column, it is not necessary to divide the document data consisting of multiple lines stored in the computer into a predetermined number of lines and recreate it in advance, which improves operability and work efficiency for label printing. improves.

According to the tape printer of claim 2,
A size setting unit is provided to set the character size when printing labels, and the dot pattern data is created so that the character size is set for the character string for each set number of lines. Since it is not necessary to reset the character size for printing the document data, the operability and work efficiency for label printing are improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of claims 1 and 2 (illustrated by a chain double-dashed line).

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the tape printer.

FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view of a printing mechanism.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a control system of the tape printer.

FIG. 5 is a chart showing setting contents of a size table.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart of a tape print control routine.

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of a print mode setting process control routine.

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart of a label dot pattern data creation / printing process control routine.

FIG. 9 is a schematic flowchart of a routine of print line number setting processing control.

FIG. 10 is a schematic flowchart of a routine of dot pattern data creation processing control.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a display example of a print mode setting screen.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a display example of a print line number setting screen.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a print example in which a character string of one print line is label-printed.

FIG. 14 is a view corresponding to FIG. 11 in which a character string of two print lines is label-printed.

FIG. 15 is a diagram corresponding to FIG. 13, in which a character string of each label is surrounded by a frame ruled line.

16 is a diagram corresponding to FIG. 14 in which the character strings of each label are surrounded by a frame ruled line.

[Explanation of Codes] 1 tape printer 3 keyboard 13 thermal head 24 tape feed motor 29 CPU 31 ROM 32 ROM 40 RAM 41 text memory 44 set line number memory 46 print buffer C controller CS tape storage cassette PC personal computer PM printing mechanism TB size table

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An input unit for inputting at least various commands, a printing unit including a print head for printing a dot pattern on a tape as a print medium, and a dot by receiving character or symbol data from an external computer. In a tape printer including a print control unit that creates pattern data and causes a print unit to print, a mode setting unit that sets a label print mode for printing a character string of one or a plurality of lines in a label on the tape, Line number setting means for setting the number of print lines when printing in the label print mode, the print control means, based on the number of print lines set by the line number setting means, the dot pattern A tape printer characterized in that it is arranged to create data. 2. The tape printer further comprises size setting means for setting a character size when printing in the label printing mode, and the print control means performs the printing set by the line number setting means. 2. The tape printer according to claim 1, wherein the dot pattern data is created based on the number of lines and the character size set by the size setting means.