JPH0581264A - Print server system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a print server system attaining printing from various different editor terminals by allowing a server machine body only to manage printing schedules corresponding to the sorts of editor terminals and printer terminals without having a printing function. CONSTITUTION:A desk top publishing document processing terminal (DTP) 11 to be an editor terminal is prepared for editing a document and provided with plural exclusive editor terminals such as a filing device and a word processor corresponding to the sorts of documents. An OA server 12 to be a server machine receives a printing request from the DTP 11 and executes the printing of documents in the receiving order of printing requests. A printer terminal 13 prints out documents in each sort correspondingly to the sort of each editor terminal such as the DTP 11 and connects a printer to at least one of editor terminals of respective sorts such as the DTP 11.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print server system in which a plurality of editing terminals share one printer.
In particular, the present invention relates to a print server system that realizes a plurality of types of print servers with one server machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a print server system is frequently used in an office or a company, and a small network in which one printer is shared by a plurality of editing terminals, for example, DTP (Desktop Publishing: document processing system). Is configured. A server machine that realizes this print server system is generally a client-server model, and it is necessary to install the same hardware as the editing terminal or to newly prepare a software processing function.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional print server system, there are some types of editing terminals such as different types of editing terminals such as DTP, filing device, word processor, etc. If it becomes a server machine that can be used from an editing terminal, it must be equipped with a number of print processing functions, and it will be a large scale whether it is software or hardware.

There is also a system that uses the DTP or the filing device itself as a server machine, but in order to receive an area for storing a document requested to be printed or a print request at all times, and to notify and hold information of a print result. Has
It was necessary to prepare a large program area and disk, and it was not possible to execute printing from different types of editing terminals.

Therefore, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the server machine itself does not have a printing function, and only the print schedule for each type of the editing terminal and the printer terminal is managed, so that the printing from the editing terminals of different types is performed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print server system that enables the above. It is another object of the present invention to provide a print server system that can realize a print server with minimum network compatibility by using an editing terminal with a printer as a printer terminal.

Further, the invention according to claim 3 provides a print server system capable of confirming the printing status while staying at the editing terminal by notifying the editing terminal of the print request source of the printing result by the printer terminal. It is an object.

[0007]

The invention according to claim 1 is
In order to achieve the above object, in a print server system that includes a plurality of editing terminals for editing a document and a server machine that receives print requests from these editing terminals, and prints the documents in the order in which the print requests are received. A printer terminal for each type for printing a document corresponding to each type of editing terminal;
And a print request management unit that executes printing of documents by the printer terminal in the order in which the print requests of each type are received.

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that the printer terminal is a printer connected to at least one of the editing terminals of each type. Further, in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the invention according to claim 3 is provided with notifying means for notifying the editing terminal which has made a print request of the printing result by the printer terminal.

[0009]

In the invention of the first aspect having the above-mentioned structure, there are provided a plurality of editing terminals for editing each type of document, and the document is printed by the type-specific printer terminal corresponding to each type-specific editing terminal. Here, the printing of the document by the printer terminal for each type is executed by the print request management unit in the order of receiving the print request for each type.

In the invention according to claim 2 having the above-mentioned structure, at least one of the editing terminals of each type is provided.
A printer connected to a stand is used as a printer terminal. Further, according to the invention having the above-mentioned configuration, the printing result by the printer terminal is notified to the editing terminal which requested the printing by the notifying means.

[0011]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below based on examples.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a print server system according to an embodiment of the invention described in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein FIG. 1A is a system configuration diagram thereof, and FIG. 1B is a server machine thereof. FIG. 3C is a block diagram of the printer terminal.

First, the structure will be described. In FIG. 1A, a DTP (Desktop Publishing: document processing system) 11 as an editing terminal edits a document, and although not shown, a dedicated editing terminal for each type of document, such as a filing device or a word processor. And so on.
The OA server 12 as the server machine is the DTP1
The print requests from No. 1 are received, and the documents are printed in the order in which the print requests are received. The printer terminal 13 prints a type-specific document corresponding to the type-specific editing terminal, for example, DTP11, and the type-specific editing terminal, for example, DTP11.
A printer is connected to at least one of the above.

In this embodiment having the above-mentioned configuration, the OA server 12 does not have an actual printing function, so that the printer terminal 13 corresponding to each document is registered as a printer of the print server system. For example, when configuring the print server system using the DTP and the filing device as the editing terminals, the DTP and the filing device to which the printer is connected are registered as the printer terminals, respectively. The terminal 13, which is registered as a printer terminal, requests the print processing, that is, D through the OA server 12 of the network.
It is connected to TP11. Therefore, when the printer terminal 13 itself receives the print request from the OA server 12, it only starts the print process and notifies the OA server 12 of the print result. In this way, the print request from the DTP 11 is temporarily stored in the OA server 12 and sequentially sent to the corresponding printer terminal 13.

The OA server 12 is shown in FIG. 1B, and the following parts are controlled by the server controller 21. That is, the communication control unit 22 has a communication function of transmitting and receiving a print request or a print document from the DTP 11. The document storage unit 23 stores the print document from the DTP 11 received by the communication control unit 22. The print request management unit 24 causes the printer terminal 13 to print the document in the order in which the print requests for each type are received. For this purpose, the print request management unit 24 stores and holds the print request and its document in the document storage unit 23, and notifies the print result and the abnormal result and holds the log. The printer control unit 25 registers the corresponding printer terminal 13 for each terminal type (document type), monitors whether the printer terminal 13 can print, and sends a print request to the printer terminal 13.

The printer terminal 13 is shown in FIG. 1C, and the system control section 31 controls the following sections. That is, the communication control unit 32 has a communication function such as receiving a print request or a print document. The print management unit 33 as a notification unit notifies the print result by the printer terminal 13 itself to the editing terminal that has made a print request, for example, the DTP 11. To this end, the print management unit 33 has a print request management function for processing a print request and a document (page) receipt request, and a result recording function for notifying a print result, an abnormal result, and holding a log. The document print processing unit 34 prints a document requested to be printed or a document edited by itself. The document edit processing unit 35 executes the editing of the document by itself.

Next, the operation will be described. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the print server processing procedure of this embodiment.
First, the print request process in the OA server 12 will be described. Accept print request in idle state (step S
1) It is determined whether an editing terminal that has requested printing, for example, a printer terminal corresponding to DTP11 is registered in the printer control unit 25 (step S2). If registered, the print document from the DTP11 is received and Document storage unit 2
3 (step S3).

Next, the fact that there is a print request is registered in the document storage unit 23 as a print standby queue (step S
4), the print management unit 3 of the corresponding type of printer terminal 13
3 is notified that the registration of the print standby queue is completed (step S5). Thus, in this embodiment,
The OA server 12 itself does not have a printing function, and by only managing the print schedule for each type of the DTP 11 and the printer terminal 13, the DTP 1 of different types can be managed.
Printing from 1 can be performed by one OA server 12, and different types of editing terminals such as DTP, filing device,
Since it is not necessary to provide a server machine for each word processor and workstation, the system cost can be reduced.

Further, in this embodiment, by using the DTP with printer as the printer terminal 13,
The print server can be realized with the minimum network compatibility, and the server machine itself does not need to have a print processing function for each type, so the system cost can be reduced. Next, the print processing in the printer terminal 13 will be described. First, it is checked whether or not the print standby queue is registered in the idle state (step S6). If there is a print standby queue, that is, if there is a print request (step S7),
The print management unit 33 determines whether printing is possible (step S8). For example, when printing cannot be performed due to the editing process of the document itself, that is, the operation of the document editing processing unit 35, the document printing processing unit waits until printing becomes possible (step S9) and before a predetermined time elapses (step S10). Printing is started by 34 (step S11). When the printing is completed, the document print processing unit 34 notifies the print management unit 33 of the print end (step S12), and the print management unit 3
The print result is notified from the print request management unit 24 to the print request management unit 24 (step S13). The print result notified to the print request management unit 24 is further notified to the DTP 11.

As described above, in the present embodiment, by notifying the print result by the printer terminal 13 to the DTP 11 which is the source of the print request, it is possible to confirm the print status while staying at the DTP 11.

[0020]

As described above, according to the print server system of the first aspect of the present invention, there are provided a plurality of editing terminals for editing each type of document, and the editing terminals issue print requests by type. The print request management unit accepts and prints the document by the printer terminal for each type corresponding to each type of editing terminal in the order of reception, so that the printing function is not required in the server machine itself, and printing is performed for each type of editing terminal and printer terminal. You can manage only the schedule,
Printing from different types of editing terminals is possible with one server machine. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a server machine for each different type of editing terminal, and the cost of the system can be reduced.

According to the print server system of the second aspect of the present invention, at least one of the editing terminals of each type is connected to a printer and is used as the printer terminal. The print server can be realized with, and the server machine itself does not need to have a print processing function for each type, so the system cost can be reduced.

According to the print server system of the third aspect of the present invention, the printing result by the printer terminal is notified by the notifying means to the editing terminal which made the print request. I can confirm.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a print server system according to an embodiment of the invention described in any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein FIG. 1A is a system configuration diagram thereof, and FIG. 1B is a server thereof. A block diagram of the machine, and FIG. 7C shows a block diagram of the printer terminal.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a print server processing procedure according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 DTP (editing terminal) 12 OA server (server machine) 13 printer terminal 24 print request management unit 33 print management unit (notifying means)

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A print server system comprising a plurality of editing terminals for editing a document, and a server machine for accepting print requests from these editing terminals, wherein the document is printed in the order in which the print requests are accepted. There are several types of terminals for each type of document, a printer terminal for each type that prints a document corresponding to each type of editing terminal, and a print request that causes the printer terminal to execute document printing in the order in which the print request for each type is received. A print server system comprising: a management unit. 2. The print server system according to claim 1, wherein the printer terminal is a printer connected to at least one of the editing terminals of each type. 3. The print server system according to claim 1, further comprising a notifying unit for notifying the editing terminal that has requested the printing of the printing result of the printer terminal.