JPH0596793A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To conduct a high-speed or high-quality printing as required in a printer provided with a print head, such as a multi-line head, capable of printing a plurality of lines. CONSTITUTION:A printer comprises a print head 16 provided with printing parts for a plurality of lines and a buffer 13 for developing a character pattern to be printed by the print head 16. When a high quality mode is assigned from a host device 22, a CPU 11 develops a character pattern in a range that an em character can be printed at a time by with print head 16 to the buffer 13 and prints the character pattern using a part of the printing parts of the print head 16. When a high speed mode is assigned, the CPU 11 develops a character pattern in accordance with the number of the printing parts of the print part 16 to the buffer 13 and prints the character pattern using all of the printing parts of the print head 16.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer used in an information processing device such as a word processor or a personal computer, and more particularly to a printer provided with a print head capable of printing a plurality of lines such as a multi-line head.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, some word processors are equipped with a printing device for printing a created document in advance, or are optionally connected. As this type of printing apparatus, a thermal transfer type dot printer is generally used in which the solid ink on the ink ribbon is melted by heat generated by the print head and transferred to the paper. In this case, the print head has a plurality of heating elements arranged in a line in the paper feeding direction, for example, in a row for several dots. While moving the print head in the row direction, each heating element is energized and heated according to the pattern of dot characters to be printed, whereby dot characters are formed on the paper.

By the way, there is a print head capable of printing a plurality of lines by one scanning. Such a print head is called a multi-line head. This multi-line head has a printing unit (heat generating element in the thermal transfer system) several times in the paper feeding direction. For example, the dot character structure is 56 × 56
If it is a dot, it usually has a printing portion (heating element) for 56 dots in one row, but a printing portion (heating element) for 160 dots in a multi-line head.
Can be printed in one column, for example, 2.5 lines can be printed in one scan.

[0004]

When the multi-line head as described above is used, the number of lines that can be printed by one scan is larger than that of a normal head, so that there is an advantage that the printing speed is improved. However, on the other hand, double-byte characters
Since there are areas that need to be reprinted, there is a problem that the character breaks at the boundary and the print quality is impaired. In particular, in the case of the bidirectional printing method, the running direction of the print head is different for each scan (when moving from left to right, the print head then moves from right to left), and the problem becomes serious. The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus capable of printing at high speed or high quality as needed.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus including a print head in which printing units for a plurality of lines are arranged and a buffer for developing a character pattern printed by the print head, By designating the first print mode, the print head expands a character pattern in a range in which double-byte characters can be printed at one time in the buffer, and the character pattern is stored in a part of each of the printing units of the print head. Printing is performed, and by designating the second printing mode, a character pattern corresponding to the number of each printing portion of the print head is developed in the buffer, and the character pattern is printed by the print head. All of the copies are used for printing.

[0006]

With the above arrangement, in the first print mode,
A part of each print part of the print head is used, and double-byte characters are printed at once. Therefore, it is possible to prevent a character break due to double-strike and to obtain a high-quality print result. In addition, in the second print mode, since all the print units of the print head are used, high-speed printing can be performed.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A printer according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a serial printer installed in a word processor, for example. In FIG. 1, a CPU 11 controls the entire apparatus, and here executes a mode setting process as shown in FIG. 6 and a printing process as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8. The font memory 12 is composed of a ROM, for example, and stores various dot character patterns. Line buffer 13
Is a memory that is composed of, for example, a RAM and in which character patterns are expanded in units of lines. Here, as shown in FIG. 2, there are n bytes in the paper feed direction (column direction) and m columns in the head running direction (row direction). Has a deployable range. Receive buffer 1
Reference numeral 4 denotes, for example, a RAM, and stores print data including the character code transferred from the host device 22.

The head drive circuit 15 drives the print head 16 under the control of the CPU 11. The print head 16 is
It is mounted on the carriage 18 and forms dot characters on the paper while moving in the row direction. Here, as shown in FIG. The dots are arranged. The carriage drive circuit 17 drives the carriage 18 under the control of the CPU 11. The carriage 18 includes the print head 16
Is moved in the row direction. Motor drive circuit 19
Drives the paper feed motor 20 under the control of the CPU 11. The paper feed motor 20 is a motor for driving a paper feed mechanism such as a platen.

The host interface 21 sends and receives data to and from the host device 22. The host device 22, which is a word processor here, transfers print data such as a character code for printing a document, and also transfers a print mode command for instructing a high quality mode or a high speed mode as a print mode. Print mode storage unit 23
Stores a print flag F corresponding to the print mode command. Here, in the high quality mode, the print flag F = 0,
The print flag F = 1 is set in the high speed mode. next,
The operation of the embodiment will be described.

Basically, when print data including a character code is transferred from the host device 22 via the host interface 21, the CPU 11 temporarily stores the print data in the reception buffer 14 and then corresponds to the character code. The character pattern to be read is read from the font memory 12 and sequentially developed in the line buffer 13. When a character pattern for a predetermined line is stored in the line buffer 13, C
The PU 11 drives the print head 16 through the head drive circuit 15.
The printing section 16a of is driven to print on the paper.

In this embodiment, the print mode includes a high quality mode and a high speed mode, and both modes can be selectively used. In high quality mode,
As shown in FIG. 5 (a), a part of each printing unit 16 a provided in the print head 16 (so that double-byte characters can be printed at one time, that is, double-width characters do not strike twice) Printing is performed through L dots. In the high-speed mode, as shown in FIG. 5B, printing is executed through all of the printing units 16a (H dots) provided in the print head 16 regardless of whether double-width characters are printed twice. ..

First, the operation of setting such a print mode will be described. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6, when the user specifies the input of the print mode on the host device 22 side (step A1), the print mode setting screen as shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the display device (not shown) ( Step A
2). On this print mode setting screen, items for selecting the “high quality” mode or the “high speed” mode as the print mode are displayed. The user can input the intended print mode by selecting either of the items with the "cursor" key or the like. A print mode command according to the input instruction at this time is transferred from the host device 22 to the printer device side via the host interface 21, and the print flag F of the print mode storage unit 23 is set to "0" or "1" (step A3 to A5). Here, the print flag F = 0 when the high quality mode is selected, and the print flag F when the high speed mode is selected.
= 1 is set.

Next, the operation of the print processing according to the above-mentioned print mode will be described. As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, C
When the PU 11 receives the print data including the character code via the host interface 21, the PU 11 temporarily stores the print data in the reception buffer 14 (step B1). Here, the CPU 11 checks the state of the print flag F of the print mode storage unit 23 (step B2), and if F = 0,
The print data stored in the reception buffer 14 is used to execute high-quality print processing as described below (steps B3 to B7).

That is, the CPU 11 reads out a character pattern corresponding to a character code from the font memory 12 and develops the character pattern in the line buffer 13. At that time, all the printing units 16a of the print head 16 are used. In this case, the character pattern for H dots (n bytes), which is the number of dots in the case, is not expanded, and the character pattern is expanded for a part of the L dots (steps B3 and B).
4). This L dot is the number of dots that can print double-byte characters at one time, that is, the number of dots that does not cause double-byte printing of double-byte characters. For example, in the example of FIG. 5A, the number of dots for two lines is set. ..

After developing the character pattern for L dots,
The CPU 11 outputs the developed character pattern to the head drive circuit 15 and issues a movement start instruction to the carriage drive circuit 17. As a result, at the timing synchronized with the movement of the print head 16, each printing unit 16a is drive-controlled according to the character pattern, and dot characters are formed on the paper (step B5). In this case, a part (L dots) of each printing unit 16a is used, and for example, two lines are printed by one scan as shown in FIG. 5A.

Next, the CPU 11 controls the motor drive circuit 19
The paper feed motor 20 is driven through to feed the paper to the next print start position (step B6). In this case, as shown in FIG. 5A, the paper is fed by a value obtained by adding the line feed pitch P to the L dots. Thereafter, the same processing as described above is repeated until the print data stored in the reception buffer 14 is exhausted (step B7).

On the other hand, in step B2, F = 1
If so, the CPU 11 develops a character pattern of H dots (n bytes) in the line buffer 13 to perform high-speed printing (steps B8 to B10). In this case, all of the printing units 16a (for H dots) are used,
As shown in FIG. 5B, one scan prints, for example, 2.5 lines.

If an unprinted character is left unprinted in the previous printing (step B11), that is, if there is a line in which double-byte characters cannot be printed at once, the CPU 11 causes the CPU 11 of FIG.
As shown in (b), the paper is fed by the amount of H dots, and printing is resumed from the unprinted position (step B1).
2) If there is no such unprinted portion, H
Paper feed is performed by the value obtained by adding the line feed pitch P to the dots, and printing is started from the next line position (step B1).
3). Thereafter, the same processing as described above is repeated until there is no print data stored in the reception buffer 14 (step B14).

As described above, in the present invention, the high quality mode or the high speed mode can be selectively used as the printing mode. In this case, in the high quality mode, a part of each printing unit 16a of the print head 16 is used, and full-width characters are printed at once. Therefore, it is possible to prevent a character break due to double-strike and to obtain a high-quality print result. Further, in the high speed mode, since all the printing units 16a of the print head 16 are used, high speed printing can be performed.

The present invention may use either one-way printing or two-way printing. However, since the high quality mode is a mode in which the quality is pursued, it is better to print in one direction. Further, since the high speed mode is a mode in which the printing speed is pursued, bidirectional printing is better.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a printing apparatus having a print head capable of printing a plurality of lines such as a multi-line head, a high quality mode or a high speed mode is selectively used as a print mode. can do. Therefore, when it is desired to pursue quality, by selecting the high quality mode, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of character breaks due to double strokes and obtain high quality print results. Further, when it is desired to increase the printing speed, the high-speed printing, which is the original purpose of the multi-line head, can be performed by selecting the high-speed mode.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a line buffer of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a print head of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a print mode setting screen of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a printing operation in a high quality mode and a high speed mode of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a print mode setting operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining a print processing operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart for explaining a print processing operation of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... CPU, 12 ... Font memory, 13 ... Line buffer, 14 ... Receive buffer, 15 ... Head drive circuit,
16 ... Print head, 16a ... Printing section, 17 ... Carriage drive circuit, 18 ... Carriage, 19 ... Motor drive circuit,
20 ... Paper feed motor, 21 ... Host interface,
22 ... Host device, 23 ... Print mode storage unit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A print head in which print sections for a plurality of lines are arranged, a buffer for expanding a character pattern printed by the print head, and a print mode designation for designating a first or second print mode. Means and the print mode designating means, when the first print mode is designated, the print head expands a character pattern in a range in which double-byte characters can be printed at one time into the buffer, and the character pattern is described above. When the second print mode is designated by the print mode designating means, the first print control means for printing using a part of each of the print parts of the print head, Second printing in which a character pattern corresponding to the number of each print section is developed in the buffer and the character pattern is printed using all of the print sections of the print head Printing apparatus characterized by comprising a control means.