JPH06115176A - Electronic numbering printing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a CPU perform numbering printing with enough time by synthesizing successively. a fixed part of text data and a numbering data stored in a numbering data generating and storing means at an interruption timing of print processing and repeating printing by using the synthesized data. CONSTITUTION:In an electronic numbering printing apparatus wherein printing is repeated while the number of a variable part in the text data for printing is changed according to a specified rule in accordance with a specified numbering command input, a numbering data generating and storing means 43 generates numbering data prepd. by changing the numeral value of the variable part based on a specified rule before printing and stores the generated numbering data. In addition, a synthesizing printing means 29 synthesizes successively a fixed part in the text data and the numbering data stored in a storing means 43 at an interruption timing of print processing and repeats printing based on the synthesized data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic control numbering printing apparatus which repeats printing while changing the numerical value of a variable portion in text data for printing in accordance with a predetermined law in response to a predetermined numbering instruction input.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-43879, there is known an electronic numbering device which is miniaturized by electronic control and which enables arbitrary serial number recording. This device repeats printing while changing the numerical value of the variable portion of the text data to be printed by a predetermined value at the end of the printing operation.

[0003]

Therefore, in the conventional apparatus, first, one numbering data is generated and the printing process is executed, then one numbering data to be printed is generated, and the printing process is executed again. However, only one numbering data is generated, and the processing such as ... Is repeated.

Normally, the print processing is executed by interruption, so that the CPU can execute other processing between prints. However, in the conventional apparatus, as described above, printing, numbering data generation, printing, numbering data generation, and so on are repeated. Therefore, it is necessary to execute processing for generating numbering data between printing operations. There is a problem in that while the process related to the numbering is being performed, the process other than the process related to the numbering cannot be executed. As a result, the conventional device has a problem that the CPU becomes insufficient in performance when trying to execute a more complicated process.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronically controlled numbering printing apparatus in which a CPU can perform numbering printing with a margin and can also perform other processing in parallel.

[0006]

The electronically controlled numbering printing apparatus of the present invention made to achieve this object has a numerical value of a variable portion in text data for printing in response to a predetermined numbering instruction input. In an electronically controlled numbering printing device that repeats printing while changing the number according to a predetermined law, prior to printing, the numbering data in which the numerical value of the variable portion is changed according to the predetermined law is generated, and the generated numbering data is stored. The numbering data generating / storing means to be stored, the fixed portion in the text data and the numbering data stored in the numbering data generating / storing means are sequentially synthesized at the interrupt timing of the printing process, and the synthesized data And a synthetic printing means for repeating printing based on And butterflies.

As a result of the above construction, according to the electronically controlled numbering printing device of the present invention, the numbering data is generated prior to printing. Then, at the interrupt timing of the print processing, the composite print means only has to combine the data and print. As a result,
Between the printing process and the next printing process, the CPU does not need to generate the numbering data, it has a margin, and other processes can be performed in parallel.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS As a preferred embodiment of the electronically controlled numbering printer of the present invention described above, a tape printer having the structure of the present invention will be described. In this embodiment, the present invention is applied to a printing apparatus 1 capable of printing a large number of characters such as alphabetic characters and symbols on a printing tape (printing medium) 5.

As shown in FIG. 1, a keyboard 3 is provided in the front part of the main body frame 2 of the tape printer 1, and a printing mechanism PM is provided in the main body frame 2 behind the keyboard 3 and the keyboard 3 is provided. Behind 3 is provided a liquid crystal display (LCD) 22 capable of displaying characters and symbols. Further, on the right side surface of the main body frame 2, an interface (RS for receiving transmission data from an external device is provided.
232C) terminal 4 is provided.

On the keyboard 3, character input keys for inputting alphabets, numbers, symbols, etc., a cursor movement key 50, a return key 5 for line feed or decision.
1, interface key 5 to set the communication function
2 or format key 53 and power ON / OFF
A power key and the like for F are provided.

The printing mechanism PM will be briefly described with reference to FIG. 2. 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.
A platen roller 14 that presses the printing tape 5 and the double-sided tape 10 against the joining roller 12 are rotatably supported by a support 16. The thermal head 13 is provided with a heating element group consisting of 128 heating elements arranged in a vertical direction corresponding to the width of the printing tape 5 of about 24 mm.

Therefore, by driving the tape feed motor 24 (see FIG. 3) in the predetermined rotation direction, the joining roller 12 and the take-up spool 9 are driven in synchronization with each other in the predetermined rotation direction to form 128 heating element groups. When energized, characters and bit images are printed on the printing tape 5 by a plurality of dot rows (up to 128 dots) almost completely in the tape width, and the printing tape 5 is a state in which the double-sided tape 10 is joined. Then, the tape is fed in the tape feeding direction A.
For details of the printing mechanism PM, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-106.
See Japanese Patent No. 555.

A cassette discriminating member 17 for setting the type of the tape accommodating cassette CS, that is, the tape width of the accommodated printing tape 5 is attached to the bottom wall of the tape accommodating cassette CS. A cassette discrimination sensor 18 (see FIG. 3) including a photo interrupter for detecting a provided protruding piece (not shown) is attached to the main body frame 2. Therefore, the tape width can be detected based on the discrimination signal from the cassette discrimination sensor 18. Also, the tape width is "6 mm",
Various tape storage cassettes CS around which the printing tapes 5 of “9 mm”, “12 mm”, and “18 mm” are wound are prepared separately.

The tape storage cassette CS that stores the printing tapes 5 having a width other than the width of 24 mm is mounted on the tape printing apparatus 1 in the same manner as the tape storage cassette CS that stores the printing tape 5 having a width of 24 mm. . Then, by defining which heating element in the heating element group is to generate heat according to the width of each printing tape 5, the width of the printing tape 5 mounted on the printing tape 5 will be substantially full. Printing is performed.

Next, the control system of the tape printer 1 is shown in FIG.
The block diagram of FIG. A display R for outputting display data to the keyboard 3, the cassette discrimination sensor 18, and the liquid crystal display (LCD) 22.
Display controller (LCDC) 2 with AM
3, a communication interface 19 for receiving data transmitted from an external device, a drive circuit 25 for driving the thermal head 13, and a tape feed motor 24.
And a drive circuit 26 for driving the control circuit C and the input / output interface 27 of the control device C, respectively. The control device C includes a CPU 29, an input / output interface 27 connected to the CPU 29 via a bus 28 such as a data bus, a CGROM 30, ROMs 31, 32, and a RAM.
And 40.

CGROM (pattern data memory) 30
In FIG. 5, dot pattern data for display is stored in association with code data for each of a large number of characters. ROM (outline data memory) 31
In order to print the character, the outline data (outline data) that defines the outline of the character for each of a large number of characters is a typeface (Gothic typeface,
It is classified according to Mincho typeface, etc.) and stored in association with code data. Each of the large number of outline data stores the size of the print image in the vertical direction and the size of the print image in the horizontal direction.

A program for operating the tape printer 1 is stored in the ROM 32. RAM40
The text memory area 41 stores the code data of characters and symbols input from the keyboard 3. The numbering memory 43 stores numbering data described later. The print buffer area 47 stores the data of the print dot pattern that has been image-developed. Also,
The RAM 40 is provided with a buffer for temporarily storing the calculation result calculated by the CPU 29, an area for a counter, a pointer, and the like.

Next, regarding the operation of the tape printer 1,
This will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. When the operation is started, first, each data in the RAM 40 is converted into initial data according to the program in the ROM 32 (S1).
0). Then, it is determined whether or not a key input is made from the keyboard 3 (S20). If there is any key input, the process exits S20, and it is determined whether or not this key input is an operation for character input (S30).

In the case of character input, the display 22 is scrolled as necessary to display the input character (S40), and the input character data is stored in the text memory area 41 (S50). On the other hand, if it is not a character input, it is determined whether it is a cursor key input (S60). If it is a cursor key input, it is determined whether or not the current cursor position is a movable position (S7).
0), an alarm is issued when the position is immovable (S80). If it is in a movable position, the cursor movement or scroll processing is executed as it is (S9).
0).

On the other hand, if it is not the cursor key input, it is determined whether or not the key input is an instruction for the numbering setting mode (S100). If the key input is an instruction of the numbering setting mode, a numbering setting process described later is executed (S110).

If it is not the key input instructing the numbering setting mode, it is determined whether or not the key input is instructing the print mode (S120). Then, if it is a key input for instructing the print mode, the print processing described later is executed (S130). On the other hand, if it is not the key input for instructing the print mode, it is further determined what the key input is and the process according to the determination result is executed (S14).
0). Incidentally, S50, S80, S90, S110, S13
0, when the processing of S140 is completed, the processing returns to the processing of S20.

Next, the numbering setting process will be described with reference to FIGS.
A description will be given based on the flowchart. First, it is determined whether the numbering setting is possible (S200). This is a process for confirming that the cursor is not located where there is no text. If the cursor is not on the text, an alarm is issued (S210). When the cursor is on the text, the display at the cursor position is changed to the reverse display (S220). Then, a key scan is performed (S230), and if the cursor movement is input (S240), it is determined whether or not the movement is to a movable position (S250). If the cursor cannot be moved, an alarm is issued (S260). ), If it can be moved, the new cursor position is highlighted (S270).

On the other hand, if the operated key is not the cursor key (S240: NO), it is determined whether or not it is a key for instructing execution of numbering (numbering execution key) (S280). If it is the numbering execution key, it is determined whether or not the cursor highlighted up to that point is within 10 digits (S290). This is to confirm that the number of characters that can be numbered is within the limit.

When it is determined that the number of digits exceeds 10 digits, an alarm is issued (S300), and when it is determined that the number of digits is less than 10 digits, outside the data of the start and end points of the reversal area. A start point code is inserted before the character code of "1" in the text memory area 41 and an end point code is inserted after the character code of "3" (S3).
10) On the display on the display 22, the mark "[N]" is inserted at the start point code position and the mark "N]" is inserted at the end point code position to cancel the reverse display up to that point (S320).

On the other hand, if it is not the execution key (S28
0: NO), it is determined whether or not the cancel key (S33).
0), if it is a cancel key, the reverse display is canceled and the process is terminated (S340). If a key other than the cursor key, the numbering execution key, and the cancel key is input (S240, S280, S330: NO), it is determined that an unnecessary key has been input, and the input key is ignored.
The process returns to S230, and the key scan is performed again.

As described above, for example, as shown in FIG. 8A, the text "ABC123XYZ" is displayed on the display 22, and after the cursor is moved to "1", the numbering setting mode is instructed. When the key is input, the highlighted display is moved to "3" by inputting the cursor key, and when the numbering execution key is input, a mark "[N" is displayed before "1" as shown in FIG. 8 (B). ,
The mark "N" is displayed after "3". “123” sandwiched between these marks is the variable area.

Next, the printing process will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10. When the printing process is started, it is first determined whether or not there is text data in the text memory area 41 (S400). If there is no text data, an alarm is issued and the process ends (S410). On the other hand, if there is text data, a process for setting the number of prints to be numbered is executed (S420). The numbering number setting process is, specifically, a process of setting the number of sheets to be numbered printed to any one of 1 to 99, and as shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, the numbering on the liquid crystal display 22 is performed. A message prompting you to set the number is displayed (S4
22), the numbering number is set based on the key input (S424, S426).

Next, by detecting whether or not the start point code and the end point code are stored in the text memory area 41, it is judged whether or not there is a numbering designation (S430). In step S440, the numbering memory expansion processing is executed.

This numbering memory expansion processing is shown in FIG.
The procedure is shown in 3. First, the data in the variable area designated by the numbering is read from the text memory area 41 (S441). Next, it is determined whether or not the data in the variable area can be counted up (S44).
2). If the data can be counted up, that is, if it is numeric data, the read data of the variable area counts up the numbers representing the numbering data (S44).
3), the character data group represented by the number is stored in the numbering memory 43 of the RAM 40 as numbering data (S444). The numbering data is the S
It is determined whether or not the numbering number set in 420 has been created (S445), and if the numbering number set has not been reached (S445: N
O), the latest numbering data stored in the numbering memory 43 in S444 is read out (S44
6) It is determined whether or not the data can be counted up (S442). If the data can be counted up, the number represented by the read numbering data is counted up (S).
443), and the data representing the number is additionally stored in the numbering memory 43 as new numbering data (S444). The processing of S442 to S446 is repeated until the number of set numbering sheets is performed,
When the set number of sheets is repeated (S
445: YES), numbering memory expansion processing (S4
40) ends, and the process of S450 described below is performed.

On the other hand, if the variable area data is data that cannot be counted up, that is, character data (S4
42: NO), the process of S443 is passed and the process proceeds to S444. As described above, for the text data “ABCD123XYZ” illustrated in FIG. 8, the numbering memory is set based on “123” set as the variable area and the numbering number set in S420, for example, 89 sheets. In the area 43, “124”, “12
89 pieces of numerical data obtained by counting up "5", "126", ..., "212" and "123" are stored. In the apparatus of the embodiment, the numbering memory area 43 has a maximum of 99.
It is configured so that up to individual pieces of data can be stored.

When the numbering memory expansion processing is completed in this way, next, the text data is expanded into an image,
The image is stored in the image buffer (S450). Then, the interrupt process for printing is started (S460). That is, the numbering memory expansion has already been completed at the time when the print interrupt starts.

While starting the print interrupt process,
As shown in FIG. 10, it is determined whether or not there is a numbering designation as in S430 (S470). If the numbering is designated (S470: YES), the numbering data in the numbering memory 43 is replaced with the data in the variable area of the text data to synthesize new text data (S480). In this process, as shown in FIG. 14, one numbering data is read from the numbering memory 43 (S481), this is replaced with the data in the variable area of the text data to create new text data and is stored in the text memory area 41. The numbering data stored in (S482) and read out in S481 is erased from the numbering memory 43 (S).
483).

When the combination process of one numbering data is completed in this way, it is judged whether or not the printing has already been completed by the number of set numbering sheets (S49).
0). If printing is not completed (S490: NO),
Wait until the print interrupt process is completed (S500: N
O), when the print interrupt processing is completed (S500:
YES), each character of the text data synthesized in the process of S480 is image-developed to create a print dot pattern, the print dot pattern data is stored in the print buffer area 47, and the process returns to S460 to perform the print interrupt process. To start.

If no numbering is designated (S47)
When the print interrupt process is completed (S540: NO), the print process is completed when the print interrupt process is completed (S540: NO). Also,
When the numbering is designated (S470: YES) and the printing is completed by the number of set number of sheets (S470: YES), the completion of the print interrupt process is waited (S540: NO), and the print interrupt process is completed. At that time (S540: YES), the printing process ends.

Next, the print interrupt process will be described.
The print interrupt process is executed according to the procedure shown in FIG. First, it is determined whether or not there is data in the print buffer area 47 (S461). If there is no data, the motor 24 and the thermal head 13 are turned off (S462), and the print interrupt process ends. On the other hand, if there is data in the print buffer area 47, this is read and the motor 24 and the thermal head 13 are driven to execute printing (S46).
3). Then, the printed data is transferred to the print buffer area 47.
To clear (S464).

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the expansion of the numbering data in the numbering memory area 43 is completed before the printing is started (S440, S45).
0). Then, at the time of printing, the numbering data which has already been expanded and stored is simply fitted into the variable area (S470 to S530).

In order to generate the numbering data, it is necessary to activate a program for generating the numbering data, generate the numbering data, and store the numbering data, and the CPU is occupied for a considerable period of time. Therefore, in the configuration in which the numbering data is also generated at the time of the print interruption as in the conventional case, the CP is not provided between the prints.
It becomes difficult to leave U. On the other hand, according to the present embodiment, as described above, since the numbering data is first generated and stored, the CPU outputs the numbering data between a certain print interrupt and the next print interrupt. There is no need to execute the process to generate, and it will be freed up accordingly. Therefore, it is possible to execute more complicated processing and other processing by utilizing this vacancy, and it is possible to achieve multifunctionality and efficiency.

The embodiment of the present invention has been described above.
The present invention is not limited to these examples, and it goes without saying that the present invention can be implemented in various modes without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0040]

As described above in detail, according to the electronic control numbering printing apparatus of the present invention, the CPU can carry out the numbering printing with a margin, and can also perform other processing in parallel. Efficiency and efficiency can be achieved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing the overall configuration of a tape printer as an example.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of a printing mechanism of a tape printer as an example.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a control system of the tape printer as an example.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a main routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a main routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a numbering setting processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a numbering setting processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of a display state when a numbering is set in the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a print processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of a print processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a numbering number setting processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of a display display state when setting the number of numbering in the embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a numbering memory expansion processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of a numbering combination processing routine in the embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of a print interrupt processing routine in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... tape printer, 2 ... main body frame, 3 ...
..Keyboard, 4 ... terminal, 5 ... printing tape, 13 ... thermal head, 19 ... communication interface, 22 ... liquid crystal display, 24 ...
・ Tape feed motor, 27 ... Input / output interface, 28 ... Bus, 29 ... CPU, 30 ... C
GROM, 31, 32 ... ROM, 40 ... RA
M.

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location G06F 15/20 566 P 9288-5L

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. According to a predetermined numbering instruction input,
In an electronically controlled numbering printing device that repeats printing while changing the value of the variable part in the text data for printing according to a predetermined rule, prior to printing, the numbering data in which the value of the variable part is changed according to the predetermined rule is generated. At the same time, a numbering data generating / storing means for storing the generated numbering data, a fixed portion in the text data, and a numbering data generating / storing means at the interrupt timing of the printing process.
An electronically controlled numbering printing device comprising: a composite printing unit that sequentially combines the numbering data stored in the storage unit and repeats printing based on the combined data.