JPH06210936A - Printing control device of printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a device capable of stopping printing even when the sending-out of data from an external host computer is not stopped and capable of setting a printer to a printing reopening state within a short time after the stop of printing. CONSTITUTION:When a printing stop switch 15 is turned ON, the printing data stored in a page memory 11 is printed by a printing engine 13. The data sent out to a receving buffer 7 from an external host computer 1 through an interface is erased on the spot. A clocking part 17 starts clocking and, when the data sent out of the host computer 1 is absent after a predetermined time, a printer is turned OFF.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control device for a printer, and more particularly to a control device for stopping printing in a printer that prints according to a print command from an external host computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a printer that prints in response to a print command from an external host computer, a wrong size of printing paper is mounted on the printer or the printing mode is set incorrectly to start printing. In order to stop printing in such a case, conventionally, the transmission state of the host computer is first released, and then the printer is reset, that is, the reception buffer of the printer is cleared.

[0003]

However, in the conventional operation method, both the host computer and the printer need an operation for canceling the printing, and the printer is reset and the transmission state of the host computer is released. Then, although the reception buffer is cleared, the data taken in before the host computer is released from the transmission state may be printed.

Particularly in a system in which one printer is shared by a plurality of host computers, the host computer and the printer may not be adjacent to each other. In the conventional operating method, the print cancel operation is performed by each of the plurality of host computers and the printer. Must be performed, which causes inconvenience.

Further, when the printer is reset, the information temporarily set by the printer is changed to the default value.

Further, when the printer is turned off and printing is stopped, when the power is turned on again, a self-diagnosis process such as an error check is performed, and it takes a long time to be in a printable state.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention is capable of stopping printing only by a printing stop operation on the printer side, and further, printing control of a printer capable of restarting printing in a short time after the printing is stopped. The purpose is to provide a device.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a receiving means for receiving print information from an external device, decoding the received print information, and printing according to the print information. A printer print control device including a control unit for controlling a mechanism, the print control unit including a print stop unit for outputting a print stop signal, the control unit receiving a print stop signal and stopping the print operation of the print mechanism. Until the input of the print information from the external device is completed,
A print control device for a printer, characterized in that the received information is erased so that the information received by the receiving means is not used for controlling the printing mechanism.

[0009]

When the print stop signal is generated during printing, the print mechanism stops the print operation. The print information received by the receiving means is deleted until the input of print information from the external device is completed. Therefore, useless printing is not performed.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a print control device for a printer of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a circuit block diagram when the print control device of the present invention is applied to a printer. In FIG. 1, the printer 3 is composed of an interface (I / F) 5, a reception buffer 7, a control unit 9, a page memory 11, a print engine 13, a print cancel switch 15, and a clock unit 17. The print engine 13 is composed of a printing mechanism and a printing mechanism controller.

The interface 5 receives print information input one after another from the external host computer 1 and sends the print information to the reception buffer 7 in response to an information transfer command from the control unit 9. The reception buffer 7 is a storage unit that temporarily stores print information. The control unit 9 gives an information request command to the reception buffer 7 and takes in the print information temporarily stored in the reception buffer 7.

The control unit 9 decodes control commands, character codes, etc. from the fetched print information, creates image drawing data, and sends it to the page memory 11. The page memory 11 is a storage unit that stores data for one page, and when storage of data for one page is completed, an information transfer command from the control unit 9 causes
The image drawing data for one page is sent to the print engine 13. Then, the print engine 13 performs a printing operation according to a printing command from the control unit 9.

The print stop switch 15 is a switch means provided on the operation panel of the printer 3 in addition to a power switch, a reset switch, etc., and is operated when it is desired to interrupt printing after the start of printing. When the print stop switch 15 is turned on, the print stop switch 15 generates a print stop signal and sends it to the controller 9. The print stop switch 15 may be provided on the operation panel anew, and the print stop signal may be generated by combining a plurality of existing switches.

When the control section 9 receives the print stop signal, the print engine 13 prints the data for one page stored in the page memory 11. When the printing of the data for one page is completed, the control unit 9 gives a print stop command to the print engine 13 to prohibit printing on the second and subsequent pages. At the same time that the print engine 13 prints one page of data, the controller 9 gives an information erasing command to the receiving buffer 7 to erase the print information further input from the external host computer 1.

The timer unit 17 is a measuring means for measuring the elapsed time according to a command from the control unit 9. At the same time that the print information in the reception buffer 7 is erased, the control unit 9 gives a measurement start command to the clock unit 17 to measure the elapsed time. When a predetermined time has elapsed, the timer unit 17 generates a measurement signal and gives it to the control unit 9.

When the control unit 9 receives the measurement signal, the control unit 9 determines whether or not there is print information stored in the reception buffer 7. When there is no additional information, the control unit 9 considers that the print information input from the external host computer 1 has been completed, and sets the interface 5 to the external host computer 1 in the unreceivable state.

The main print control operation will be described in detail with reference to the print main control flowcharts shown in FIGS. still,
As described with reference to FIG. 1, the following print control operations are all performed by control commands output from the control unit 9.

When the power of the printer is turned on, STEP
At 1, an error check and initialization of the control unit 9 of the printer 3 and the print mechanism and the print engine 13 including the print mechanism control unit are performed.

Control commands and print data from the external host computer 1 are sent to the interface 5. ST
In EP2, the information sent to the interface 5 is temporarily stored in the reception buffer 7.

In STEP 3, the information temporarily stored in the reception buffer 7 is sent to the control unit 9 and the content of the information is analyzed. Then, in STEP 4, image drawing data is created and sent to the page memory 11. Next, in STEP 5, it is determined whether or not the image drawing data creation process for one page has been completed. If not completed, the process returns to STEP 2.

When it is determined that the image drawing data creation process for one page has been completed, in step 6, the image drawing data for one page is sent from the page memory 11 to the print engine 13. Then, in STEP 7, printing for one page is performed.

Next, the operation when the printing is stopped after the printing is started will be described with reference to the printing stop control flowcharts shown in FIGS.

When the print cancel switch 15 is turned on during printing, the main print control process of FIG. 2 is temporarily interrupted, and the process shifts to the print cancel control process which is the interrupt process of FIG.

In the print cancel control process, in STEP 8, the image drawing data stored in the page memory 11 is sent to the print engine 13 and printed. After printing the stored data, eject the printed paper.
Then, in STEP 9, the information sent from the host computer 1 even after the printing is stopped is input to the reception buffer 7 and passed to the control unit 9, but the information is not analyzed here and the information is simply discarded. Erased.

At STEP 10, it is determined whether or not there is more information input to the reception buffer 7. If it is determined that there is still information input to the reception buffer 7, STEP
Return to 9. On the other hand, when it is determined that there is no more information to be input to the reception buffer 7, the timer unit 17 starts timing in STEP 11. And in STEP 12,
After a predetermined time, it is determined whether or not there is more information input from the host computer 1 to the reception buffer 7. While the information is input, each processing of STEP9-12 is repeated.

When it is determined in STEP 12 that no information has been input even after the lapse of a predetermined time, the host computer 1
Since it is considered that the information transmission from
The interface 5 is temporarily disconnected from the communication with the host computer 1 at 3, and the receiving buffer 7, the page memory 11 and the print engine 13 are performed at STEP 14.
To initialize. Incidentally, the processing of STEP13 is the same as STEP1.
The printer 3 is made offline only during the initialization process so that data will not be lost later by inputting information from the host computer 1 during the initialization process of 4.

When the initialization process of STEP 14 is completed, the interrupt process is exited, and the STEP of the print main control process of FIG.
Return to 2.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, but can be implemented in other modes. Timing unit 17
Alternatively, the interface 5 may be disconnected from the communication with the host computer 1 without analyzing the information stored in the reception buffer 7 and detecting the control command indicating the end of the print data.

Further, as the interface between the host computer 1 and the printer 3, a bidirectional communication interface is adopted, and when the print stop switch 15 is pressed, not only the printer 3 but also the host computer 1 is selected. It is also possible to interrupt and stop the transmission of information from the host computer 1. As a result, the erase time (STEP 9) of the reception buffer 7 can be shortened.

Further, the print cancel switch 1 of the printer 3
It is also possible to interrupt the printing by interrupting the printer 3 in accordance with a control signal from the host computer 1 as well as from 5. As a result, the printing can be stopped depending on the circumstances of the host computer 1 and the information transmission from the host computer 1 can be stopped, so that it is not necessary to judge whether or not the information is transmitted (STEPs 10 and 12). .

Further, although the present invention is applied to the page printer in the above embodiment, it may be applied to the line printer. In this case, a line memory is provided instead of the page memory 11 of FIG. When the print stop switch 15 is pressed, one line of data stored in the line memory is printed and then the print is stopped. The subsequent operation is similar to that of the above embodiment.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since printing can be stopped without turning off the power of the printer, it takes less time to return to a printable state than before. Also, after printing is stopped, the information sent subsequently from the host computer is simply erased so that it will not be used for printing, so even if the sending state of the host computer is not canceled, it will be fetched from the host computer after printing is stopped. However, the data will not be printed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a print control device for a printer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing print main control processing of the printer of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing print stop control processing of the printer of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Host Computer 3 Printer 5 Interface 7 Receive Buffer 9 Control Section 11 Page Memory 13 Print Engine 15 Print Cancel Switch 17 Clock Section

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A print control device for a printer, comprising: receiving means for receiving print information from an external device; and control means for decoding the received print information and controlling a print mechanism according to the print information. A print canceling unit that outputs a print canceling signal, wherein the control unit receives the print canceling signal and stops the printing operation of the printing mechanism until the input of the print information from the external device is completed. A print control device for a printer, wherein the received information is erased so that the information received by the receiving means is not used for controlling the printing mechanism. 2. The print control device further comprises a time measuring means for measuring a time during which the input of the print information from the external device is stopped, and the control means has reached a predetermined time for the input stop time. At the time, it is considered that the input of the print information from the external device is completed, and the print control device of the printer.