JPH07117285A - Image forming method and device thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a highly efficient printing by continuing printing from a condition before occurrence of interruption when restarting printing after removing an obstruction. CONSTITUTION:When a printer 12 is in an interruption condition, a row for pages order is determined again after determining the range of pages to be printed upon restarting after the interruption by a pages order row preparation part 11c, based on the number of pages discharged from the printer 12 which are stored in a discharged pages-storing part 11g.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming method and apparatus for forming a page image on the basis of given data and forming an image on a sheet-like medium, and particularly to a method when the image forming is interrupted. The present invention relates to an image forming method and apparatus for restarting image formation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art How to efficiently restart printing when a trouble such as a paper jam occurs has been a conventional problem in an image forming method and its apparatus. In particular, the problem is remarkable in a method or apparatus for receiving data from a client, creating a page image based on the data, and printing the sheet paper, such as a network printer.

As a solution to the above problem, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-286667 discloses a printing system capable of restarting printing after the printer recovers from a failure without issuing a printing restart instruction.

In the conventional print resuming technology represented by the above printing system, the page number at the time of the failure is stored, and the printing is restarted from the page number.

However, according to the above-mentioned conventional technique, the printing can be resumed in the case of simply performing the one-sided printing sequentially. However, in the case of using the printer for carrying out the two-sided printing by retaining a plurality of sheets in the paper path, the printing is performed. Problems occur when resuming.

For example, when a 14-page document is printed on both sides using a face-down discharge type printer capable of retaining five sheets of paper at the same time in the printer, [2,4,6,8] , 10, 1,3,5,7,9, 12,14,11,13] Need to print in page order.

That is, first, the back page 5 (2,4,6,8,10
After printing (pages), the paper is retained in the paper path, and the surface corresponding to each paper (pages 1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
Is printed and sequentially ejected, and after ejecting each sheet, printing is continued in the same procedure.

In this case, for example, when a paper jam occurs during printing of the fifth page, it is conceivable to discharge the paper accumulated in the paper path when removing the paper jam.

In such a case, if printing is resumed from the state before the interruption, printing is performed in the order of [5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 11, 13] pages, so that the back side of the 5th page is the 11th. It becomes a page and causes page misalignment.

As described above, since there is a problem in that page misregistration occurs, the above-described printing restart technique cannot be applied when double-sided printing is performed by a printer that retains paper in a paper path.

[0011]

Therefore, in the present invention, such a problem is eliminated, and even when a printer that retains paper in the printer and prints is used, restarting the printing after the failure recovery is performed before the failure occurs. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus capable of continuing from the above state.

[0012]

To achieve the above object, a first invention is an image forming method for determining an order of pages to be image-formed and forming an image on a sheet-shaped medium according to the order of the pages. In (1), if the image formation is interrupted, the order of pages to be image-formed with respect to the pages that have not been completely discharged by the interruption is re-determined, and the image formation is restarted in accordance with the order of the pages.

A second aspect of the present invention is an image forming apparatus for determining the order of pages to be image-formed and performing image formation on a sheet-shaped medium in accordance with the order of the pages, in which the image formation is completed and the image forming apparatus is completed. Counting means for counting the number of discharged sheets discharged to the outside, and if the image formation is interrupted, a page which is not completely discharged by the interruption is judged based on the count value by the counting means, and a page to be image-formed with respect to the page. It is characterized by comprising a page order determining means for re-determining the order of, and an image forming restarting means for restarting image formation in the page order determined by the page order determining means.

[0014]

According to the first aspect of the invention, for each page which has not been discharged to the outside of the image forming apparatus when the image formation is interrupted, the order of pages to be subjected to image formation after interruption recovery is re-determined, and the page is re-determined. An image is formed on a sheet-shaped medium according to the order.

According to the second aspect of the invention, the number of discharged sheets discharged to the outside of the image forming apparatus after the image forming is completed is counted by the counting means, and if the image forming is interrupted,
The range of pages on which image formation is performed after interruption is determined based on the count value of the counting means, and the order of pages with respect to the range of pages is redetermined. Then, the image formation restarting unit restarts the image formation in the order of the pages.

As a result, even when a printer is used which prints by holding paper in the printer, it is possible to continue printing after the failure recovery from the state before the failure occurred.

[0017]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of a system using the printer control device according to the present invention and the configuration of the printer control device.

As shown in FIG. 1, in this system, a printer control device 11 for controlling a printer 12 and document creation devices 13 and 14 are connected to a network 15.

The printer 12 is a printer controller 1.
1 is a type of printer that receives bitmap data as print data from 1 and retains paper in the printer 12 when performing double-sided printing, and the document creation devices 13 and 14 create and edit documents. It is a terminal device which converts into a page description language (hereinafter referred to as “PDL”) and sends it to the network 15.

The printer control device 11 is a document creation device 1.
The documents created in 3 or 14 are accepted as PDL-converted document data, and each document is accepted in the order of acceptance by the printer 1.
2 is a device for controlling printing.

Specifically, when the document data received from the network 15 is accepted as a print job, the page image represented by the PDL included in this print job is converted into bitmap data, and the bitmap data is converted. Will be output to the printer 12.

The print control device 11 includes a print job receiving section 11a, a print processing executing section 11b, a page sequence creating section 11c, a bitmap data creating section 11d, a buffer memory 11e, and a communication section 11f.
It is composed of a discharged sheet number storage unit 11g.

The print job accepting section 11a accepts the document data output from the document creating apparatus 13 or 14 as a print job via the network 15, and outputs it to the print processing executing section 11b in the order of acceptance.

The print processing execution unit 11b transfers the print job input from the print job reception unit 11a to the page order sequence creation unit 11c, and the page order necessary for executing the print job (hereinafter referred to as "page sequence sequence"). , And the bitmap data creation unit 11d according to the page order sequence returned from the page order sequence creation unit 11c.

When the printer 12 interrupts the process due to a failure such as a paper jam, the page range to be printed after restarting the interruption is selected based on the number of ejected sheets stored in the ejected sheet number storage unit 11g. The range is the page order sequence creation unit 1
Notify 1c and instruct to re-determine the page sequence.

Upon receipt of the document included in the print job, the page order sequence creating unit 11c determines the page sequence sequence in consideration of the number of print copies, print type (single-sided or double-sided), printer model, etc., and executes print processing. It is sent to the section 11b.

The page order sequence creating section 11c holds information about the print job until the print job is completed, and when a page range change notification due to a failure is received, the page sequence order Make a decision again.

The bitmap data creation unit 11d, in the order of pages received from the print processing execution unit 11b, PD
The page image described by L is interpreted to create bitmap data, which is stored in the buffer memory 11e.

The buffer memory 11e temporarily stores the data in the FIFO (First In First Out) format in order to transmit the bitmap data created by the bitmap data creating unit 11d to the printer 12 via the communication unit 11f. To do.

The communication unit 11f sends the bitmap data stored in the buffer memory 11e to the printer 12, and outputs the number of printed sheets, status and the like from the printer 12 to the print processing execution unit 11b.

The ejected number storage unit 11g is a storage unit for storing the number of sheets ejected from the printer 12, and the print processing execution unit 11b which has received the notification of the ejected number from the printer 12 ejects it to the ejected number storage unit 11g. Stores the number of sheets.

The overall configuration of the system used in this embodiment and the configuration of the printer control device 11 according to the present invention have been described above. By using the above configuration, the document creation device 1
The documents created in 3 and 14 can be expanded into bitmap data according to the page sequence and printed by the printer 12.

Next, the printer control device 1 having the above configuration
The processing procedure performed by No. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, if the document data described in the PDL created by the document creating apparatus 13 or 14 is accepted as a print job by the print job accepting unit 11a (S201), the print job is printed. The page sequence generator 11 via the execution unit 11b
Input to c.

The page order sequence creating unit 11c creates a page sequence sequence corresponding to the print job (S20).
2) The page sequence is output to the print processing execution unit 11b.

The print processing execution unit 11b that has received the page order sequence requests the bitmap data creation unit 11d to create the bitmap data in the page order of the page sequence sequence, and also creates the requested bitmap data. The unit 11d interprets the PDL of each page to create bitmap data (S203), and stores the data in the buffer memory 11e.

Then, the transmission section 11f successively outputs the bitmap data stored in the buffer memory 11e to the printer 1.
2 is transmitted (S204), the printer 12 prints a page.

The processes of S203 to S204 are repeated until there are no more pages (S205), and the process ends when the page ends.

By performing the series of processes described above, the document data received from the document creating device 13 or 14 can be printed using the printer 12.

Next, the page sequence forming unit 11c causes the S20
The concept of the page order sequence performed in 2 will be described in detail.

The page order sequence indicates the order of pages for converting a page image into bitmap data, and the number of sheets that can be retained in the printer and the sheet discharge type (front surface discharge or rear surface discharge. In the invention,
The form in which documents are discharged face up is referred to as front discharge, and the form in which documents are discharged face down is referred to as back face discharge. ), And the concept uniquely determined by the document attributes such as the number of pages and the type of printing (single-sided or double-sided).

For example, when a document consisting of 14 pages is printed by simplex output to a printer that ejects the document face up, it is necessary to sequentially output the pages after the document. , A = [14,13,12,11, ..., 2,1].

Further, when printing is performed on the printer ejecting face down, it is necessary to sequentially output from the previous page of the document. Therefore, the page sequence B is B = [1,2,3, 4, ..., 13,14].

As described above, when a document is output on one side, there are only two types of page sequence, A and B.

However, there are many possible page sequence sequences for outputting a document on both sides, depending on the printer model, such as sequential double-sided printing or double-sided printing in units of a fixed number of sheets.

Therefore, in the following, the page order sequence in the paper retention type printer will be described with reference to "printing the back surface up to a predetermined number set in the printer and then performing the front surface printing and sequentially discharging" explain.

As shown in FIG. 3, when a 14-page document is printed on both sides of a printer with a face-down discharge in which five sheets are retained in a paper path and double-sided printing is performed, first, the back side is printed. Since it is necessary to print five sheets (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 pages), the page sequence C is C = [2,4,6,8,10] (S301).

Next, in order to print on the front surface (1,3,5,7,9) of the paper held in the paper path, the page sequence C is C = [2,4,6,8,10, 1,3,5,7,9] (S302).

After the above-mentioned double-sided printing of the five sheets is completed, the back side of the remaining pages is printed by the same procedure (S
303), for printing the surface of the corresponding page, the final page sequence C is C = [2,4,6,8,10,1,3,5,7,9,12,14,11 , 13] (S304).

Since this page sequence is uniquely determined by the type of printer and the type of document,
Although it should be fixedly set in the printer, when printing is restarted after interruption, efficient restart processing is possible by resetting this page sequence.

Therefore, a printing restart procedure in the case where the printer 12 has a paper jam trouble while the printer 12 is executing the printing process (S204) will be described with reference to the drawing shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 4, when the printer 12 receives the bitmap data from the printer control device 11, the sequential printing process is performed (4a) and the printing result is discharged and the process is terminated.

When the printer 12 ejects printed paper, the printer controller 11 can know the ejection status of the printer 12 by notifying the printer controller 11 of the number of ejected sheets (4b). I shall.

If a paper jam occurs while the printer 12 is executing the print process (4a) (4c), the printer 12 interrupts the print process (4d).
The printer controller 11 is notified of the failure status as status (4e).

Upon confirming the occurrence of a failure in the printer 12, the printer controller 11 issues an alarm to the printer administrator to send a recovery operation and prepares for restarting printing after the failure recovery. Specifically, before the printer administrator clears the paper jam of the printer 12 (4f), the print controller 11 reconfigures the page sequence using the number of ejected sheets (4g).

That is, in the resuming procedure according to the present invention, the printing process is not continued by using the page sequence sequence initially created, but printing is performed by reconstructing a new page sequence sequence for the pages not discharged. The process is restarted.

The reason for newly reconstructing the page sequence as described above is that if the page sequence originally created is used, the above-described problem of page misalignment occurs when performing double-sided printing. is there.

Therefore, in the present invention, when a failure occurs at the fifth page, pages 1 to 4 (two-sided printing of two sheets) have already been discharged, so that new pages 5 to 14 are targeted. The page sequence EE = [6,8,10,12,14,5,7,9,11,13] is created and printing is restarted.

Then, based on the newly created page sequence E, the printer control device 12 creates bitmap data (4h) and transfers it to the printer 12. As a result, the printer 12 that has recovered from the failure can restart the printing process in the same procedure as before the failure occurred (4
i).

By performing the series of processes described above, it becomes possible to restart the printing process without causing a page shift without wasting the document printed and discharged before the occurrence of the trouble.

In the above-described embodiment, the case of using the face-down discharge printer for performing double-sided printing in which five sheets are retained in the paper path and the printing surface is changed every five sheets has been described. The invention can be applied to the case where various types of printers are used.

Therefore, next, a printer that performs one-sided printing and a printer that allows N-sided sheets to remain in the paper path and changes the printing side for each N-sided sheet while performing double-sided printing (hereinafter referred to as "A Type printer ”) and N-sided paper is retained in the paper path for double-sided printing, and the next paper is fed and printed each time the paper is discharged. 5 to FIG. 7 for the procedure of page order sequence creation processing when printing P documents using the page order sequence creation processing unit 11c that is compatible with three types of printers).
Will be explained.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing a printer model selection process and a page sequence sequence creation procedure for a type A printer.

As shown in FIG. 5, the page sequence forming unit 1
When 1c receives an instruction to create a page sequence from the print processing execution unit 11b, it determines whether it is single-sided printing or double-sided printing (S501), and if it is single-sided printing, a page for single-sided printing. Sequence creation process (S502)
After that, the process ends.

On the other hand, when performing double-sided printing,
It is determined whether the printer is an A type printer or a B type printer (S503), and if the printer is a B type printer, a B type page sequence sequence creation process (S504).
After that, the process ends.

On the other hand, in the case of the A type printer, it is determined whether the back side discharge or the front side discharge is performed (S
505). Then, in the case of the back side ejection, the A type back side ejection page sequence sequence creation processing is performed (S506), and in the case of the front side ejection, the A type front side ejection page sequence sequence creation process is performed (S507), and the processing is ended. .

Here, in the A type back side ejection page sequence sequence creation processing, N sheets of paper are retained in the paper path, and the printing surface is changed every N sheets, and the document of P sheets is printed on both sides. Since it is necessary to create a page sequence for discharging the back side, the page sequence Ab in this case is Ab = [2,4, ..., 2N, 1,3, ..., 2N-1, 2N + 2, ...]

Further, in the A type front side page discharge sequence creating process, N sheets of paper are retained in the paper path, the printing surface is changed for every N sheets, and double sided printing of a document of P sheets is performed. Since it is necessary to create a page sequence for discharging, the page sequence Af in this case is Af = [P, P-2, ..., P-2N + 2, P-1, P-3 , ・ ・ ・, P-2N + 1, P-
2N, ...]

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing of the single-sided printing page sequence sequence processing (S502).

As shown in FIG. 6, when creating a page sequence for single-sided printing, it is determined whether or not the back side is to be discharged (S601). The sequence sequence creation process (S602) is performed, and when the front side is discharged, the single-sided printing front face discharge page sequence sequence creation process (S602) is performed and the post-process is terminated.

Here, in the single-sided printing back-side ejection page sequence sequence creation processing, it is necessary to create a page sequence sequence for performing sequential printing from the front side, so the page sequence sequence Sb in this case is Sb = [1, 2,3,4, ..., P].

In addition, in the single-sided printing front side discharge page sequence sequence creation processing, since it is necessary to create a page sequence sequence for performing sequential printing from the back side, the page sequence sequence Sf in this case is Sf = [P, P -1, P-2, ..., 2,1].

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the process flow of the B type page order sequence creating process (S504).

As shown in FIG. 7, when creating a B-type page sequence, it is determined whether or not the back side is to be discharged (S701). The sequence sequence creation process (S602) is performed, and in the case of the front face discharge, the B type front face discharge page sequence sequence creation process (S602) is performed and the post-process is terminated.

Here, in the B-type back side ejection page sequence sequence creation processing, N sheets of paper are retained in the paper path, and the printing surface is changed for every N sheets, and the document of P sheets is printed on both sides. Since it is necessary to create a page sequence for feeding and printing the next paper each time the paper is discharged, the page sequence Bb in this case
Becomes Bb = [2,4, ..., 2N, 1,2N + 2,3,2N + 4, ...].

Further, in the B-type front page ejection sequence creation processing, N sheets of paper are retained in the paper path, the printing surface is changed every N sheets, and double-sided printing of a document of P sheets is performed. Since it is necessary to create a page order sequence for feeding and printing the next paper each time the paper is discharged, the page order sequence Bf in this case is Bf = [P, P-2, ...・, P-2N + 2, P-1, P-2N, P-3,…].

By carrying out the series of processes described above, it is possible to create a page sequence that is compatible with a plurality of types of printers.

In order to perform the above processing, when the print processing execution unit 11b makes a processing request to the page sequence forming unit 11c, "whether single-sided printing or double-sided printing", "printer A Type or B type "," whether it is back side discharge or front side discharge "
It is necessary to add information such as "the number of documents".

As described above, in this embodiment, the printer 12 ejects to the printer control device 11 that performs print control using the printer 12 that holds a predetermined number of sheets in the paper path and performs double-sided printing. In addition to storing the number of printed sheets, when the printing process of the printer 12 is interrupted due to a paper jam or the like, the page sequence is re-determined based on the number of discharged sheets. Even when a printer is used that prints by retaining paper in the sheet, it is possible to resume printing after the failure recovery from the state before the failure occurrence.

Therefore, the subsequent print processing can be executed without wasting the print output discharged before the failure.

Further, since printing can be smoothly resumed when a failure occurs, it is possible to improve the printing efficiency of the printer 12.

[0083]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, the order of pages on which an image is formed is redetermined before the interrupted image forming process is restarted. Even when a printer that performs printing is used, the image forming process is restarted from the state before the failure, and the discharged pages are not wasted after the image forming is completed, so that the restart process can be efficiently performed. .

Further, by restarting the image forming process, it is not necessary to re-register the job as in the conventional case, so that the use efficiency of the image forming apparatus can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the overall configuration of a network and the configuration of a printer control device 11 according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure performed by the printer control apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a page order sequence when double-sided printing is performed in the page order sequence generation unit shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a restart procedure when a failure occurs during execution of print processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure performed by the page order sequence creating unit shown in FIG. 1 when creating a page sequence sequence corresponding to a plurality of printer models.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure for creating a single-sided output page order sequence shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a procedure for creating a B-type printer page sequence shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 printer control device, 11a print job acceptance unit, 11b print processing execution unit, 11c page sequence creation unit, 11d bitmap data creation unit,
11e buffer memory, 11f communication unit, 11g
Ejection number storage unit, 12 printer, 13 document creation device, 14 document creation device, 15 network

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. In an image forming method for determining an order of pages to be image-formed and forming an image on a sheet-shaped medium according to the order of the pages, if the image formation is interrupted, the discharging is not completed by the interruption. An image forming method characterized by re-determining the order of pages to be image-formed with respect to pages and restarting image formation in accordance with the order of the pages. 2. An image forming apparatus for determining an order of pages to be image-formed and performing image formation on a sheet-shaped medium in accordance with the order of the pages, and the number of discharged sheets discharged to the outside of the image forming apparatus after image formation is completed. If the image formation is interrupted by a counting means, the page which is not completely discharged by the interruption is judged based on the count value by the counting means, and the order of the pages to be image-formed with respect to the page is redetermined. An image forming apparatus comprising: a page order determining unit; and an image forming restarting unit that restarts image formation in the page order determined by the page order determining unit.