JPH07125373A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To save the tape and simplify the operation for confirmation by a method wherein an input and storage device of printing data and format data and an indication device indicating the printing data into a printable mode are provided. CONSTITUTION:A control part 21 of a label printing device performs a Chinese character conversion process converting kana input through a key input part 9 into the Chinese character and storage processing of the kana and Chinese character code data into an RAM 23 at the central processing part controlling operation of parts each of circuits in accordance with a control program to be stored in an ROM 22. Then in a data setting mode, a letter code data stored into the RAM 23 is transmitted to an indication memory 24, a driver 25 is driven and prepared writing is indicated on a dot matrix liquid crystal indication part 2. Then, when an image indication key is operated, the printing data in the form of a designated character is read out through a character generator 26, developed into the RAM 23, transmitted to the indication memory 24 and indicated to the liquid crystal indication part 2.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for printing print data having a specified format.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Labels are used for various purposes such as file management, organizing video tapes, cassette tapes, etc., and equipment management, and there has been a demand to print characters on these labels neatly instead of handwriting. Therefore, a printing apparatus has been realized in which the user can arbitrarily select the character font, size, etc., and print it on a label.

[0003]

By the way, when characters of various sizes and fonts are designated and characters are input, it is possible to confirm whether or not the overall balance such as the arrangement of the characters and the size of the characters is appropriate. It is convenient.

Conventionally, there are some which can display the entire layout of the input character string, but since the actual characters are not displayed in the layout display, it is not possible to confirm in the same state as the printed state. Therefore, conventionally, it was actually printed on the label and checked,
This method has the disadvantage that the label is wasted.

An object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus capable of displaying an input character string in a printed form.

[0006]

In the printing apparatus of the present invention, the input means inputs print data and format data. This input means includes, for example, a character input key for inputting print data, a key for specifying a character size, a font, a print format such as vertical writing and horizontal writing.

The storage means stores the input print data and format data. The display means displays the print data in a form in which the print data is printed on the recording medium.

[0008]

In the present invention, when the print data and the format data for designating the font, the font size, etc. are input,
Since the print data can be displayed in the form of being printed on the recording medium, the print content can be confirmed without actually printing on the recording medium.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an external view of a label printing apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a liquid crystal display unit 2 for displaying input characters is provided on the upper front part of the label printing apparatus 1.
Is provided. A tape cartridge 3 is housed inside the printing device 1 on the right side of the liquid crystal display unit 2. The tape cartridge 3 has a structure as shown in FIG. 2, and a label 4 to which an adhesive sheet is attached is wound around a tape core 5. The ink ribbon 6 is sent out from the roller 7 in synchronization with the label 4, and characters are printed on the label 4 by a head (not shown).

Returning to FIG. 1, a key input section 9 is provided at the center of the front of the label printing apparatus 1. The key input unit 9 includes an on / off key 1 for turning the power on or off.
A font setting key 12 for selecting a font and a font size such as 0, 11, Gothic, Mincho, standard, hollow, shaded, three-dimensional, etc.
A character key 13 for inputting alphabets and hiragana and a conversion key 14 for converting hiragana to kanji are provided. Further, there are provided an up / down cursor key 15 for moving the cursor up / down or left / right, a line feed key 16, an image display key 17 for displaying a created sentence as a printed image, and the like.

Next, the circuit configuration of the label printing apparatus 1 will be described with reference to FIG. The control unit 21 is a central processing unit that controls the operation of each unit of the circuit, and in accordance with a control program stored in the ROM 22, a kana-kanji conversion process that converts kana input from the key input unit 9 into kanji, kana and kanji code. A process of storing data in the RAM 23 is performed.
Further, the control unit 21 controls the R in the data setting mode.
The character code data stored in the AM 23 is transferred to the display memory 24, the driver 25 is driven, and the created sentence is displayed on the dot matrix liquid crystal display unit 2.

The control unit 21 also controls the image display key 1
7 is operated, the print data of the designated font is read from the character generator 26, and the read print data is stored in the RAM 2 based on the format data.
Expand to 3. Further, the expanded data is transferred to the display memory 24 and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 2 via the driver 25.

The tape width detection mechanism 27 detects the tape width of the tape cartridge 3 set in the label printing apparatus 1. The detection result of the tape width detection mechanism 27 is converted into an electric signal by the detection circuit 28. Converted to control unit 2
It is output to 1. The control unit 21 sends the created text to the printer 1 based on the signal indicating the tape width output from the detection circuit 28, the setting condition of the created text, that is, the number of lines, the size of the characters in each line, and the like. It is determined whether the set tape label can be printed.

The print control unit 29 uses the print data output from the control unit 21 to drive the motor 30 and the head 3.
Drive 1 to print a character on the label. The I / O interface unit 32 is an interface circuit for exchanging data with an external device such as a word processor or an electronic notebook.

Next, the structure of the RAM 23 will be described with reference to FIG. The RAM 23 has a setting data memory 41 for storing character code data and the like input from the key input unit 9.
And a mode register M that stores a numerical value corresponding to the operation mode, and a register N that stores whether to print vertically or horizontally.
A register P for storing the tape width detected by the tape width detection mechanism 27, a register Q for storing the number of lines of a prepared sentence, and a register R for storing whether or not the sentence is enclosed in a frame. Is provided.

For example, the mode register M stores M = 0 in the data setting mode and M in the printing mode.
= 1 is stored. The register N stores "0" for horizontal printing and "1" for vertical printing.

In addition to this, the RAM 23 has 5 lines from the I-th row.
Registers S0 and S for storing the character size up to the line
1, S2, S3, S4 and the setting data memory 4 based on the character size, printing direction, number of lines, etc. specified by the format data recorded in each of the above registers.
There is provided an image data memory 42 for storing the data stored in No. 1 and expanded into dot data so that the data can be displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 2.

Next, the operation of the embodiment having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The processing in the setting mode of M = 0 will be described below. Figure 5
In step S1 of, it is determined whether or not a key input has been performed. When the key input is performed, it is determined in the next step S2 whether or not the vertical / horizontal designation key is operated. If the operated key is the vertical / horizontal designation key in the determination in step S2, it is determined in the next step S3 whether the value of the register N is "0" or "1". If N = 0, the register N is stored. When "1" is set, the vertical printing is changed to the horizontal printing. When N = 1, the register N is set to "0" and the horizontal printing is changed to the vertical printing.

If it is determined in step S2 that the operated key is not the vertical / horizontal designation key, the process proceeds to step S4 and the character key 1
It is determined whether or not the operation is No. 3. If the character key 13 is operated in the determination of step S4, the next step S4
In step 5, the character code corresponding to the operated character key 13 is stored in the setting data memory 41.

If it is determined in step S4 that the character key 13 is not operated, the process proceeds to step S6 and the conversion key 1
It is determined whether or not the operation is No. 4. If it is determined in step S6 that the conversion key 14 is operated, the next step S7
Convert the input hiragana into kanji, and set the kanji code at the time when the next key operation is performed.
Store in 1.

If it is determined in step S6 that the conversion key 14 has not been operated, the flow advances to step S8 to determine whether or not the font setting key 12 has been operated. If it is determined in step S8 that the type setting key 12 is operated, the current number of lines is determined from the value of the register Q in the next step S9, and the size of the type is set in the register SN of the corresponding line. To do.

If the character set key 12 is not operated in the determination of step S8, the process proceeds to step S10 and it is determined whether or not the return (line feed) key 16 is operated. If it is determined in step S10 that the return key 16 is operated, the value of the register Q storing the data input row is incremented by "1" in the next step S11. And
In the next step S12, the setting data input from the key input unit 9 and stored in the setting data memory 41 is displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 2.

Here, an example of display of setting data in the data setting mode will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 6A, when a cartridge with a tape width of 9 mm is used, the font setting key 12 is operated to specify 6 mm as the vertical size of the character on the first line, and the character key 1
3 shows the display state when the user operates 3 to input the alphabet "A, B, C, D". In this case, the alphabetical characters “A,
"B, C, D" is displayed, and the tape width detection mechanism 27 is shown in the lower row.
The tape width "9 mm" detected in step 1, the number of lines "1", and the vertical size "6 mm" of the character designated by the font setting key 12 are displayed. Next, when the return key 16 is operated after inputting the letters "E, F" of the alphabet, the same figure (B)
A line break mark indicating the line break is displayed as shown in.

After operating the return key 16, the character setting key 12 is operated to set the vertical size of the character on the second line to 2
When mm is specified, as shown in FIG.
In the lower row, "2" is displayed as the number of lines and "2 mm" is displayed as the vertical size of the character.

Returning to FIG. 5, if the return key 16 is not operated in the determination of step S10, step S1
Then, the operation proceeds to step 3 to judge whether or not the image display key 17 is operated. If it is determined in step S13 that the image display key 17 is operated, the process proceeds to the next step S14 to create image data. In creating the image data, the character pattern data corresponding to the character code stored in the setting data memory 41 is transferred to the character generator 26.
And the read character pattern data is expanded based on the character size of each line stored in the register SN, vertical printing or horizontal printing stored in the register N, and the like is expanded in the image data memory 42. Store.

Then, in the next step S15, the tape width stored in the register P, the number of lines stored in the register Q, the presence or absence of the frame of the register R, and the register SN.
It is determined whether the input data can be printed under the condition set in each register, based on the character size of each line stored in the. If printing is possible, go to the next step S
At 16, the image data stored in the image data memory 42 is sequentially output to the liquid crystal display unit 2 to be scroll-displayed, for example.

As a result, when the horizontal printing is designated, the created text is scroll-displayed in order from the left to the right in the print image (printing mode). When the vertical printing is designated, the created text can be scrolled in the vertical direction from the bottom to the top of the liquid crystal display unit 2, so that the text can be displayed as an image to be printed.

Here, an example of a display when the image display key 17 is operated will be described with reference to FIG. Figure 7
(A) and (B) are the conditions shown in FIG. 6, that is, in horizontal printing, a sentence is created by designating the first line character size of 6 mm vertically and the second line character size of 2 mm. After that, the display state when the image display key 17 is operated is shown.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 7A, the alphabet "A, B, C, D" is displayed in the first line with a character size of 6 mm in the vertical direction, and the alphabet "G, H, I, G" is displayed. Is displayed on the 2nd line with a character size of 2mm vertically.

Next, as shown in FIG. 3B, the letters "E," following the letters "C, D" in the created sentence are shown.
"F" is displayed on the first line with a character size of 6 mm vertically, and the letters "K, L" following the alphabet "I, J" are vertically 2 mm on the second line.
The font size is displayed.

On the other hand, FIG. 8 shows a state in which the created sentence is actually printed on the label. Comparing FIG. 7 and FIG. 8, it can be seen that the actual print state of FIG. 8 can be confirmed from the image display of FIG.

By operating the image display key 17 in this way, the created sentence can be displayed in advance as an image when it is actually printed. Therefore, the character size can be changed by looking at the displayed image. Can edit. As a result, it is possible to prevent a failure due to the difference between the display and the print image. In addition, since it is not necessary to print the created sentence on the label and check it as in the past,
You can save tapes and make confirmation easier. In particular, even with a small-sized printing apparatus having a small display unit and incapable of displaying the entire created sentence, the print image of the entire sentence can be confirmed by scrolling the print image.

Returning to FIG. 5, when it is determined in step S15 that printing cannot be performed under the set conditions,
In step S17, an error is displayed. If the image display key 17 is not operated in step S13, the process proceeds to step S18 to execute other key processing.

In this embodiment, during image display,
Although the sentences are automatically scroll-displayed without any key operation, the sentences may be sequentially scroll-displayed each time the image display key 17 is operated. Further, the present invention can be applied to a printing apparatus for other purposes than the label printing apparatus described in the embodiments.

[0035]

According to the present invention, since a created sentence or the like can be confirmed by a display in a printed state, it is not necessary to print it on a label or the like for confirmation, so that the tape can be saved and the confirmation can be made. The operation is also easy.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external front view of a label printing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a structure of a tape cartridge.

FIG. 3 is a circuit configuration diagram of the label printing apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a RAM.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation in a setting mode.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display state at the time of data input.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display state when displaying an image.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a printing state.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Liquid crystal display section 9 Key input section 21 Control section 23 RAM

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An input unit for inputting print data and format data, a storage unit for storing the input print data and format data, and a display unit for displaying the print data in a form printed on a recording medium. A printing apparatus comprising: 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit scrolls and displays the print data in a mode in which the print data is printed on the recording medium.