JPH0752463A - Printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To execute a printing output by the selection of a desired weight by a method wherein a bit map is expanded while adjusting the weight of an outline font, in response to the selection information of a weight which is transmitted from a printer control unit, and the bit map is fed to a plotting unit. CONSTITUTION:Printing data is transmitted to a printer device 10 by a cable, etc., from a high order device such as one unit or a plurality of work stations, etc. Normally, for the printing data, character codes and codes for the entry of character sizes or typefaces are listed, and a font expanding unit 3 expands into a bit map a corresponding outline font 4a by these character codes, and then the bit map is fed to a plotting unit 2. At the plotting unit 2, the character number for one row of the printing data or the row number for one page is read, and a font which is expanded into a bit map corresponding to the format is written in a frame buffer 8 as dot data. In this case, a serial printer is adopted for a printing unit 5, and the dot data which is accumulated in the frame buffer 8 is output for printing by one row at a time.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device for printing out print data from a host device, and more particularly to a printer device for printing out an outline font.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional printer device having an outline font, particularly with regard to a print output obtained by processing the outline font, the outline font is enlarged / reduced based on a setting from a host device, and italic characters and bag characters are generated. And so on. Further, regarding the line thickness (weight) of characters of the outline font, for example, bold fonts or light fonts having different weights are respectively created and then stored in the printer device and used. In addition, a method of processing the weight of the outline font according to the setting from the host device is also performed.

[0003]

However, in the conventional example in which an outline font is created for each font weight and then stored in the printer device 10, the print output is of high quality, but a large capacity of the font storage unit is required. However, there is a disadvantage that the cost of creating the outline font is required for each.

Further, in the conventional example in which the printer device receives the setting of the upper device to process the weight of the character, the output of the printer device is different depending on the performance such as the resolution of the printer device. However, the setting is not a unique setting according to the characteristics of the printing unit of the printer device, and therefore, there is an inconvenience that the print output process and the print result become unstable.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to improve the disadvantages of the conventional example, and in particular, to select the weight of the outline font on the operation panel to adjust the weight of the outline font according to the characteristic peculiar to the printing section. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer device capable of performing the above.

[0006]

According to the present invention, a drawing section for expanding print data from a higher-level device into dot data and drawing it in a frame buffer, and an outline font for expanding the bitmap data into bitmap data, A font expansion unit that supplies the drawing unit, a font storage unit that stores an outline font, a printing unit that prints out the dot data stored in the frame buffer,
In a printer device including a printer control unit that drives and controls a drawing unit, a font expansion unit, and a printing unit, and an operation panel that receives input of setting information related to the setting of drive control performed by the printer control unit, The font developing unit has a weight selecting unit that accepts an increase / decrease selection of the line thickness (weight) of the font, and the font expanding unit outputs the outline font of the outline font according to the weight selecting information input to the weight selecting unit and transmitted by the printer control unit. It has a structure such as having a weight adjusting means for expanding the bitmap while adjusting the weight. This aims to achieve the above-mentioned object.

[0007]

When the printer device is powered on and a predetermined operation is applied to the operation panel 7, the weight selecting section 7a changes the weight which can be changed by the currently selected point size, as shown in FIG. 2 (B). Display the type. The user has a control panel 7
Select your favorite weight with the operation buttons. The printer control section 6 transmits the weight selection information to the weight adjusting means 3a of the font expanding section 3.

When the print data is received from the host device, the font expansion unit 3 takes out the outline font 4a corresponding to the print data from the font storage unit 4, and the weight adjusting means 3a receives the outline font 4a from the printer control unit 6. Bitmap expansion based on the weight selection information.

The drawing unit receives the font bitmap data from the font expanding unit 3, reads the number of characters per line and the number of lines per page from the print data, and uses the bitmap data as dot data in the frame buffer in accordance with these formats. Write to buffer 8. Mu. here,
Since the printing unit 5 uses the serial printer method,
The printing unit 5 prints out the dot data accumulated in the image buffer 8 line by line.

[0010]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. A printer device 10 has a drawing unit 2 which expands print data from a higher-level device 1 into dot data and draws it in a frame buffer 8. A font expansion unit 3 that expands the outline font 4a into bitmap data and supplies the bitmap data to the drawing unit 2, and a font storage unit 4 that stores the outline font 4a.
A printing unit 5 that prints out the dot data stored in the frame buffer 8, a printer control unit 6 that drives and controls the drawing unit 2, the font development unit 3, and the printing unit 5, and a drive control that is performed by the printer control unit 6. The control panel 7 is provided for receiving the input of setting information relating to the setting.

The operation panel 7 has weight selection means 7a for accepting selection of adjustment of the thickness (weight) of the font line.

The font expanding section 3 uses the weight selecting means 7
A weight adjusting means 3a is provided for expanding the bitmap while adjusting the weight of the outline font 4a according to the weight selection information input to the printer a and transmitted by the printer controller 6.

More specifically, the host device 1
The device is a device such as a workstation or a personal computer that creates sentences and graphics, and print data is transmitted from one or a plurality of host devices 1 to the printer device 10 through a cable or the like. Usually, the print data includes a character code and a code that describes the character size and typeface. The font development unit 3 develops the corresponding outline font 4a from these character codes into a bitmap and supplies it to the drawing unit 2. The drawing unit 2 reads the number of characters in one line or the number of lines in one page from the print data, and writes the font, which has been bit-mapped according to these formats, as dot data in the frame buffer 8. Here, since the printing unit 5 employs the serial printer method, the dot data accumulated in the image buffer 8 is printed out line by line.

An outline font 4a in which the outline of a character is represented by a vector or the like is stored in a font storage unit 4 provided along with the font expansion unit 3. The outline font has excellent workability, and various point sizes can be expressed from one outline font, and italic characters can be generated. The outline font 4a is called by the font expansion unit 3, expanded into a bitmap with the point size described in the print data, and then supplied to the drawing unit 2. Although the ROM is adopted as the font storage unit 5 here, if a large number of typefaces can be printed, this may be a hard disk.

FIG. 2 shows the operation panel, and FIG. 2A is a perspective view of the printer device showing the entire operation panel. As shown in FIG. 2B, the weight selection means 7a displays on the operation panel 7 the types of weights that can be selected so that the user can select the weight of the outline font.
In the present embodiment, five types of weights can be selected, but this will increase or decrease depending on the resolution of the printing unit, the point size to be printed out, and the like. Here, the weight addition / subtraction value closed with [] is the weight addition / subtraction value of the current outline character, and [3. Normal] is the default value.

Weight adjusting means 3a of the font expanding section 3
Is input to the weight selection means 7a and the printer controller 6
The bit map expansion is performed while adjusting the weight of the outline font 4a according to the weight selection information transmitted by.

There are roughly two types of weight adjusting means by the weight adjusting means 3a, one is a method of adjusting the weight at the stage of the outline font and then the bitmap expansion, and the second is the bitmap expansion. This is a method of adjusting the weight with respect to the coordinate data on the way.

In the first method, as shown in FIG. 3, for example, the font storage unit 4 has a bold font 4B having the maximum weight and a light font 4L having the minimum weight for one outline font. The weight adjusting means 3a of the font developing unit 3 responds to the weight selection information by bold font 4B and light font 4L.
The weight is adjusted by calculating the intermediate value of and expanding the bitmap. FIG. 3A shows an example of an outline font in which a bold font 4B and a light font 4L are combined, and FIG. 3B shows a bold font 4
An example of the print output of B is shown in FIG. 3 (C). The calculation of the intermediate value by the weight adjusting means is performed according to the point size and the resolution of the printing section.

In the second method, for example, the weight adjusting means 3a selects the outline portion of the bitmap data according to the weight selection information for the bitmap data generated during the bitmap development of the outline font 4a by the font developing unit 3. The weight is adjusted by increasing or decreasing the dots. FIG. 4 shows an example thereof. Figure 4 (A)
[Fig. 3] is a conceptual diagram showing bitmap data obtained by normal bitmap expansion, and characters are actually represented by finer dots. Weight adjusting means 3a
Increases or decreases dots in the left-right direction with respect to this bitmap. FIG. 4B shows an example in which the dots are increased and the weight is changed to bold, and FIG. 4C shows an example in which the dots are decreased and the weight is changed to light. The increase or decrease of dots by the weight adjusting means is performed according to the point size or the resolution of the printing section. The process related to the weight adjustment by the actual weight adjusting means 3a is performed on the coordinate data when the bitmap is developed.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, the weight selecting means of the operation panel accepts the input of the weight addition / subtraction value, and the weight adjusting means of the font expanding section expands the outline font into a bitmap according to the weight setting information. Since it is supplied to the drawing section by the user, it is possible to provide a printer device in which the user can easily select the desired weight of the outline font and print it out.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a view showing an operation panel, FIG. 2 (A) is a perspective view of a printer device for showing the entire operation panel, and FIG. 2 (B) is a display example on the operation panel by weight selecting means. FIG.

FIG. 3 shows an example of an outline font having a maximum weight and a minimum weight, FIG. 3 (A) is an explanatory view showing an outline font in which a bold font and a light font are integrated, and FIG. 3 (B) is a bold font. FIG. 3C is an explanatory diagram showing a font printout example, and FIG. 3C is an explanatory diagram showing a light font printout example.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram for explaining weight adjustment by increasing or decreasing dots in a contour portion of bitmap data, and FIG. 4A is an explanatory diagram showing original bitmap data. 4B is an explanatory diagram showing an example in which dots are increased in the contour portion, and FIG. 4C is an explanatory diagram showing an example in which dots are reduced in the contour portion.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Upper device 2 Drawing unit 3 Font expansion unit 3a Weight adjusting unit 4 Font storage unit 4a Outline font 5 Printing unit 6 Printer control unit 7 Operation panel 7a Weight selecting unit 8 Frame buffer 10 Printer device

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location G06F 3/12 G G09G 5/24 9471-5G

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A drawing unit that expands print data from a higher-level device into dot data and draws it in a frame buffer, and a font expansion unit that expands an outline font into bitmap data and supplies the bitmap data to the drawing unit. A font storage unit that stores the outline font, a printing unit that prints out the dot data stored in the frame buffer, and a printer control unit that drives and controls the drawing unit, the font expansion unit, and the printing unit.
In a printer device including an operation panel that receives input of setting information relating to the setting of drive control performed by the printer control unit, the operation panel receives weight selection that accepts selection of addition or subtraction of font line thickness (weight). The font expanding unit includes a weight adjusting unit that expands the weight of the outline font according to the weight selection information input to the weight selecting unit and transmitted by the printer control unit while expanding the bitmap. A printer device characterized by the above. 2. The font storage section has a bold font having a maximum weight and a light font having a minimum weight for one outline font, and the weight adjusting means of the font expanding section selects the weight. 2. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the weight is adjusted by calculating an intermediate value between the bold font and the light font in accordance with information and expanding the bitmap. 3. The weight adjusting means increases dots in a contour portion of the bitmap data according to the weight selection information with respect to bitmap data generated during bitmap expansion of the outline font by the font expanding unit, or The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the weight is adjusted by decreasing the weight.