JPH08164658A - Electronic apparatus, information processing system including the same apparatus and manual outputting method for the same apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide an electronic apparatus which can easily read and refer to manual information, an information processing system which includes the apparatus and a method for manually outputting for the apparatus. CONSTITUTION: The operation manual information of an electronic apparatus is stored in a ROM 13. When reading of the desired manual information is directed by an operation panel 14, a controller 12 reads the directed information from the ROM 13, converts it to bit map image, and outputs it to an engine 17 to print it.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic device that stores manual information of an electronic device and displays / outputs it as required, an information processing system including the device, and a manual output method in the device. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a printer device is sold alone, information such as operating method and specifications of the printer device is provided by a user's manual. In addition, depending on the printer device, by displaying a help menu on the display provided on the operation panel or the like, the specifications and the like of the printer device can be confirmed.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional example, there is no guarantee that the user's manual is always placed in the vicinity of the printer, so that when the user wants to know information such as the operation and specifications of the printer. It is not always possible to confirm immediately. Also, in the help menu displayed on the display provided on the operation panel,
Since the display itself is small, the content displayed on it is extremely simplified, and it is impossible to refer to or confirm detailed information.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and an object thereof is to provide an electronic device that can easily read and refer to manual information, an information processing system including the device, and a manual output method in the device. To do.

An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device which can read and confirm desired manual information by a simple operation, an information processing system including the device, and a manual output method in the device.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the electronic equipment of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, storage means for storing operation manual information of an electronic device, instruction means for instructing reading of the manual information stored in the storage means, and manual information instructed by the instruction means are read from the storage means. And output means for outputting.

In order to achieve the above object, the information processing system of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in an information processing system including an electronic device that is used by being connected to an external device, the external device is a storage unit that stores operation manual information of the electronic device, and the manual information is read from the storage unit. The electronic device includes an output unit for outputting, and the electronic device transmits an instruction unit for instructing reading of the manual information stored in the storage unit, and a transmission for transmitting the reading instruction instructed by the instruction unit to the external device. And means.

In order to achieve the above object, the manual output method in the electronic device of the present invention includes the following steps. That is, the method includes a step of instructing the reading of the manual information from the storage unit that stores the manual information of the electronic device, and a step of reading the instructed manual information from the storage unit and outputting the manual information.

[0009]

In the above structure, when an instruction is given to read out the manual information stored in the storage means storing the operation manual information of the electronic device, the instructed manual information is read out from the storage means and output. .

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of a printing system according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Here, a case where a host computer and a laser beam printer (LBP) are used will be described.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 denotes an LBP body,
Controller 12, operation panel 14 and engine unit 17
And so on. The controller 12 converts the image data received from the host computer 15 into drawing data (bitmap image data) and outputs the drawing data to the engine unit 17 for printing. The ROM 13 stores various data such as control programs and font data that define control processing by the controller 12. A host computer (external device) 15 transfers print data and various control data to the printer 11. Reference numeral 16 is an interface (I / F) unit for transmitting print data and control data from the host computer 15 to the LBP 11. The engine unit 17 forms an image on a recording medium such as a recording sheet by an electrophotographic method according to the drawing data from the controller 12.

The operation based on the above configuration will be described. The print data transmitted from the host computer 15 is I / O.
It is received by the controller 12 of the LBP 11 via the F unit 16. The controller 12 analyzes the received print data and develops it into drawing data (bitmap data) for printing. Then, by outputting this bitmap data to the engine unit 17, the engine unit 17
Thus, the image is printed on the recording medium.

In the LBP 11 of this embodiment, the printer 11
The operation manual is stored in the ROM 13, and the contents can be printed by the engine unit 17 at any time. The printing of such a manual is started based on an instruction input from the operation panel 14. In addition, since the printing volume of this operation manual is enormous if the entire text is printed, not only full text printing but also partial printing that prints only the relevant part by specifying the page or function etc. is possible. ing. The setting of such partial printing is also set by the operation panel 14.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the user can print the manual and refer to it whenever necessary.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a printer device (LBP) 21 according to the second embodiment of the present invention. The parts common to those in FIG. 1 described above are designated by the same reference numerals, and their description will be omitted.

The difference from the above-described first embodiment is that information such as an operation manual is stored in a hard disk (HDD) 23, and the ROM 13 is instructed by an operation panel 14.
The HDD 2 is executed by executing the control program stored in a.
3, the manual data is read out, the image is developed and printed by the engine unit 17. Also in this case, similar to the first embodiment described above, not only full-text printing of a manual but also partial printing is possible.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, the user can print out and refer to the manual whenever necessary. If the printer is equipped with an HDD,
Since the HDD has a large capacity, it is often the case that the large amount of the HDD is not used up, and the burden of mounting the manual information can be reduced.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the manual printing process in the LBP of this embodiment. The control program for executing this process is stored in the ROM 13 or the ROM 13a.

First, in step S32, when a manual print instruction is given by the operation panel 14 and a manual portion such as a page to be printed or a function is designated at the time of partial printing, the process proceeds to step S33, and the instruction is given. Data corresponding to the manual part is stored in the ROM 13 or the HDD 2.
Search in 3. Here, when a function desired by the user is designated, the corresponding page (index) of the function stored in the ROM 13 (13a) and the page of the manual is referred to and the corresponding page is searched. Also here
Since the manual data is stored in a compressed form, the manual information retrieved in step S33 is expanded (step S34), expanded into printable drawing data (bitmap image), and output to the engine unit 17. Printing is performed (step S35).

In addition to the above-described embodiment, for example, in the configuration of FIG.
The contents of the manual may be transferred to the printer device 11 via the printer so that the manual can be printed. Further, the contents of the designated manual may be displayed on the monitor of the host computer 15. In this case, I / F
16 is bi-directional Centronics, RS232C or RS
A bidirectional I / F such as 232SC is used.

The process in this case will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3. When the manual print range is designated in step S32, the manual print range is transmitted to the host computer 15 via the interface section 16. To do. As a result, the host computer 15
The specified manual information is searched in the connected hard disk, the searched information is read out, decompressed, and converted into drawing data. Then, the converted manual information is transmitted to the LBP 11 (21) and printed, or displayed on the monitor of the host computer 15.

With this, the user can refer to the manual whenever necessary. Further, since the manual can be displayed on the monitor of the host computer 15, printing for viewing the manual is unnecessary.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. The present invention can also be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program for implementing the present invention to a system or an apparatus.

In the present embodiment, the case of a printing system using LBP has been described, but the present invention is not limited to this, and a display device such as a display may be used instead of the printer device, for example. . In this case, the specified manual information will be displayed on the display device. Further, as the printer device, not only the laser beam printer of the present embodiment, but also an inkjet printer,
It can also be applied to various printers such as thermal printers, wire dot printers, liquid crystal printers and the like.

As described above, according to this embodiment, when the user wants to refer to the manual, the user can easily display and output the manual for confirmation.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention, there is an effect that the manual information can be easily read and referred to.

Further, according to the present invention, there is an effect that desired manual information can be read out and confirmed by a simple operation.

[0029]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printer device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a manual printing process in the LBP of this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11, 21 Laser beam printer (LBP) 12, 12a Controller 13, 13a ROM 14 Operation panel 15 Host computer 16 Interface (I / F) section 17 Engine section 23 Hard disk drive (HDD)

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Claims (15)

[Claims] 1. A storage unit for storing operation manual information of an electronic device, an instruction unit for instructing reading of the manual information stored in the storage unit, and the storage unit for storing the manual information instructed by the instruction unit. And an output unit for further reading and outputting the electronic device. 2. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the storage unit compresses and stores the manual information. 3. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the instructing unit instructs to read all or part of the manual information. 4. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the instruction unit specifies an output page of the manual information. 5. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the instructing unit specifies an output portion based on a desired function of the manual information. 6. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the output unit prints and outputs the manual information. 7. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the output unit outputs the manual information to be displayed on a monitor screen. 8. An information processing system including an electronic device that is used by being connected to an external device, wherein the external device stores a storage unit for storing operation manual information of the electronic device, and the storage unit stores the manual information. The electronic device further includes an output unit configured to read out and output, and the electronic device instructing the external device to instruct to read out the manual information stored in the storage unit, and a read instruction instructed by the instructing unit to the external device. An information processing system comprising: a transmission means for transmitting. 9. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the storage unit compresses and stores the manual information. 10. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the instructing means instructs to read all or a part of the manual information. 11. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the instruction unit specifies an output page of the manual information. 12. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the instruction unit specifies an output portion based on a desired function of the manual information. 13. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the output unit converts the manual information into print data and outputs the print data to the electronic device. 14. The information processing system according to claim 8, wherein the output unit displays and outputs the manual information on a monitor screen. 15. A step of instructing to read out manual information from a storage section storing manual information of an electronic device, and a step of reading out the instructed manual information from the storage section and outputting the manual information. Manual output method in electronic equipment characterized by.