JPH08174909A - Apparatus and method for controlling printing - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To easily change a print mode by detecting a count of printing dots per one scanning, and controlling a printing means to change a thinning rate for data to be printed based on the detection result. CONSTITUTION: A printer apparatus is provided with a printing head 2, a carriage motor 11, a paper feed motor 12, etc., operating with an HQ mode giving priority to the image quality and an HS mode giving priority to the printing speed. In the printer apparatus, a flag as an investigation result of a printing duty is checked in the HQ mode by a CPU 201. If the flag shows a smaller value than a threshold value, normal printing is decided. On the other hand, if the printing duty exceeds the threshold value, printing is conducted twice with by use of printing data thinned, for example, by 50%. Similarly, the printing duty is checked in the HS mode. If the printing duty is smaller than the threshold value, printing data thinned by 50% are recorded by one path printing. If the printing duty is larger than the threshold value, the level of the duty is checked and printing is conducted by the use of printing data thinned by 75%, 80% at levels 1, 2, respectively.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing control apparatus and method for controlling a printing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is a control technique for an electronic device using a battery equipped with a thermal line printer as a drive source, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-258355.

Specifically, it is described that the number of print dots for one line printing is counted for each block and the number of heads to be driven simultaneously is limited based on the count result.

[0004]

However, the conventional example has the following drawbacks.

In the conventional example, since printing is executed by the maximum number that can be driven simultaneously, there is a problem that it takes time as in the conventional case to print solid black, for example.

Therefore, in order to solve the above problems,
An object of the present invention is to provide a print control apparatus and method that can change the print mode according to print data.

[0007]

For the above-mentioned purpose, the print control apparatus according to the present invention prints in accordance with the detection means for detecting the number of print dots for one scanning and the detection result of the detection means. And a control means for controlling the printing means so as to change the thinning rate of the data to be printed. Further, the print control method according to the present invention changes the thinning rate of the data to be printed according to the detection step of detecting the number of print dots for one scan and the detection result of the detection step. And a control step of controlling the printing means.

Therefore, the print mode can be changed according to the print data.

[0009]

【Example】

(First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is an external view of a printer apparatus realized by the present invention. Reference numeral 1 is a carriage, 3 is a cartridge guide, and 2 is a print head of an ink jet recording system. The second print head is detachable from the carriage. The carriage 1 is moved left and right by a carriage motor (not shown) along the guide shafts 4 and 5, and 6 is a recording paper which is fed by a paper feed roller 7 and conveyed by a paper feed roller 8. 9 is a paper pressing plate that prevents the paper from floating.
An ink cartridge 10 is configured to be attachable to and detachable from the cartridge guide 3.

FIG. 2 is a control block for implementing the present invention. Reference numeral 200 denotes a central control unit, which is a CPU 20.
1, RAM 202, RAM 203. C
The PU 201 performs various controls described below, and performs control based on a program according to a flowchart described below. The RAM 202 is used as a work area for the work, a storage area for print data such as commands and character codes input from a host, and a storage area for image data developed based on the print data. . The ROM 203 stores programs related to the flowchart, various control programs, and various data such as font data. An image processing unit 300 drives the print head 2 and creates print data. Reference numeral 400 denotes a power supply unit to which an AC adapter and a battery are attached. A carriage motor 11 drives the carriage. A paper feed motor 12 is a paper feed drive source such as a conveyance roller. Reference numeral 500 denotes an instruction unit, which is a DIP switch for setting parameters of various printers, for setting whether or not to perform automatic thinning in the HS mode of the present invention, and for user setting of a thinning rate. It also includes a panel switch that can select the HQ mode or the HS mode.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the outline of the present invention. In step S1, the operation mode of the printer is checked. There are two operation modes in this printer, an HQ mode for giving priority to image quality and an HS mode for giving priority to printing speed. The HQ mode and the HS mode are the panel of the main body of the device,
It is set by a command from the host. If the HQ mode is determined in S1, the process proceeds to S2, and if the HS mode is determined, the process proceeds to S5. In the HQ mode of S2, a flag, which is a result of a print duty check, which will be described later, is checked. If the flag is smaller than the threshold, the process proceeds to step S3. Incidentally, the HS mode is about 1.5 times the printing speed of the HQ mode. In step S3, normal printing is performed, and the print data is sent as it is to the recording head to perform normal (1 scan) printing operation (1 pass printing). In step S4, the printing operation is performed twice with the print data thinned by 50%. The 50% thinned two-pass printing is, for example, printing even-numbered image data at the first time and odd-numbered image data at the second time (printing by two scans). In addition,
In this embodiment, by thinning out the data, the power consumption of the recording head during the printing operation can be reduced. On the other hand, in the HS mode of S5, the print duty is checked as in S2. If it is smaller than the threshold value, the process proceeds to S6, and if it is greater than the threshold value, the process proceeds to S7. In S6, the print data thinned by 50% is recorded by one-pass printing (one-time printing). In S7, the duty level is checked. This embodiment has two levels. The level will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 4, which will be described later. The number of flags of a block is counted, and if the number of flags is less than 6, the level is 1, and if the number is 6 or more, the level is 2. If it is level 1, the process proceeds to step S8, and 1-pass printing is performed with the print data thinned by 75%. If it is level 2, the process proceeds to step S9, and 1-pass printing is performed with the print data thinned by 80%. In addition,
75% thinning can be realized by thinning out dots at multiples of 4 as image data, and 80% thinning can be realized by thinning out dots at multiples of 5 as image data. However, this is not the case. Further, in the present embodiment, the thinning rate is 50%, 75
%, 80%, but not limited to this.

In FIG. 4, in order to check the power load, the number of print data is counted, and if the number of print data is larger than a predetermined dot number (which is a threshold value), printing is not performed once but divided into two. It is an explanatory view for printing.

This figure shows the case where the nozzle in the sub-scanning direction is a print head having 128 dots. As an example, considering A4, 2880 dots in the main scanning direction are divided into 16 blocks, and 2 blocks of 64 dots in the sub-scanning direction are divided into 32 blocks in total (upper diagram). The number of dots in each block is counted in the area where the print data is created, and it is checked whether it is larger or smaller than the threshold value (middle diagram). Check each block and set the flag (lower diagram). The print mode changing process is performed later using this flag. Specifically, the state of the flag is scanned and checked in all blocks, and if even one flag is present, the print mode is changed because there is image data with a large power load (called a power monitor).

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view of the present embodiment which explains the flow chart of FIG. 1 in more detail. The HQ mode from step S1 to step S4 is the same as that in FIG. 1 and therefore omitted, and the HS mode will be described here. In S5, it is checked which mode the HS mode is. If the print duty is high, the process proceeds to S6 if the so-called normal mode in which printing is performed in two passes is set.
Even if the printing duty is high, if it is the automatic mode for printing in one pass according to the level, the process proceeds to S9. If the printing duty is high, 1 at the thinning rate set by the user
If it is the user mode for pass printing, the process proceeds to S14.

If the process proceeds to step S6, the print duty check is performed at S6, and if it is smaller than the threshold value, the process proceeds to S7 where 1-pass printing with 50% thinning is performed.
If it is larger than the threshold value, the process proceeds to S8 and 50% thinning is 2
Make the pass print. When the process proceeds to step S9, it is the speed priority mode shown in FIG. Step S1
When the process proceeds to step 4, when the threshold value is exceeded, S16
Prints one pass at the thinning rate set by the user.

The thinning rate can be set to 80% or more by the dip switch of the instruction section 500.

In the HS mode, which mode, normal mode, automatic mode, or user mode is set is also set by the DIP switch.

[Other Embodiments] In the first embodiment, the threshold value of the power load in the automatic mode is one (whether the flag is 15 or less), but there may be two or more.

Further, the mode switching (automatic, normal, user) switch in the HS mode may be a switch on the operation panel of the main body in addition to the DIP switch. The same applies to the thinning rate setting switch. It may also be set by a command from the host.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Print data amount (or print duty) in HS mode
If the print data amount is larger than a predetermined amount, it is possible to automatically thin out the print data and perform the printing operation.

Also, regardless of the amount of print data, the HS
The mode always enables speed-first printing.

Further, according to the user's request, a mode can be set in which the data is printed as it is even if the printing speed is slightly decreased, or the printing speed is not decreased and the thinning rate is further increased to suppress the ink consumption and perform the printing. Being able to set the mode can further improve the convenience for the printer user. In addition, printing can be executed in the HS mode without reducing throughput.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external view of a printer device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a control block diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a control flowchart of the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating print data counting.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a control flowchart of the first embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Carriage 2 Print Head 3 Cartridge Guide 4 Guide Axis 5 Guide Axis 6 Recording Paper 7 Paper Feed Roller 8 Paper Feed Roller 9 Paper Press Plate 11 Carriage Motor 12 Paper Feed Motor 201 CPU 202 RAM 203 ROM

Claims (24)

[Claims] 1. A detection unit that detects the number of print dots for one scan, and a control that controls the printing unit to change the thinning rate of data to be printed according to the detection result of the detection unit. And a print control device. 2. When the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, the control unit controls the printing unit to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning a plurality of times in the image quality priority mode, and in the speed priority mode. 2. The printing control device according to claim 1, wherein the printing unit is controlled so that the data to be printed is thinned out and printed by scanning once. 3. The print control apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a specifying unit that specifies the image quality priority mode or the speed priority mode. 4. The control means, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, in the first speed priority mode,
Controlling the printing means so as to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning multiple times, and control the printing means to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning once in the second speed priority mode. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print control apparatus is a print control apparatus. 5. The control means, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, in the second speed priority mode,
The printing means is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed and to print by scanning once, and thin out the data to be printed at the thinning rate set by the operator in the third speed priority mode. The printing control device according to claim 1, wherein the printing means is controlled so as to print by scanning once. 6. The control means, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, in the first speed priority mode,
The printing means is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed and to print by scanning a plurality of times. In the second speed priority mode, the printing means is controlled to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning once. 2. The printing control device according to claim 1, wherein in the third speed priority mode, the printing unit is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed at the thinning rate set by the operator and print the data by scanning once. . 7. A designation means for designating the first speed priority mode, the second speed priority mode, or the third speed priority mode.
The print control device described. 8. The print control apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising setting means for setting a thinning rate in the third speed priority mode. 9. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a printing unit controlled by the control unit. 10. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printing unit is an inkjet printer. 11. A detection step for detecting the number of print dots for one scan, and a control for controlling a printing means so as to change the thinning rate of data to be printed in accordance with the detection result of the detection step. A printing control method, comprising: 12. In the image quality priority mode, the control step controls the printing means to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning a plurality of times when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, and in the speed priority mode. 12. The printing control method according to claim 11, wherein the printing unit is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed and perform printing by scanning once. 13. The print control method according to claim 12, further comprising a designation step of designating the image quality priority mode or the speed priority mode. 14. The control step, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, controls the printing means to thin out the data to be printed in the first speed priority mode and print by scanning a plurality of times. 12. The printing control method according to claim 11, wherein in the speed priority mode of 2, the printing unit is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning once. 15. In the control step, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, in the second speed priority mode, the printing means is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning once. 12. The printing control method according to claim 11, wherein in the speed priority mode of No. 3, the printing unit is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed at the thinning rate set by the operator and print the data by scanning once. 16. The control step, when the number of print dots is larger than a predetermined number, controls the printing means to thin out the data to be printed and print by scanning a plurality of times in the first speed priority mode. In the second speed priority mode, the printing means is controlled so as to thin out the data to be printed by scanning once, and in the third speed priority mode, the data to be printed at the thinning rate set by the operator is displayed. The printing control method according to claim 11, wherein the printing unit is controlled so as to perform thinning-out and one-time scanning. 17. The first speed priority mode, the second speed priority mode
17. The print control apparatus according to claim 16, further comprising a designation step of designating the speed priority mode of No. 3 or the third speed priority mode. 18. The print control apparatus according to claim 15, further comprising a setting step for setting a thinning rate in the third speed priority mode. 19. The printing control method according to claim 11, further comprising a printing step of performing printing by a printing unit controlled by the control step. 20. The print control method according to claim 11, wherein the printing means is an inkjet printer. 21. The print control apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising a designation unit that designates the first speed priority mode or the second speed priority mode. 22. The print control apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising a designation unit that designates the second speed priority mode or the third speed priority mode. 23. The printing control method according to claim 14, further comprising a designation step of designating the first speed priority mode or the second speed priority mode. 24. A printing control method comprising a designation step of designating the second speed priority mode or the third speed priority mode.