JPH08272558A - Interrupting printing controlling method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To enable a printer to output a printing job by making interruption without waiting the end of the output of the printing job in course of being outputted in the case where the printing job desired to output urgently arises by providing a means to divide the printing job into a prescribed unit and manage and interrupt-output the same. CONSTITUTION: When the printing job is outputted from a printing job output system 100, the printing priority order identifier of the printing job is judged by a printing job screening mechanism 103. Then, if it is not urgent output, the printing job is taken out by a spooler 105 in conformity to priority order, and the printing job is divided into a page unit by a printing job dividing and managing mechanism 106. The divided printing job is outputted to the printer device 108 in every page unit through a printer device input/output control mechanism 107. Besides, in the case where the printing job desired to output urgently arises while the printing job is divided into the page unit, and is being outputted to the printer device, the page of the printing job in course of being outputted is discontinued by the printer input/output control mechanism 107, and the printing job desired to output urgently is outputted to the printer device 108.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is urgent in the case where the number of shared printer devices in the network is insufficient with respect to the number of print job output systems, even when the printer devices are outputting according to the priority order of print jobs. When a print job to be output occurs, it is not necessary to wait for the output end of the print job that is currently being output on the printer device, interrupt the print job that is currently being output, and interrupt the print job that you want to output urgently. The present invention relates to a print control method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the case where the number of shared printer devices is insufficient in the network with respect to the number of print job output systems, the conventional print job output control method is to add a priority to each print job. The print job was managed and output according to the priority order. When a print job is being output by the printer device, even if a print job that has a higher priority than the print job being output and is desired to be output urgently occurs, the print job being output is waiting for output. As a printer device control system of this type, there is one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-255519. In this method, a plurality of printer devices are divided into groups, and the printer device that finishes the print job earliest in the group is selected, but it is necessary to wait for the end of output of the print job.

[0003]

In the above prior art, when a print job to be output urgently occurs, if there is a print job being output by the printer device, it is necessary to wait until the print job being output is completed. I had to do it. An object of the present invention is to enable a print job to be output without interruption when a print job to be output urgently occurs when there is a print job being output on a printer device, without waiting for the output end of the print job being output. Another object of the present invention is to provide a simple interrupt printing control method.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention defines a print job when the number of shared printer devices in the network is insufficient with respect to the number of print job output systems. A unit (102 in FIG. 1) that divides and manages the print job from the print job output system (100 in FIG. 1) is divided into smaller units, for example, page units, and is managed. (Steps 302 to 307 in FIG. 3), if a print job to be output urgently occurs (step 303 in FIG. 3), the page of the print job currently being output is interrupted (step 308 in FIG. 3), A print job that is to be interrupted and to be output urgently is output (step 309 in FIG. 3).
After this, restart the interrupted print job in specified units,
Output.

[0005]

In the present invention, the print job selection mechanism selects the priority of the print job from each print job output system on the network, and the spooler control mechanism selects the priority identifier, the print job amount, and the print job body. Stores the following print jobs in the spooler and outputs them.
At this time, the print job division management mechanism divides the print job to be output into smaller predetermined units (for example, page units),
If there is a print job that you want to output urgently when there is a print job currently being output by the printer device, an interrupt is generated by the printer device input / output control mechanism to print the page being printed. Suspend and output the print job that you want to output urgently. Thus, without waiting for the end of the print job being output, it is possible to generate an interrupt, interrupt the page being printed, and output the print job to be output urgently. For the print job that was being output earlier, output is resumed immediately from the interrupted page.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. The network system of this embodiment includes a plurality of print job output systems 100 and an interrupt output-enabled print job control system 1 of the present invention.
02 and the local area network 101. As shown in the figure, this system controls a print job selection mechanism 103 for selecting the priority order of print jobs from the print job output system 100, a spooler 105 for storing and outputting the print jobs in accordance with the priority order, and a spooler input / output. A spooler control mechanism 104, a print job division management mechanism 106 that divides and manages output print jobs in predetermined units (for example, page units), and a printer device input / output control mechanism 107 that controls input / output of the printer device 108.

FIG. 2 shows the format of a print job used in this embodiment. Print job output system 100
The print job sent from the print job includes a priority identifier 201, a data amount (for example, in bytes) 202, and a print job body 2
It is composed of 03. In this embodiment, this print job is divided into pages and managed by the print job division management mechanism 106.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing in this embodiment. The operation of this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. When there is no print job in the spooler 105 (step 302), the interrupt output-enabled print job control system 102 of this embodiment monitors the print job from the print job output system 100 (step 301). When a print job is transmitted from the print job output system 100, the print job selection mechanism 10
The priority identifier of the print job is determined in step 3 (step 303), and if it is not an emergency output, the spooler control mechanism 10
The data is stored in the spooler 105 in the order of priority through 4 (step 304). After the spooler is stored, if the print job is not transmitted from the print job output system 100, the print job is taken out from the spooler 105 according to the priority order, and the print job division management mechanism 106 divides the print job into page units (step 306). The divided print jobs are output to the printer device 108 page by page through the printer device input / output control mechanism 107 (307). Further, when a print job to be output urgently occurs during division of the print job into page units and output to the printer device (step 303), the printer device input / output control mechanism 107 displays the page of the print job being output. The job is interrupted (step 308) and the print job to be output urgently is output to the printer device 108 (step 30).
9). After the output of the print job to be output urgently is completed, printing is restarted from the page of the interrupted print job (step 310).

[0009]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the case where the number of shared printer devices is insufficient with respect to the number of print job output systems in the network, a print job with a large amount of data is generated in the printer device. Even during output, when a print job to be output urgently occurs, there is an effect that it is not necessary to wait for the end of the print job being output.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a network system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a print job according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an interrupt output-enabled print job control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

100: print job output system, 101: local area network, 102: interrupt output enable print job control system, 103: print job selection mechanism, 104:
Spooler control mechanism, 105: Spooler, 106: Print job division management mechanism, 107: Printer device input / output mechanism,
108: a printer device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A print control method of a network system comprising a plurality of print job output means and a shared printer device, wherein the print job is output according to the priority order of the print jobs. If a print job for emergency output occurs during output according to the priority, the print job currently being output is interrupted by the predetermined unit, and the print job for emergency output is divided. Interrupt printing control method characterized by interrupting and outputting the above print job.