JPH082742A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a printer facilitating handling, on a computer side, when generated paper exhaustion, so that it can be quickly further regularly recognized and restarted, without wastefully using paper. CONSTITUTION:In a control part 4 in a printer 2, when reporting paper exhaustion relating to a computer 1 is controlled to be based on line number information preregistered in a line number/page register part 5 and on paper exhaustion detecting position information detected by a paper exhaustion detecting part 10, by inputting the rest of line number information, calculated in an arithmetic part 6, through a comparator part 7 from a relation between the line number information and page information received from the line number/page register part 5 after generating paper exhaustion, reporting the paper short is controlled in accordance with a data processing condition of the computer 1 by page control. In the control part 4, by switching a data route through the comparator part 7, sampling a synchronous control code by a synchronous control code detecting part 8 is not performed, at ordinary time with no paper exhaustion, but performed after detecting the paper exhaustion.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer for printing print data transmitted from a computer on a predetermined paper.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of printer, when a paper out notification is sent to a computer, the printer is equipped with a paper out detection circuit for detecting paper out.
When a paper shortage occurs, the paper shortage detection circuit detects the paper shortage, and the computer is notified immediately after the paper shortage is detected.

Further, the phase matching function of the application between the printer and the computer is obtained by using the page-by-page synchronization code.

Incidentally, as a technique related to a printer for notifying a paper out and its print control, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-10 is available.
The printer device disclosed in Japanese Patent No.
For example, a printer with an out-of-paper notice function disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 258580, or a printer print control system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-111583 can be used.

[0005]

In the above-described paper out notification by the printer, when the print data transmitted from the computer to the printer is different, the paper out notification timing for notifying the computer side is always different. The time until the out-of-paper notification is inconsistent and inconsistent.

Further, the paper-out detection circuit keeps the paper-out detection position constant irrespective of the number of lines per page. Therefore, in most cases, the paper-out detection is performed in the state where printing is performed up to the middle of the page. Yes, the paper is wasted.

Further, since the print data relating to the wasted page needs to be retransmitted from the beginning of the page from the computer again, if the paper runs out, it takes too much printing time.

In addition, when printing is restarted after the paper runs out,
Since the print continuation position on the printer side and the restart position after the paper-out recognition of the application on the computer side do not always match, line misalignment may occur.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem, and its technical problem is that paper is not wasted, and when a paper shortage occurs, the computer can easily handle the paper and quickly and regularly. To provide a printer that can recognize and restart.

[0010]

According to the present invention, print data transmitted from a computer is printed on a predetermined sheet and line number registration means for registering line number information per page, and the predetermined number. Is a printer including a paper-out detection unit that obtains paper-out detection position information by detecting an out-of-paper detection of the paper, and a paper-out notification according to the data processing status of the computer based on the line number information and the paper-out detection position information. It is possible to obtain a printer including a control unit that controls the above.

Further, according to the present invention, in the above printer, the control unit can obtain a printer in which a paper out notification is controlled by page management.

Further, according to the present invention, in any one of the above printers, a synchronization control code recognizing means for recognizing the synchronization control code is provided, and the control unit is normally operated by the synchronization control code recognizing means. It is possible to obtain a printer that does not perform sampling of No. 1 but does not perform sampling of the synchronous control code after detection of paper shortage.

[0013]

The printer of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of a printer 2 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The printer 2 also prints the print data transmitted from the computer 1 via the control line on a predetermined sheet.

In the printer 2, the line number / page registration unit as the line number registration means in which the information on the number of lines per page is registered from the computer 1 in association with each page to be printed before starting a series of printing operations. 5 and a calculation for calculating the remaining line number information for determining how many remaining lines should be printed from the relationship between the line number / page number information transmitted from the line number / page registration unit 5 after the occurrence of paper shortage The number of remaining printable lines is counted based on the remaining number of lines information from the calculation unit 6 and the number of remaining lines from the calculation unit 6 after the paper run-out is detected, and switching is performed from the data storage unit 9 side described later to the synchronization code detection unit 8 side.
When the sync code is found by detecting the sync code by counting the sync code and determining whether to continue printing, the comparator 7 does not operate in the normal time when the paper runs out. A synchronization code detecting unit 8 as a synchronization code recognizing means for notifying the comparing unit 7 and a control unit 4 for controlling each of these units are provided.

The printer 2 also includes a print processing section 11 for printing print data on a predetermined sheet, and a data storage section for detecting whether or not a sheet shortage has occurred and detecting a paper shortage. 9 and the paper-out detection unit 10 as paper-out detection means for generating a paper-out detection signal (including paper-out detection position information) for notifying it to the comparison unit 7.
And a data storage unit 9 for notifying the arithmetic unit 6 of the received line number information in accordance with the paper-out detection signal.

That is, the control unit 4 in this printer 2
Controls the out-of-paper notification according to the data processing status of the computer 1 based on the number-of-lines / page-number information registered in the page registration unit 5 and the out-of-paper detection position information detected by the out-of-paper detection unit 10. To do. That is, in the printer 2, the control unit 4 temporarily suspends the paper out notification until the unit becomes a unit in which the data processing by the computer 1 is easy.

Therefore, the operation of the printer 2 will be described below. The computer 1 has a control line 3 for the printer 2
Print data and print completion / printer side status are transmitted and received via.

In printing, in the printer 2, the number of lines / page registration unit 5 and the comparison unit 7 are driven and controlled by driving the control unit 4. The line number / page registration unit 5 receives and registers the line number information per page from the computer 1 via the control line 3 before the start of a series of printing operations, and this value is input to the calculation unit 6 as necessary. Supplied. The calculation unit 6 determines how many lines should be printed from the data storage unit 9 based on the relationship between the received line number information after the paper runs out and the line number / page number information from the line number / page registration unit 5, and the remaining lines to be printed. The comparison unit 7 is notified as numerical information.

The comparing section 7 compares the remaining row number information from the computing section 6 with the new row number information from the control section 4 and counts down. Further, the comparison unit 7 switches the data route to the synchronization code detection unit 8 triggered by the paper out from the paper out detection unit 10. Furthermore, the comparison unit 7 counts the synchronization code from the synchronization code detection unit 8 and determines whether or not the print data input from the control unit 4 and the print processing should be continued. The synchronization code detection unit 8 samples the synchronization code after the occurrence of paper shortage, and when it is found, the comparison unit 7
As a result, the notification is sent to the computer 1 and the printer 2 when printing is restarted by the printer 2 after the paper out.
The phases of match.

The data storage unit 9 receives the print data via the comparison unit 7 or the synchronization code detection unit 8, and the print processing unit 1
Print data is output to 1. Further, the data storage unit 9 has a function of notifying the arithmetic unit 6 of the print waiting line number information as the received data by the paper-out detection signal from the paper-out detection unit 10. The out-of-paper detection unit 10 monitors whether or not the out-of-paper has occurred in the print processing unit 11, and sends out an out-of-paper detection signal to the comparison unit 7 and the data storage unit 9 when out-of-paper is detected. The print processing unit 11 performs print processing based on the print data from the data storage unit 9.

The operation of the paper out notification by the printer 2 will be specifically described below by classifying into several patterns.

FIGS. 2 and 3 show the case where the number of printable lines b after the detection of the paper out is smaller than the number of print lines a per page, respectively. When the number of printed lines a per page is larger than several h], the timing of the paper out notification is shown.
FIG. 3 shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of printed lines a per page is smaller than [the number of printed lines g + the number of received lines h].

In the pattern shown in FIG. 2, when the print head position d of the printer 2 reaches the position shown in the drawing, the paper out is detected at the PE (paper out) position e. At this time, the printer 2 already has the number of rows h already received from the computer 1. Here, the number of printable / receivable lines i is continuously received from the computer 1 until the number of print lines a per page reaches the number of print lines a, and after the completion of printing, the computer 1 is notified of "paper out after completion of printing". The status is transmitted as a paper out notification c. After receiving the status, the computer 1 waits for the paper out to be released and restarts the print request from the beginning of the next page. Incidentally, the same applies to the following, but the number of printed lines g corresponds to the distance between the perforation position f and the print head position d.

In the pattern shown in FIG. 3, when the print head position d of the printer 2 reaches the illustrated position, the PE (paper out) position e is detected as a paper out. At this time, the printer 2 already has the number of received lines h from the computer 1, and the received number of lines h is the printable number of lines b after the paper runs out.
It is too large to print on the current paper. Here, the print data is received in advance by the number j of preceding reception lines until the page being received is completed, and the status of "print pending completion, paper out occurrence" is sent to the computer 1 as a paper out notification c.
To transmit as. After receiving the status, the computer 1 restarts the print request from the beginning of the next page for which the print suspension is completed after waiting for the paper out. After resetting the paper out, the printer 2 prints the print-hold page, and then continues to print the next page from the computer 1.

On the other hand, FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 show the case where the number of printable lines b after the detection of the paper out is larger than the number of printable lines per page a, respectively.
FIG. 5 shows the timing of the paper out notification when the print line number a per page is smaller than the receivable line number i. FIG. 5 shows the print line per page than the printable / receivable line number i. FIG. 6 shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number a is small, and FIG. 6 shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of printable lines b after the paper out is detected is smaller than the received line number h. It is a thing.

In the pattern shown in FIG. 4, when the print head position d of the printer 2 reaches the position shown in the figure, the PE (paper out) position e is detected as a paper out. At this time, the printer 2 already has the received line number h from the computer 1, but since the printable receivable line number i is larger than the print line number a per page, the last line of the last page is shown here. Until the number of print lines is reached, i minutes are continuously received from the computer 1 side, and after printing is completed, the status of “paper out after printing is completed” is transmitted to the computer 1 as a paper out notification c. After receiving the status, the computer 1 waits until the paper out is released and restarts the print request from the beginning of the next page.

In the pattern shown in FIG. 5, when the print head position d of the printer 2 reaches the position shown in the figure, the PE (paper out) position e is detected as a paper out. At this time, the printer 2 already has the number h of lines already received from the computer 1, but here the number of printable receivable lines i is continuously received from the computer 1, and after printing is completed Then, the status "paper out" has been transmitted as a paper out notification c. After receiving the status, the computer 1 waits for the paper out to be released and restarts the print request from the beginning of the next page.

In the pattern shown in FIG. 6, when the print head position d of the printer 2 reaches the position shown in the figure, the PE (paper out) position e is detected as a paper out. At this time, the printer 2 already has the received line number h from the computer 1, but since the received line number h is larger than the printable line number b after the paper runs out, the current paper cannot be printed. Therefore, here, the print data is received in advance by the number of preceding reception lines j until the page being received is completed, and the status of "print pending completion, paper out" is transmitted to the computer 1 as a paper out notification c. After receiving the status, the computer 1 restarts the print request from the beginning of the next page for which the print suspension is completed after waiting for the paper out. After the paper is reset, the printer 2 prints the print-holding page, and then continues to print the next page from the computer 1.

[0030]

As described above, according to the printer of the present invention, the paper is detected based on the relationship between the line number information per page registered in advance and the paper-out detection position information detected during the printing operation. By calculating the number of printable lines from the break detection position to the last line of the last page of the paper, storing the number of lines, and comparing the number of printed lines after detecting the paper break with the stored number of printable lines, Since the out-of-paper notification to the host computer 1 is controlled, the last page and the last line of the paper can be printed, and the paper out timing is always performed after the printing of all pages is completed. Processing becomes easy. As a result, it is possible to provide a printer in which the paper is not wastefully used, and the computer can easily handle when the paper is out and can recognize and restart the paper quickly and regularly. Further, in the case of this printer, when the paper is out, the synchronous control by the sync control code is performed to match the phase between the computer and the printer. There is an advantage that the throughput is improved because the resumption position does not coincide with each other properly, the line misalignment does not occur, and the synchronization control is not performed by the synchronization control code at a normal time except when the paper runs out.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a case where the number of printable lines b after detection of a paper out is smaller than the number of print lines a per page in the printer shown in FIG. 1, and [the number of printed lines g + the number of received lines h] Also shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of print lines a per page is large.

FIG. 3 shows a case where the number of printable lines b after detection of paper shortage is smaller than the number of print lines a per page in the printer shown in FIG. 1, and [printed line number g + received line number h] Also shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of print lines a per page is small.

FIG. 4 is a case where the number of printable lines b after detection of a paper out is greater than the number of printable lines per page a in the printer shown in FIG. 1 and is 1 more than the number of printable / receivable lines i.
It shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of printed lines a per page is small.

5 is a case in which the number of printable lines b after detection of a paper out is larger than the number of printable lines per page a in the printer shown in FIG. 1, and is 1 more than the number of printable / receivable lines i.
It shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of printed lines a per page is small.

6 is a diagram illustrating a case where the number of printable lines b after a paper out detection is larger than the number of print lines a per page in the printer shown in FIG. It shows the timing of the paper out notification when the number of possible lines b is small.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Computer 2 Printer 3 Control Line 4 Control Section 5 Number of Lines / Page Registration Section 6 Calculation Section 7 Comparison Section 8 Sync Code Detection Section 9 Data Storage Section 10 Paper Out Detection Section 11 Print Processing Section

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A sheet number registration means for performing print processing of print data transmitted from a computer on a prescribed sheet, and a sheet number registering means for registering information on the number of rows per page, and detecting a sheet out of the prescribed sheet. A printer including a paper-out detection unit that obtains paper-out detection position information, the control unit performing control of paper-out notification according to the data processing status of the computer based on the line number information and the paper-out detection position information. A printer characterized by being provided. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the control unit controls the paper out notification by page management. 3. The printer according to claim 1, further comprising: a synchronization control code recognition unit for recognizing a synchronization control code, wherein the control unit normally performs the synchronization control by the synchronization control code recognition unit. A printer characterized in that the synchronization control code is sampled after detection of paper shortage without sampling the code.