JPH09164728A - Hand-held scanning printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To readily obtain various types of print characters even when number of mounted fonts is small by a method wherein a scanning amount of a scanning device is detected and a printing timing is controlled in accordance with the detected scanning amount. SOLUTION: When a character is inputted to an input section 30, a CPU 34 reads font data from a character generator 32. The character is indicated on a display 36 in accordance with a selection format and a hand-held scanning printer 1 is placed on a paper such that balls 16a, 16b are brought into contact therewith. Scanning is carrier out in a direction perpendicular to a nozzle arrangement of a print head 2. As a result, the balls 16a, 16b are rotated and an encoder 6 operates. Printing is executed such that the CPU 34 drives the print head 2 on the basis of the font data by controlling the timing at specified intervals (scanning amounts) detected by the encoder 6.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a manual scanning type printer capable of printing characters on a print medium by manually scanning the print medium such as paper.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a manual scanning printer has been developed which can print a character string or a symbol at an arbitrary position and direction by holding a printer body by hand and moving it on a recording medium. Has been done. This type of manual scanning type printing apparatus detects the rotation amount of a roller provided in contact with a recording medium by a detection unit such as an encoder, and drives the print head in synchronization with the detection result of the detection unit. It is configured to print.

When characters are printed by such a manual scanning type printing apparatus, for example, a user selects a desired character from the printing size and vertical writing or horizontal writing that the apparatus has in advance. I had specified.

The manual scanning type printing device has severe restrictions on the size of the casing, the cost, etc., as compared with the stationary type printing device.
Therefore, the number of fonts installed was naturally limited. Therefore, there is a problem in that the characters printed by the manual scanning type printing device are scarcely changed.

One solution to this problem is disclosed in JP-A-60-109866. This manual scanning printing device is provided with a mechanism for adjusting the rotation angle of the print head with respect to the scanning direction, so that italic characters are printed.

[0006]

However, in this type of manual scanning type printing apparatus, the print head has to be rotated, so that there is a problem in that the mechanism is naturally complicated. Further, since the angle of the print head with respect to the main body of the apparatus has to be adjusted one by one, there is a problem in that its operability is poor.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and provides a manual scanning type printing apparatus capable of inexpensively and easily obtaining printed characters in which the number of mounted fonts is at least varied. To provide.

[0008]

To achieve this object, in a manual scanning printer according to claim 1, when the scanning means is manually scanned in at least two different directions, the detecting means. Detects the scanning amount of the scanning means, the control means controls the printing timing of the printing means based on the output signal of the detecting means, and the printing means prints on the printing medium. Therefore, by manually scanning the printing means in different directions, even if the number of fonts installed is small,
It is possible to print a variety of characters depending on the scanning direction.

Further, in the manual scanning type printing apparatus according to the second aspect, the scanning means is composed of a spherical rotary member which comes into contact with the printing medium during scanning and rotates in the free direction. Therefore, in addition to the features of claim 1, the operator can easily scan in any direction.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in the manual scanning type printing apparatus, the apparatus main body to which the printing means including the line head is fixed is provided, and the apparatus main body is manually scanned in the direction orthogonal to the line direction of the line head. As a result, in a manual scanning type printing apparatus for printing characters on a print medium, tilted characters are printed by manually scanning the apparatus body in a direction different from the orthogonal direction. Therefore, the inclined characters can be printed by a simple operation of manually scanning the device body in a direction different from the orthogonal direction.

Further, in the manual scanning printer according to the fourth aspect, in the case where the different directions by the manual scanning are more than a predetermined angle with respect to the orthogonal direction, the printing is prohibited. Therefore, in addition to the features of the third aspect. Therefore, it is possible to prevent characters that are inclined more than necessary from being printed.

Further, in the manual scanning type printer according to the fifth aspect, since the predetermined angle is 45 degrees, in addition to the characteristics of the fourth aspect, the printing of the unsightly characters inclined by 45 degrees or more is prevented. it can.

[0013]

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

First, the structure will be described. FIG. 1 is an internal configuration diagram of a main part of a manual scanning type printer casing 1 as an apparatus main body, and FIG. 2 is a bottom view. The print head 2 constitutes a printing means, and is, for example, an inkjet type line head having a drive circuit, and is fixed to the apparatus housing 1. The ink tank 4 supplies ink to the print head 2. The encoder 6 that constitutes the detection means has a slit disk 8 and a photo interrupter 10. The slit disk 8 is configured to rotate when scanned in the x direction (rightward in FIGS. 1 and 2), that is, in the direction orthogonal to the nozzle row 3 (line direction) of the print head 2,
It is driven by the ball 16 a via the idle gear 12 and the roller 14. The balls 16a, 16b, 16c rotate while making contact with the printing paper surface during scanning of the printing device. The ball 16a constitutes a scanning means, particularly a spherical rotating body.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of the CPU and its peripheral portion. The input unit 30 has a transparent touch panel for inputting recorded data of characters, and a segment display for a press monitor under the panel. The character generator 32 outputs kanji font data, kana font data, English character font data, and numeric font data (hereinafter simply referred to as font data). CP
U34 constitutes a control means, reads font data from the character generator 32 based on the record data of characters input by the input unit 30, and drives the print head 2 at regular intervals detected by the encoder 6. Control timing. Display 36
Displays the characters read by the CPU 34.

Next, the operation will be described. First, a character is input to the input unit 30. Then, the font data is read from the character generator 32 by the CPU 34, and the characters are displayed on the display 36 according to the selected format. And the balls 16a, 16
The manual scanning printer casing 1 is placed so that b and 16c are in contact with the paper.

FIG. 4 is a top view of the manual scanning printer casing 1. For example, when it is desired to print horizontally with normal characters, the balls 16a, 16b, and 16c rotate when scanned in the right direction (x-axis direction) in FIG. 4, that is, in the direction orthogonal to the nozzle row 3 of the print head 2. The encoder 6 operates. For each constant distance detected by the encoder 6,
Based on the font data, the CPU 34 drives the print head 2 to print horizontally (FIG. 5).

Next, the case of printing in italics will be described. For example, a manual scanning printer casing 1 is shown in FIG.
Even when scanned at an angle of 5 ° (shown by the dashed line)
The CPU 34 drives the print head 2 based on the font data at regular intervals detected by the encoder 6. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, the center line of the character is inclined by 15 ° as compared with the printed character of FIG. This is Figure 7
As shown in FIG. 5, as compared with FIG.
This is equivalent to the case of rotating the angle of 15 ° clockwise with respect to the scanning direction and scanning in the x-axis direction (FIG. 7).

Similarly, when the manual scanning printer casing 1 is rotated counterclockwise with respect to the scanning direction, italic characters different from those in FIG. 7 can be printed (FIG. 8).

In addition, if the casing 1 is rotated or the printing direction is changed during scanning of the manual scanning printer, characters of various shapes can be printed even with a small number of fonts.

Next, a case will be described in which the y-direction encoder 40 for detecting the rotation of the ball 16a in the y-direction, which is indicated by the chain double-dashed line in FIG. 3, is provided. Although not shown in FIG. 1, the y-direction encoder 40 is similar to the encoder 6 (hereinafter referred to as the x-direction encoder 6) and is arranged at a 90 degree offset from the x-direction encoder 6.

When the y-direction encoder 40 is provided as described above, the following operation shown in the flowchart of FIG. 9 can be performed.

First, in step S1 of FIG. 9 (hereinafter referred to as S1 and other steps are the same), when the rotation of the ball 16a is detected by the x-direction encoder 6, the y-direction encoder 40 determines in step S2. It is determined whether the ball 16a is rotating in the y direction. Then, when it is detected in S2 that the ball 16a is not rotating in the y direction, in S3, the drive timing of the print head 2 is controlled according to the detection result of the x direction encoder 6 as in the above-described embodiment. Is printed.

In S2, the y-direction encoder 4
When it is detected that the ball 16a is rotating in the y direction by 0, the rotation amount of the ball 16a in the x direction by the x direction encoder 6 and the y direction encoder 40 are detected in S4.
The rotation amount of the ball 16a in the y direction is compared. When the rotation amount of the ball 16a is larger in the x direction than in the y direction, in S3, the inclined printing is performed as described above. In the printing in this case, the drive timing of the print head 2 may be determined only according to the detection result of the x-direction encoder 6, or the x-direction encoder 6 and the y-direction may be determined.
The distance at which the ball 16a actually rotates may be obtained according to the detection result of the direction encoder 40, and the drive timing of the print head 2 may be determined according to the value.

Then, in S4, when the rotation amount of the ball 16a in the y direction by the y direction encoder 40 is larger than the rotation amount of the ball 16a in the x direction by the x direction encoder 6, the nozzle row 3 of the print head 2 is selected. On the other hand, since the manual scanning direction is tilted by 45 degrees or more, the characters to be printed may be tilted too much to have an unsightly shape. Therefore, in S5, the printing is prohibited. Note that this printing prohibition may be simply prohibition of ink ejection by the print head 2, or may be such that the ball 16a is rotated by driving a brake that can be brought into contact with and separated from the ball 16a by a solenoid or the like. It may be prohibited.
Further, the prohibited angle is preferably 45 degrees, but may be changed as necessary.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, but can take any form without departing from the spirit of the present invention. For example, scanning means,
It may be composed of a cylindrical tire capable of moving the position of the rotary shaft about the position of the print head. Alternatively, a lattice pattern may be provided on the entire surface of the ball 16a, and the rotation of the ball may be detected by optically detecting the lattice.

Further, the structure of the manual scanning type printing apparatus may be used by connecting to an external text editing apparatus such as a personal computer like an ordinary printer without including the input unit in the scanning type printing apparatus. Good. In this case, it is composed of an interface for inputting character data from a personal computer, a print head, a CPU and its peripheral devices.

[0028]

As is apparent from the above description, in the manual scanning printer according to the first aspect of the present invention, by scanning the printing means in different directions, even if the number of fonts mounted is small, the scanning can be performed. It is possible to print a variety of characters depending on the direction.

In the manual scanning printer according to the second aspect of the invention, since the scanning means is constituted by the spherical rotating member, the operator can easily move in any direction in addition to the features of the first aspect. Can be scanned.

In the manual scanning printer according to the third aspect of the present invention, since the tilted characters are printed by manually scanning the device body in a direction other than the direction orthogonal to the line direction of the line head, the device body is orthogonal. Slanted characters can be printed by a simple operation of manually scanning in a direction different from the direction.

Further, in the manual scanning type printer according to the fourth aspect, in the case where the different directions by the manual scanning are more than a predetermined angle with respect to the orthogonal direction, the printing is prohibited. Therefore, it is possible to prevent characters that are inclined more than necessary from being printed.

Further, in the manual scanning printer according to the fifth aspect, since the predetermined angle is 45 degrees, in addition to the features of the fourth aspect, the printing of the unsightly characters inclined by 45 degrees or more is prevented. it can.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an internal configuration diagram of a main part of a device housing of a manual scanning printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a bottom view of a device housing of the manual scanning printer.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of a CPU and its peripheral portion of the manual scanning printer.

FIG. 4 is a top view of an apparatus housing of the manual scanning printing apparatus.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example in which the manual scanning printer is normally scanned for printing.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example in which scanning is performed by shifting the scanning direction of the manual scanning printing device by 15 ° with respect to normal scanning and printing is performed.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example in which the manual scanning printing device is rotated by 15 ° in the clockwise direction to scan and print.

FIG. 8: The above manual scanning type printer is rotated counterclockwise by 15 °.
It is a figure which shows the example which rotated, scanned, and printed.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of a modified manual scanning printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Manual Scanning Printer Housing 2 Print Head 3 Nozzle Row 6 Encoder 16a Roller 34 CPU 40 y Direction Encoder

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A printing means for printing on a printing medium, a scanning means for manually scanning the printing means in at least two different directions, and a detection for detecting a scanning amount of the scanning means when the printing means scans. A manual scanning printing apparatus comprising: a printing unit and a control unit that controls a printing timing of the printing unit based on an output signal of the detection unit. 2. The manual scanning printer according to claim 1, wherein the scanning unit is constituted by a spherical rotary member that comes into contact with the print medium and rotates in a free direction during the scanning. 3. A manual scan for printing characters on a print medium by comprising an apparatus main body to which a printing means including a line head is fixed, and manually scanning the apparatus main body in a direction orthogonal to the line direction of the line head. A manual scanning type printing device, wherein an inclined character is printed by manually scanning the device body in a direction different from the orthogonal direction. 4. The manual scanning printer according to claim 3, wherein printing is prohibited when a different direction of the manual scanning is a predetermined angle or more with respect to the orthogonal direction. 5. The manual scanning printer according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined angle is 45 degrees.