JPH09174957A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing system which can select respective pages of a plurality of documents and output the selected pages while rearranging. SOLUTION: The printing system comprises means 11 for designating the printing of document, means 12 for describing the page of a document to be printed, a user interface 13 for designating the concurrent printing of page description of a plurality of documents and the setting of a page rearrangement pattern required by a user for making anew document from the plurality of documents by combining arbitrary pages, means 13a for rearranging the page description according to the setting of page rearrangement, and means 21 for producing a page image from the page description and outputting the page image to a printer.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing system, and more particularly to a printing system including a printer that prints according to a command from a computer terminal device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As printers have become more sophisticated, it has become possible to issue a large amount of document information from a terminal device such as a personal computer. In particular, as a document information command function for a plurality of documents, there is a finishing (bookbinding) function such as binding on the back or stapling. When using this finishing function, it is convenient to rearrange pages across a plurality of documents and create materials for filing and distribution.

As a technique for appropriately arranging a set of a plurality of documents in a batch, for example, there is JP-A-4-263571.

[0004]

However, the prior art deals with scanned page images. Also, regarding rearrangement, when a single-sided document is double-sided, the gap (blank) is simply filled, and each page is not appropriately rearranged across a plurality of documents.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a printing system capable of independently selecting and arranging each page of a plurality of documents and outputting them.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention solves the above-mentioned problems by providing a document print instruction means for giving a document print instruction and a page description of a document to be printed (a program in which the content to be printed is expressed in a page description language). A page description creating means for creating a page description, an instruction to simultaneously print the page descriptions of a plurality of documents, and an instruction to set a page rearrangement pattern to create a new document by a user combining arbitrary pages from the plurality of documents. A print instruction user interface, a page image generation unit that images the page description to generate a page image, and a page rearrangement unit that rearranges the page description or the page image according to the page rearrangement pattern setting. A printing system is provided, which comprises:

Here, the document print instruction means gives a document print instruction by a user operation. The page description creation method is
Create a page description for the document you want to print. The print instruction user interface issues an instruction to simultaneously print page descriptions of a plurality of documents and an instruction to set a page rearrangement pattern in which a user combines arbitrary pages from a plurality of documents to create a new document. The page image generating means converts the page description into an image and finally generates a page image to be displayed on the printer. The page rearrangement unit rearranges the page description or page image according to the page rearrangement pattern setting.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. However, the following embodiments exemplify a case where the present invention takes the form of a client / server system on a network.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the principle of the present invention, in which page rearrangement means is provided in the print instruction user interface. The printing system is configured by connecting a client 1 to a network 3 and a printer server 2 to which a printer 4 is connected. The client 1 includes a document print instruction unit 11, a page description creation unit 12, a print instruction user interface 13, and a page rearrangement unit 13a. Printer server 2
Is composed of the page image generating means 21.

The document print instruction means 11 gives an instruction to print a document by a user operation. As an instruction method, there is a method of executing a print command in an application or a drag-and-drop operation of an icon representing a document with a mouse. In the former case, the document print instruction means 11 is provided as a part of the application program. In the latter case, the document print instruction means 11 is provided as an independent program accompanied by a display form such as an icon simulating a printer. Further, when it is necessary to change the attributes such as the document original size and the document height and width, the user interface that enables the changes is the document print instruction unit 11.
May be provided by

The page description creating means 12 is an application, and this application controls a printer driver to create a page description. Page description is a program that expresses the contents to be printed in a page description language. Po is a typical page description language
Although there is an international standard page description language such as stScript, the page description language of the present invention is not particularly limited to the type. Therefore, the pseudo page description language similar to PostScript is used, and the detailed contents of the page description creating means 12 will be described later.

The print instruction user interface 13 is a tool for the user to exchange print instructions with the client. First, a plurality of page descriptions corresponding to each document sent from the page description creating means 12 are held. Then, the user gives a print instruction user interface 1
The page rearrangement pattern is set from the setting panel displayed in 3. If necessary, the user can also perform settings related to the print job such as the output paper size, finishing setting, and scaling ratio on the print instruction user interface 13.

After the page rearrangement pattern is set, the page rearrangement means 13a interprets the page description language to connect the page description for each document, and rearranges the pages according to the page rearrangement pattern. Setting panel and page rearrangement means 13
The detailed contents of a will be described later. After the page rearrangement is set by the user, the start switch on the setting panel is pressed to instruct simultaneous printing of a plurality of documents. Then, the contents including the rearranged page description and document information are issued as a print job, and the printer server 2
Send to

The page image generating means 21 generates a page image to be finally output to the printer from the sent print job and sends it to the printer. FIG.
FIG. 4 is an example of a setting panel for instructing a page rearrangement pattern which is one function of the print instruction user interface. Two-page spread printing (two documents) as a page rearrangement pattern on the screen of the multi-document page rearrangement setting panel 100
110, front and back printing (2 documents) 120, and page parallel printing (2 documents to 4 documents) 130 have check boxes 11
0a, 120a and 130a. In the figure, the check box 110a is designated, so that the double-page spread print (two documents) 110 is selected as the page rearrangement pattern.

FIG. 3 shows an example of creating double-page spread printing (two documents). A document 101 consisting of A1 to A3 and B1 to B3
A double-page spread print document 111 is created from the B document 102 composed of. As the configuration of the two-page spread print document 111, the front surface of the paper 111a is a blank paper, and A1 is arranged on the back surface of the paper 111a.
11b has a front surface of B1 and a back surface of A2.
The front side of 1c is B2, and the back side is A3.
The front surface of d is B3, and it is created in a flow of arranging a blank sheet on the back surface.

FIG. 4 shows an example of creating front and back printing (two documents). A front and back print document 121 is created from an A document 101 composed of A1 to A3 and a B document 102 composed of B1 to B3. As the configuration of the front and back printed document 121, the paper 121
The front side of a is A1 and the back side is B1.
The front side of the sheet 121 is A2, the back side is B2, the front side of the paper 121c is A3, and the back side is B3.

FIG. 5 shows an example of creating page parallel printing (two documents). A document 101 consisting of A1 to A3 and B1 to
Page parallel print document 1 from B document 102 consisting of B3
31 is created. As the configuration of the page parallel print document 131, A1 and B1 are arranged on the left and right of the paper 131a, A2 and B2 are arranged on the left and right of the paper 131b, and the paper 131c is arranged.
It is created by the flow of arranging A3 and B3 on the left and right sides of.

Next, the page rearrangement means will be described in detail. FIG. 6 is an example showing the page description for one document. The content of the page description of the page description identification symbol 200 includes a prologue 201 for performing general initialization, a setup 202 for performing initialization unique to a document, and a page description 203 for the first page representing the page description of each page. The page description 204 of the second page and the page description 2 of the nth page
05 and a file end symbol (trailer) 206 indicating the end of the file.

The designation language "%! PS-xxx" of the identification code 200 of the page description represents the start of the page description of one document. And the instruction language of the prologue 201, "%% B
“EginProlog” represents a general initialization start instruction, and the instruction language “%% EndProlog” represents a general initialization end instruction.

The setup 202 is mainly composed of an instruction command to the printer such as paper selection, and performs initialization peculiar to the document. Instruction language of setup 202 "%% BeginS
“Etup” represents a document-specific initialization start command, and the instruction language “%% EndSetup” represents a document-specific initialization end command.

The page description 203 for the first page, the page description 204 for the second page, and the page description 20 for the nth page
5 is a page description language of each page. Instruction language for each page "%% Page: 1", "%% Page: 2"
“%% Page: n” represents a start instruction of each page description, and the instruction language “showpage” represents an output instruction of each page. Then, the instruction language of the trailer 206, "%%
"EOF" represents the end of the file for one document.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example in which each page is extracted from the page descriptions of a plurality of documents and rearranged to generate a new page description, and a case where spread printing of two documents is applied. . The page description 300 of the document A and the page description 400 of the document B are rearranged by the page rearrangement unit 13a, and the page description 500 of the spread print document is created. Since there is generally no difference between documents in the prologue 501, either the page description 300 of document A or the prologue of the page description 400 of document B is copied. Regarding the setup 502, the page rearranging means 13a
An appropriate one is newly inserted according to the rearrangement pattern rearranged by. Here, a setup command for selecting a sheet of the same size as the original document and further instructing double-sided printing is inserted. Since the table on the first page is blank, a page description 503a containing no drawing command is inserted. Then, the page description of the page corresponding to each document is sequentially inserted like 503b.
If the number of pages is different, a blank page 503c is appropriately inserted. The last trailer 504 is the prologue 501
Only one is inserted as in.

As described above, the printing system of the present invention is provided with the print instruction user interface capable of instructing batch printing of a plurality of documents and the page rearranging means for rearranging pages. This makes it possible to rearrange pages across a plurality of documents.

As described above, the page rearranging means is provided in the print instruction user interface. As a result, a single page description is already created when it is passed to the printer server, which is well compatible with the conventional printer server designed to handle a single document as one job, and the conventional printing system. Can be used as is.

FIG. 8 shows a second embodiment of the present invention,
It is a figure when a page rearrangement means is provided in a printer server. Since this embodiment has the same configuration as that described with reference to FIG. 1, the same components are designated by the same reference numerals and only different points will be described. The printing system is configured by connecting a client 1a to a network 3 and a printer server 2a to which a printer 4 is connected. The client 1a uses the document print instruction means 11
And a page description creating means 12 and a print instruction user interface 14. The printer server 2a is
It is composed of page rearrangement means 22 and page image generation means 21.

The print instruction user interface 14 is a tool for the user to exchange print instructions with the client. First, a plurality of page descriptions corresponding to each document sent from the page description creating means 12 are held. Then, the user gives a print instruction user interface 1
The page rearrangement pattern is set from the setting panel displayed in 4. Also, after the page rearrangement setting by the user,
By pressing the start switch on the setting panel, an instruction for simultaneous printing of a plurality of documents is given. Then, the content such as the document information including the page description and the page rearrangement pattern is issued as a print job and transmitted to the printer server 2a.

The page rearrangement unit 22 rearranges the page description according to the page rearrangement pattern set on the setting panel. Then, the page image generating means 21 generates a page image to be finally output to the printer from the rearranged page description and transmits it to the printer.

As described above, in the second embodiment, the page rearranging means is provided in the printer server. As a result, the print instruction user interface can be simple. This is especially effective when the number of documents is large. This is because the page reallocation operation is a heavy operation that consumes resources such as memory / disk, so that by performing this operation on a server with a relatively large number of resources, it is possible to properly distribute the processing. .

FIG. 9 shows the third embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram when the page rearrangement means is provided in the page image generation means. Since this embodiment has the same configuration as that described with reference to FIG. 1 or 8, the same reference numerals are given to the same components, and only the differences will be described. The printing system is configured by connecting a client 1a to a network 3 and a printer server 2b to which a printer 4 is connected. Client 1a
It is composed of a document print instruction means 11, a page description creation means 12 and a print instruction user interface 14. The printer server 2b includes a page image generating unit 23,
The page rearrangement means 23a.

The page image generating means 23 generates a page image to be finally output to the printer from the rearranged page description and sends it to the printer. At this time, the page rearrangement unit 23a rearranges the page image according to the page rearrangement pattern set on the setting panel.

As described above, in the third embodiment, the page rearranging means is provided in the page image generating means.
This does not require interpretation of the page description language for page relocation operations. Therefore, it is particularly effective in a system using a lower page description language (for example, a printer control code such as ESC / P) in which it is difficult to grasp the document structure.

Further, although the above-described three embodiments have been described in the case of taking the configuration form of the client / server system, the client / server system is not always required.
It does not have to take the form of a system. The present invention can be similarly implemented by a local printing engine realized on the same computer, instead of the printer server in the embodiment.

[0033]

As described above, the printing system of the present invention is provided with the user interface for instructing batch printing of a plurality of documents and the page rearrangement function for rearranging pages. This makes it possible to rearrange pages across a plurality of documents. Therefore, it is possible to create a wide variety of booklets, and to make the materials for filing and distribution compact and easy to read.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle diagram of the present invention, and is a diagram when a page rearrangement unit is provided in a print instruction user interface.

FIG. 2 is an example of a setting panel for instructing a page rearrangement pattern which is one function of a print instruction user interface.

FIG. 3 is an example of creating double-page spread printing (two documents).

FIG. 4 is an example of creating front and back printing (two documents).

FIG. 5 is an example of creating page parallel printing (two documents).

FIG. 6 is an example showing a page description for one document.

FIG. 7: Extracting each page from the page description of multiple documents,
It is a figure which shows the example which rearranges and produces | generates a new page description, and is a figure when the spread printing of two documents is applied.

FIG. 8 is a second embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram in the case where page rearrangement means is provided in the printer server.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the third embodiment of the present invention and is a case where page rearrangement means is provided in the page image generation means.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 client 2 printer server 3 network 4 printer 11 document print instruction means 12 page description creation means 13 print instruction user interface 13a page rearrangement means 21 page image generation means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A document print instruction means for issuing a document print instruction, a page description creation means for creating a page description of a document to be printed (a program in which the content to be printed is expressed in a page description language), and the page description for a plurality of documents. , A print instruction user interface that gives an instruction for page rearrangement pattern setting in which the user creates a new document by combining arbitrary pages from the plurality of documents, and the page description is visualized as an image. A printing system comprising: a page image generation unit that generates an image; and a page rearrangement unit that rearranges the page description or the page image according to the page rearrangement pattern setting.