JPH09212313A - Print queue control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To decrease the frequency of form replacement and make the output time of each printer uniform by discriminating a form and automatically moving a print job. SOLUTION: A print queue information acquisition part 108 acquires a print queue name and a print job name from print queues 105-107, a print time estimation part 109 calculates the estimated time of every print job, and a print form name acquisition part 110 acquires the form name of every print job. And, a print queue state table 119 is generated in a storage part 118. Print time for every form name is calculated by using the form names in the table 119 as queue. The print job names, print estimated times, form names, and work print job No's are given to a work print job table 123 and stored in the decreasing order of the print total times for every form name and the print estimated times in the same forms.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print queue control method, and more particularly to a print queue control method based on a paper size and a paper type output from a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, regarding a print queue control method, when the load on a plurality of print queues is unevenly distributed on the network, the time until the start of printing is calculated and the time until the start of the most print is calculated. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 05-265777 discloses a method for automatically moving a print job to a short print queue to optimize the print output environment. However, it has not been taken into consideration that the paper needs to be frequently replaced when there are a plurality of paper types such as the size and style of the paper to be output to the printer.

[0003]

Since the above-mentioned prior art does not consider papers of different sizes and styles, a plurality of print jobs having different papers are registered in the same printer queue, and papers are frequently replaced. However, there is a problem that paper replacement is reduced and the output time of each printer is averaged. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer control method that solves such a problem, reduces the number of times of paper replacement by using a print job and paper information of the printer, and averages the output time of each printer. .

[0004]

[Means for Solving the Problems]
A print queue information acquisition unit that acquires information from a plurality of print queues, a print time estimation unit that estimates print output time, a print paper name acquisition unit that acquires a paper name from print job contents, and a CRT that outputs various information.
A keyboard for giving various instructions, a print optimization unit for optimizing the print queue, a storage device for storing various information, and a print queue content changing unit for changing the contents of the print queue can be solved.

[0005]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a host computer to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 1, the host computer is one or more printers 101, 10.
2, 103 and a job execution unit 1 for creating a print job
04 and a print queue 10 for storing print jobs
5, 106, 107, a print queue information acquisition unit 108 that extracts information registered in the print queue, a print time estimation unit 109 that estimates print time, and a print paper name acquisition unit 1 that acquires a paper name from a print job.
10, a print queue optimization unit 116 that performs calculation and control for optimizing the state of the print queue, a print queue content change unit 117 that reflects the result optimized by the print queue optimization unit to the print queue, and stores various tables The storage device 118, the print queue status table 119 held in the storage device and holding the print queue status, the printer information table 120 holding the print queue name of each printer, and the variables temporarily used in internal processing. A work table 121, a work queue table 122 used when optimizing a print queue, a work print job table 123, a CRT 124 that displays various types of print information, and a keyboard 125 used when performing various types of print changes. Although three printers are connected in the illustrated example, the number of printers is not limited to three in the present invention as long as the number of printers is two or more.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of a print queue status table that stores the result of acquiring the status of the print queue. This table is a table created for each print queue, and in this example, a print queue status table for one printer is shown. This table includes a print queue name 201, names of all print jobs registered in the print queue 202, estimated print time 203 for each print job, and paper name 204 for each print job.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of a printer information table that stores data input from an input device such as a keyboard. This table includes printer information No. 301 indicating the record position of the printer information table, print queue name 302, and paper name 30 corresponding to each print queue.
3. A used flag 304 as information that is temporarily used in correspondence with each print queue.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of a work table for storing data temporarily used during the print queue optimization process. This table includes a total print time 401 that indicates the print time of the entire system calculated by calculation, a total print job number 402 that indicates the number of print job data of the entire system calculated by calculation, and a total printer that indicates the number of printers of the entire system. Number 403, printer 1
Average print time showing the average print time per machine 4
04, the previous total time 405 that temporarily indicates the previous total print time of the work queue, the current work queue No 406 that indicates the current record position of the work queue table 122 shown in FIG. 6, and the record position of the work print job table shown in FIG. The current work job No. 407 shown and the current print information No. 408 showing the record position of the printer information table shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 shows the structure of a work preton job table that stores print jobs that are temporarily used during print queue optimization processing. This table includes a work job No. 501 indicating a record position in the table, a print job name 502, an estimated print time 503 for each print job, and a paper name 50 for each print job.
Consists of four.

FIG. 6 shows the structure of the work queue table 122 for storing work queue data temporarily used during the print queue optimization process. This table is work queue No. 6 for identifying the work queue table.
01, a print queue name 602 that stores the actual print queue name, names 603 of all print jobs registered in the work queue, estimated print time 604 for each print job, and paper name 605 for each print job.
Consists of

An embodiment will be described below with reference to the flow charts of FIGS. 7, 8 and 9 based on the configuration example of FIG.
In this process, first, in step 701, the user
The optimization instruction is given from the keyboard 125.

By this operation, step 702 is executed, the print queue information acquisition unit 108 acquires the print queue name and the print job name from the print queues 105, 106, 107, and the print time estimation unit 10
9, the estimated time for each print job is calculated from the print queues 105, 106, 107, and the print paper name acquisition unit 110 calculates the print queues 105, 106, 1.
The paper name for each print job is acquired from 07, and a print queue status table 119 in the storage device 118 is newly created. Here, the data used in this embodiment is shown in FIG. 1 as the data structure of the print queue status table 119.
0 is shown.

In FIG. 10, information of job names JOB7 and JOB8 is registered in the print queue name QUE01.
Job name JOB4, JOB to print queue name QUE02
Information of B5 and JOB6 is registered, and job names JOB1, JOB2 and JOB are stored in the print queue name QUE03.
3 shows a state in which information 3 is registered.

After executing step 702, step 703
Is executed, the printer information table 120 creation screen is displayed on the CRT, and the user is prompted to enter information. Then, the user selects the queue name 30 in the printer information table 120.
2 and the corresponding paper name 303 are input from the keyboard 125, and when the input is completed, the user gives an instruction to create the printer information table 120 from the keyboard 125, and the print optimization unit displays the printer information table 120 in the storage device 118. A printer information table 120 is created in which printer information No. 301 is assigned serially. FIG. 11 shows an example of the data structure of the printer information table 120 created here.

FIG. 11 shows a state in which the sheet A is registered in the print queue name QUE01, the sheet B is registered in the print queue name QUE02, and the sheet D is registered in the print queue name QUE03.

After executing step 703, step 704
Is executed and all the estimated print times in the print queue status table shown in FIG.
Is stored in the total print time 401 of the work table 121 in the storage device 118. Next, the result “8” obtained by calculating the number of all print jobs registered in the print queue status table 119 shown in FIG. 10 is stored in the total print job number 402 of the work table 121 in the storage device 118.

Next, step 705 is executed, and the result "3" obtained by calculating the number of all print queues of the printer information table 120 shown in FIG. 11 is stored in the total number of printers 403 of the work table 121 in the storage device 118. .

Next, step 706 is executed, and from the total print time 401 registered in the work table 121 in the storage device 118 to the work table 1 in the storage device 118.
As a result of dividing the total number of printers 403 registered in 21 by “6
20 ”is stored in the average print time 404 of the work table 121 in the storage device 118.

Next, step 707 is executed, the print time for each paper name is calculated using the paper name of the print queue status table 119 shown in FIG.
The print job name, the estimated print time, the paper name, and the work print job No. are assigned to the work print job table 123 in 18 in the descending order of the total print time for each paper name and in the descending order of the estimated print time even within the same paper. And store. The data structure of the work print job table 123 created here is shown in FIG.

FIG. 12 shows a state in which the print times are registered in descending order of the total print time for each paper name and in the descending order of the estimated print time in the print job of the paper name.

Next, FIG. 8 shows an example of the queue optimization processing method. This is executed after the processing of FIG. 7 is completed. In this example, first, as the initial processing, step 8 is executed.
01 is executed and the work table 1 in the storage device 118 is executed.
21 of the previous total time 405 is “0”, the current work queue No 406 is “1”, the current work print job No 4
“1” is stored in 07. Next, step 802 is executed, and the current work queue No. 406 and the total number of printers 403.
If they are the same, it means that the work queue is the last work queue. Therefore, all records after the current work queue No. 407 in the work print job table 123 are registered in the work queue of the current work queue No. 406, and step 9 in FIG.
Execute 01. If the current work queue No. 406 and the total number of printers 403 are compared and they are not the same, step 803 is executed. At step 803, the current work print job No. 407 and the total number of print jobs 402
If the current work print job No. 407 is larger than the current work print job No. 407, all the records of the work print job table 123 have been distributed to the work queue table 122, and thus step 901 is executed. If the current work print job No. 407 is smaller than or equal to the current work print job No. 407, step 804 is executed because the allocation of all records of the work print job 123 has been completed. At step 804, the current work queue No.
The print job of the work print job table 123 indicated by the work print job No. 407 is registered in the work queue table 122 of 406, and step 805 is performed.
Execute In step 805, the average print time is 4
04 and the current difference between the total estimated print time of all print jobs in the current work queue No 406 and the absolute difference between the average print time 404 and the previous total time 405 are compared, and the average print time 404 and the previous total time are compared. Time 40
If the absolute value of the difference of 5 is larger, step 806 is executed. If the absolute value of the difference between the average print time 404 and the previous total time 405 is smaller or equal, step 807 is executed. If step 806 is executed after execution of step 805, the work queue table 12 indicated by the current work queue No 406 is displayed.
The total estimated print time of all print jobs in 2 is registered in the previous total time 405, and the work print job N
"1" is added to o407, and the process returns to step 803. If step 807 is executed after execution of step 805, the last print job in the work queue table 122 indicated by the current work queue No 406 is deleted,
"1" is added to the value of the current work queue No. 406, "0" is stored in the previous total time 405, and the process returns to step 803.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of FIG. 8 based on the print queue status table shown in FIG. 10 and the work print job table 123 shown in FIG. 12, which are data structures in this embodiment.
6 is a data configuration of the work queue table 122 when the flowchart of FIG.

Next, an example of a processing method for associating an actual print queue name with each work queue table 122 in FIG. 9 is shown. In this example, first, step 901 is executed as an initial process, and the current work queue No 406 of the work table 121 in the storage device 118 is “1”, the current print information No 408 is “1”, and all the records of the printer information table 120 are stored. Used flag of 30
“0” is stored in 4.

Next, step 902 is executed, the current work queue No. 406 is compared with the total number of printers 403, and if the current work queue No. 406 is larger, step 909 is executed. The current work queue No. 406
If it is equal to or smaller than, step 903 is executed.

At step 903, if the used flag 304 of the record of the printer information No. 301 indicated by the current print information No. 408 of the printer information table 120 is "1", the corresponding print queue has already been assigned to another work queue. Therefore, in step 904, “1” is added to the current print information No 408 and step 90
Step 5 is executed. If the used flag is "0",
Step 907 is executed.

At step 905, the current print information N
If the current print information No. 408 is larger than the current print information No. 408, “1” is added to the current work queue No. 406, “1” is stored in the current print information No. 408, and the process returns to Step 902. If the current print information No. 408 is smaller or equal, the process returns to step 903. In step 907, the leading sheet name 605 of the work queue table 122 indicated by the current work queue No 406 and the current print information No 40 of the printer information table 120.
8 and the paper name 304 of the printer information No. 301 is compared, and if they are the same, in step 908, the printer information table 120 is added to the print queue name 602 of the work queue table 122 currently indicated by the work queue No. 406.
Print queue name 303 of the printer information table 120, “1” is stored in the corresponding used flag 304 of the printer information table 120, “1” is stored in the current print information No 408, and “1” is added to the current work queue No 406. 90
Return to 2. Further, the first sheet name 605 of the work queue table 122 indicated by the current work queue No 406 and the current print information No 40 of the printer information table 120
If the paper name 304 of the printer information No. 301 shown in 8 is compared and they are not the same, the process returns to step 904.

In step 909, the print queue name 602 of the work queue table 122 is not registered, whereas the print queue name 3 of the record in which the used flag is “0” in the printer information table 120.
02 is stored in the print queue name 602 of the work queue table 122 in ascending order, and step 910 is executed. In step 910, the work queue table 122 and the print queue status table 119 are compared with each other, and the changed amount is determined by the queue content changing unit 117.
02 and 103 are updated and the processing ends.

FIG. 14 is a data structure showing the print queue state after the completion of all the processes in the record format of the print queue state table 119.

[0029]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the paper set in the printer is identified and the print job is automatically moved, the number of paper replacement can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a host computer showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration of a print queue status table that stores information acquired from a printer queue.

FIG. 3 is a configuration of a printer information table that stores information acquired from a keyboard.

FIG. 4 is a configuration of a work table that stores information temporarily used by a print optimization unit.

FIG. 5 is a configuration of a work print job table that temporarily stores print job information in the print optimization unit.

FIG. 6 is a configuration of a work queue table that temporarily stores print queue information in a print optimization unit.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart for acquiring various information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating distribution of print jobs according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart for associating a work print queue with an actual print queue according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a data structure of a print queue status table used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a data structure of a printer information table used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a data structure of a work print job table used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a data structure of a work queue table used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a data configuration of a print queue status table used as a result of the embodiment of the invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101, 102, 103 ... Printer, 105, 10
6, 107 ... Print queue, 104 ... Job execution unit,
108 ... Print queue information acquisition unit, 109 ... Print time estimation unit, 110 ... Print paper name acquisition unit, 116
... print optimization unit, 118 ... storage device, 119 ... print queue status table, 120 ... printer information table, 121 ... work table, 122 ... work queue table, 123 ... work print job table, 124 ... CRT, 125 ... keyboard.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a system to which a plurality of printers are connected, a print queue information acquisition unit that acquires information from a plurality of print queues, a print time estimation unit that estimates a print output time, and a paper name from a print job content. A print paper name acquisition unit for acquiring, a CRT for outputting various information, a keyboard for performing various instructions, a print optimizing unit for optimizing the print queue, a storage device for storing various information, and a print for changing the contents of the print queue. A print queue control method characterized by a queue content changing unit.