JPH09240118A - Data processing apparatus and printing control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To display the residual required time up to the completion of printing during the printing of a document on a screen by calculating the residual required time necessary up to the completion of all of data to be printed to let the same know. SOLUTION: A printer control part 2 reads the printing data corresponding to one page from a printing data memory buffer 1 to transmit the same to a printer 3 and starts a required time operation part 4. The required time operation part 4 takes out the number of characters of printing data printed from now on from the printing data memory buffer 1 to calculate the residual required time T up to the completion of the printing of all of documents in the printer 3. The required time operation part 4 calculates the residual time T required up to the completion of printing to deliver the same to a display data developing part 5 to develop the received required time to display data to output the same to a display control part 6. By this constitution, the residual required time up to the completion of printing during the printing of a document can be displayed on a screen.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus such as a document creating apparatus, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus and a print control method for notifying a remaining printing time required when printing a document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, when a document created by a document creation device or a personal computer having a word processing function is printed and output, a display indicating that the device is in a printing state is displayed on the screen, Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 4, the page number of the currently printed document, the total number of printed pages, and the like have been displayed. Therefore, the user can know how many pages in the currently printed document are printed by displaying the screen, but can print the rest of the document in what time. Since there is no indication about that, it is the current situation that there is no idea. For this reason, even if an attempt is made to perform another work during printing, the time required to complete all the printing is not clearly known, so that there is an inconvenience that the setup for performing the other work cannot be prepared.

[0003]

As described above, in the information processing apparatus such as the conventional document creating apparatus, the pages of the currently printed document are displayed during printing, but by the end of printing. Since there is no display that shows how much time it will take afterwards, the user cannot estimate the time required to finish printing, and the work efficiency will be reduced because it is not possible to make arrangements for other work during this period. There was a drawback.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and it is possible to solve the above problems and display the remaining time required until the end of printing on a screen during document printing, And a print control method.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is an information processing apparatus having a function of transferring created data or read data to a printing apparatus and outputting the data. Information comprising: an arithmetic means for calculating the remaining time required until the printing of the data by the printing device and an informing means for informing the required time calculated by the arithmetic means. It is in the processing unit.

Further, in order to achieve the above object, the present invention is an information processing apparatus having a function of transferring created data or read data to a printing apparatus and outputting the data, and all the data to be printed is the printed data. A printing control method is characterized in that a remaining time required until printing is completed by the device is calculated, and control is performed so as to notify the required time calculated by this calculation.

According to the above arrangement, the calculation means calculates the remaining time required until all the data to be printed is printed by the printing device. The notification means notifies the required time calculated by the calculation means.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The outline of the present invention is as follows. That is, the present invention is an information processing apparatus having a function of transferring created data or read data to a printing apparatus and outputting the data, and all the data to be printed remains necessary until the printing is completed by the printing apparatus. And a notifying means for notifying the required time calculated by the calculating means. Then, in the information processing apparatus of the present invention, the calculation means calculates the remaining required time until all the data to be printed is printed by the printing apparatus. The notification means notifies the required time calculated by the calculation means.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the information processing apparatus of the present invention. A print data storage buffer 1 stores print data, which is configured by an auxiliary storage device such as a RAM or an HDD. A printer controller 2 reads the print data from the print data storage buffer 1 and transfers the print data to the printer 3, and a printer controller 3 that activates the required time calculator 4 as necessary. A printer 4 for output outputs a required time calculation unit for calculating the remaining time until the printing of the document printed by the printer 3 is completed, and 5 develops the calculation result passed from the required time calculation unit 4 into display data. The display data expanding unit 6 displays the display data passed from the display data expanding unit 5 on the CRT 7
A display control unit 7 is a CRT that displays various data such as the time required for printing and a document being printed.

Next, the printing operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to FIG. First, in step 201,
The printer control unit 2 reads the print data for one page from the print data storage buffer 1, transfers the print data to the printer 3, and activates the required time calculation unit 4. In step 202, the required time calculation unit 4 retrieves the number of characters of the print data to be printed from the print data storage buffer 1 and substitutes it into the calculation formula (1) shown below to print all the documents on the printer 3. The remaining required time T until the end is calculated.

Time required for printing T = (time for feeding one page of paper by the printer 3) × number of pages + (number of remaining characters to be printed) × (time required for the printer 3 to print one character on the paper ) (1) When the required time calculation unit 4 calculates the remaining time T required to finish printing, it passes this to the display data expansion unit 5.
In step 203, the display data expansion unit 5 expands the passed required time into display data, and then outputs this to the display control unit 6. However, the display data expansion unit also expands data such as the number of printed pages / the total number of printed pages. The display control unit 6 displays the passed display data on the screen of the CRT 7 as shown in FIG. On the other hand, the printer 3 prints the print data transferred from the printer control unit 2 on paper and outputs it.

Next, in step 204, the printer control unit 2 determines whether or not printing of all print-designated documents in the print data storage buffer 1 has been completed. If not, the process returns to step 201, When it is finished, the process is finished.

In the display example of the above-described example, as shown in FIG. 3, the page of the document currently being printed, the total number of pages to be printed, and the remaining required printing time are displayed on the screen of the CRT 7.
According to the above-described embodiment, when printing data, it is possible to display the remaining printing time until all the data is printed by the printer 3 on the screen of the CRT 7.
The user can refer to the remaining printing time to perform other tasks and perform tasks efficiently.

In the above embodiment, the printer is assumed to be a serial printer that prints character by character.
The calculation formula of the required printing time T in this case was used. However, even in a line printer that prints line by line, it can be applied by resetting the calculation formula.

That is, the time required for printing T = (time for sending one page of paper by the printer 3) × number of pages + (number of remaining characters to be printed) × (required for the printer 3 to print one character on the paper) time)

[0016]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to display the remaining time required until the end of printing on the screen during printing of a document.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an information processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a remaining print time display processing procedure of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a display example of a required printing time displayed on the CRT shown in FIG. 1 according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional screen display during printing.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Print data storage buffer, 2 ... Printer control unit,
3 ... Printer, 4 ... Required time calculation unit, 5 ... Display data expansion unit, 6 ... Display control unit, 7 ... CRT.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. In an information processing device having a function of transferring created data or read data to a printing device and outputting the data, all the data to be printed remains necessary until the printing device finishes printing. An information processing apparatus, comprising: a calculation unit that calculates the required time and a notification unit that notifies the required time calculated by the calculation unit. 2. In an information processing device having a function of transferring created data or read data to a printing device and outputting the data, all the data to be printed remains necessary until the printing device finishes printing. The print control method is characterized in that the required time is calculated, and the required time calculated by this calculation is notified.