JPH09258927A - Printer system and printer setting method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer system for grouping physical printers having different output performance. SOLUTION: A condition setting means 1 sets a necessary condition for indicating the plural printers to a user as one printer. An output performance acquirement means 2 acquires output performance which the printers support. A printer condition discrimination means 3 discriminates whether the printers satisfy the condition or not from the condition and acquired output performance. A grouping control means 4 groups the printers when the condition is satisfied. A printer indication control means 5 indicates the grouped printers to the user. Thus, the physical printers having different output performance can be gouged with such constitution.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer system and a printer setting method, and more particularly to a printer system having a plurality of printers and a printer setting method for grouping a plurality of printers.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Currently, the technology for developing a network system such as a personal computer LAN is advancing. In this network system, all resources connected to the network must be effectively coordinated and used while providing flexible and adaptable computing services. In particular, since resources such as printer devices are frequently used, it is necessary to provide a user-friendly service with high usability.

Windows NT (a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, hereinafter omitted) is widely used as the mainstream of such network systems. Win
One of the printer services of dowsNT is a logical printer. A logical printer is a group of a plurality of physical printers. By incorporating this concept of the logical printer, it is possible to provide the user with a service in which a job output to the logical printer automatically selects and outputs a physical printer that is not printing.

[0004]

However, since the physical printers grouped by the above logical printers are premised on the use of a printer driver compatible only with printers having the same output capability, they all have the same output capability. It is a group of physical printers that it has.

Therefore, it has not been possible to group physical printers with different output capabilities. For example, the output capacity of printing paper size of a certain physical printer is A4, B.
4 and the output capacity of the printing paper size of another physical printer is only A3, it was not possible to configure a logical printer by grouping these two physical printers.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a printer system for grouping physical printers having different output capabilities. Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer setting method for grouping physical printers having different output capabilities.

[0007]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention sets a condition necessary for presenting a plurality of printers as one printer to a user in a printer system having a plurality of printers. Condition setting means, output capability acquisition means for acquiring output capabilities supported by the printer, and printer condition determination means for determining whether the printer satisfies the conditions based on the conditions and the acquired output capabilities. Further, there is provided a printer system comprising: a grouping control unit that groups the printers when the above conditions are satisfied; and a printer presentation control unit that presents the grouped printers to the user. It

Here, the condition setting means sets conditions necessary for presenting a plurality of printers as one printer to the user. The output capability acquisition means acquires the output capability supported by each printer. The printer condition determining means determines whether or not the printer satisfies the condition based on the condition and the acquired output capability. The grouping control unit groups the printers when the conditions are satisfied. The printer presentation control means presents the grouped printers to the user.

Further, in a printer setting method for grouping a plurality of printers, conditions necessary for presenting the plurality of printers to the user as one printer are set, and the output capabilities supported by each of the printers are set. It is determined whether or not the printer satisfies the condition based on the acquired condition and all the acquired output capabilities, and if the condition is satisfied, the printer is added to the printer list forming the grouping, and the printer is added. A printer setting method is provided, which presents the user with the listed printers.

Here, when a condition for setting a plurality of printers as one printer is set, the output capability actually supported by the corresponding printer is acquired. Then, the condition and the output capability are compared. Then, if the conditions are met, the printer is listed in the printer list and presented to the user.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the principle of the printer system of the present invention. The printer system includes a condition setting unit 1 for setting conditions necessary for presenting a plurality of printers as one printer to a user, an output capability acquisition unit 2 for acquiring output capability of a physical printer, and an acquired output capability. It comprises a printer condition judging means 3 for judging whether or not the condition is satisfied, a grouping control means 4 for grouping the physical printers, and a printer presentation control means 5 for presenting the grouped physical printers to the user.

The condition setting means 1 sets a necessary output capacity as a condition for presenting a plurality of printers to the user as one printer. A printer defined under such conditions will be called a virtual printer in the following description.

Virtual printers are grouped by physical printers that have different output capabilities, unlike logical printers, and are presented to the user as one printer. Details of the virtual printer will be described later.

The output capability acquisition means 2 acquires the output capability supported by each physical printer. Also, in the following description, the output capability will be changed to Capability.
y).

The capabilities correspond to, for example, paper size, PDL (page description language), finishing, double-sided printing, resolution, and the like. The printer condition determining unit 3 determines whether the physical printer satisfies the condition of the set virtual printer based on the set condition and the acquired capability of the physical printer.

The grouping control means 4 groups physical printers that satisfy the conditions of the virtual printer. Further, in the following description, grouping pooling (Poolin
g). Here, the pooled physical printer group becomes a virtual printer.

The printer presentation control means 5 presents the defined virtual printer capabilities to the user. That is, a plurality of physical printer groups pooled as virtual printers are presented to the user so that they can be handled as if they were treated as one printer.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of the virtual printer. A user 70 and printers A, B, C and D are connected to the network 60. The user 70 generally indicates that the user is a user of the system, and the printers A, B, C and D respectively indicate that they are physical printers.

Further, the printer A and the printer B are pooled, and this physical printer group is a virtual printer A.
It is defined as Similarly, printer B, printer C, and printer D are pooled, and this physical printer group is defined as virtual printer B.

As a method of defining the virtual printer A, the capability is defined so that the print request can be processed by the printer A or the printer B. As a method of defining the virtual printer B, the capability is defined so that the print request can be processed by the printer B, the printer C, or the printer D. By defining such a virtual printer, the user 70 can use the printers A, B, C and D and the virtual printers A and B.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the capabilities of the physical printer. In Table 20, PDL 21, paper size 22, and finishing 23 are displayed as capabilities for printer A, printer B, printer C, and printer D. As the capabilities of the printer A, PDL21 is PS (PostScript: a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States, hereinafter omitted), paper size 2
2 is A4 and does not have the finishing 23.
As a capability of printer B, PDL21 is P
S and PCL (Printer Control Lan)
guage: a trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company, USA
The paper sizes 22 are A4 and B4, and the finishing 23 is not provided. As the capabilities of the printer C, the PDL 21 is PCL, the paper size 22 is A4, and the finishing 23 is not provided. The capability of printer D is PDL21.
Is PCL, the paper size 22 is A4, B4 and A3, and the finishing 23 can be stapled. A virtual printer is defined by a plurality of physical printers having such different capabilities.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the capabilities of the virtual printer. Table 50 shows the printer A described in FIG.
This is a case where a virtual printer is defined by the capabilities of PDL for B, C, and D. As the capabilities of the virtual printer A, PDL51 is PS and paper size is 52.
Are A4 and B4, and do not have the finishing 53. The capabilities of the virtual printer B are PDL.
51 is PCL and paper sizes 52 are A4, B4 and A3, and the finishing 53 can be stapled.

When PCL, A4, and stapling are issued as print requests to the virtual printer B as the capabilities required by the user, the printer actually used is D. If stapling is not necessary, the printers available in printer B, printer C, and printer D are automatically selected when a print request is made.

When a virtual printer is used, since the capabilities are clearly defined, the printer driver corresponding to the capabilities will be used in the virtual printer. That is, the printer driver for the virtual printer can perform management control of all pooled physical printers.

Next, a printer setting method for setting a virtual printer will be described with reference to a flowchart. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of the virtual printer setting method. [S1] The user sets conditions for the virtual printer. For example, it is assumed that the capability in which PDL is PS is set as a condition for the virtual printer. [S2] The capability of the first physical printer is acquired. [S3] It is determined whether the acquired capabilities of the physical printer satisfy the conditions of the virtual printer. If the condition is met, go to step S4, and if not, go to step S5. [S4] Add to the printer list of physical printers that configure pooling. [S5] It is determined whether the physical printer for which the capability is to be acquired is the last physical printer. If it is the last physical printer, the process proceeds to step S7. If it is not the last physical printer, the process proceeds to step S6. [S6] The capability of the next physical printer is acquired. [S7] The capabilities of the virtual printer are determined from the completed printer list. For example, a physical printer with PDL PS and paper size B4 capability,
If the PDL is PS and the physical printer having the PCL capability and the paper size of A4 constitutes the printer list, a virtual printer having the PDL PS capability and the paper sizes of A4 and B4 is determined.

As described above, the printing condition required by the user is set in the pooled physical printer group in the form of the virtual printer. As a result, the virtual printer can set a wider range of capabilities to be shown to the user than when the logical product of the capabilities of the pooled physical printer group is simply taken. Further, the virtual printer makes it easier for the user to grasp the print request that can actually be output, as compared with the case where the logical sum of capabilities is simply taken.

[0027]

As described above, in the printer system of the present invention, a plurality of physical printers are defined as virtual printers and presented to the user. This allows pooling physical printers with different capabilities.

In the printer setting method of the present invention, the printing conditions required by the user are set in the pooled physical printer group in the form of virtual printers. This allows pooling physical printers with different capabilities.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle diagram of a printer system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a virtual printer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing capabilities of a physical printer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing capabilities of a virtual printer.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of a virtual printer setting method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Condition Setting Means 2 Output Capability Obtaining Means 3 Printer Condition Discriminating Means 4 Grouping Control Means 5 Printer Presentation Control Means

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. In a printer system having a plurality of printers, condition setting means for setting conditions necessary for presenting the plurality of printers as one printer to a user, and output capability supported by each of the printers. An output capability acquisition unit that acquires the output condition, a printer condition determination unit that determines whether the printer satisfies the condition from the condition and the acquired output capability, and a group that groups the printers when the condition is satisfied. And a printer presentation control unit that presents the grouped printers to the user. 2. A printer setting method for grouping a plurality of printers, wherein conditions necessary for presenting the plurality of printers as one printer to a user are set, and output capabilities supported by the respective printers are set. Acquired, determine whether the printer satisfies the condition from the conditions and all the acquired output capabilities, and if the condition is satisfied, add the printer to the printer list that constitutes the grouping, A printer setting method, characterized in that the printer listed in a printer list is presented to the user.