JPH09263026A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus continuing printing processing while discriminating between an error medium and a normal printing medium even if an image forming error is generated. SOLUTION: Image forming parts 3, 4 and 5, 6 forming image data based on the data sent from a host 10 and forming images on a predetermined image forming medium, a medium discharge part 7 discharging the image forming medium from either one of at least two or more discharge parts, a discharge designation part 8 designating the discharge part having to discharge the medium by the medium discharge part 7 and an error detection part 8 detecting an image forming error are provided. The discharge designated part 8 sets the image formming medium discharged from the medium discharge part at a time when an error is detected by the error detection part 8 as an error medium to disignate the discharge from the discharge part other than the usual discharge part.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer which forms image data without a stop mechanism, such as a laser printer, which forms image data of a predetermined size and then outputs the image data at once. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, an image forming process of an image forming apparatus typified by a printer apparatus or the like is generally a command or data transmitted from a host computer (hereinafter abbreviated as a host) (hereinafter referred to as print data). ) Is once converted into an intermediate code and stored in a memory, and a second step of expanding the intermediate code to form actual image data is included.

In the first step, the print data sent from the host is converted into an intermediate code and stored in the first area on the memory. Then, in the second process, the intermediate code stored in the first area is developed into actual image data, stored in the second area on the memory, and sequentially sent to the print engine. The intermediate code includes position information for a print image for one page and image information at that position, for example, bitmap data for characters, shape data for graphics, and image data for photographs. It

In the first step, the print data sent from the host is once converted into an intermediate code because it takes a long time to directly convert the print data sent from the host into real image data, and This is because the intermediate code usually has a smaller amount of data than the intermediate code.

However, when a large number of fine and complicated characters and figures are present in a page, the data amount of the position information and image information of the characters and figures becomes enormous, and the intermediate code of the print data is larger than the print data of one page. The amount of data may be large. In such a case, inside the printer device, a process of expanding the complicated intermediate code stored in the first area of the memory into real image data, and storing the expanded real image data in the second area of the memory Although an attempt is made to perform processing, if the memory required for processing is insufficient, image formation may fail and an image formation error may occur.

Such image forming errors mainly include errors due to insufficient memory and overrun errors. When an image forming error occurs, normally, the image forming output until the error occurs, that is, the abnormal printed matter (hereinafter referred to as error paper) is discharged during the image forming, and the fact that the error occurs is displayed on the liquid crystal display unit, for example. And LED (Light Em
Itting diode) The display unit or the like notifies the outside to interrupt the printing process.

[0007]

However, in such a conventional image forming apparatus, when an error occurs in the middle of image formation, the printed matter in the middle of image formation is forcibly ejected to cancel the error. Since the image formation is performed again later, there are problems as described below.

That is, when an image forming error occurs during printing due to a memory shortage or an overrun error, not only a wasteful error sheet is output in a normal printed matter, but also the printing process itself is interrupted. Therefore, after the print execution processing, if the above-mentioned image forming error occurs when the operator leaves the seat for a predetermined time in anticipation of the print end time, the operator who thinks that the print has ended and returns returns an error. After removing the paper and removing the error, the subsequent printing had to be executed again from the place where the error occurred.

Some conventional image forming apparatuses have a means for canceling an auto error.
The error paper was mixed in the normally printed matter, and the operator had to take the trouble to remove it.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of continuing a printing process while distinguishing a normal printed matter from an error paper even when an image forming error occurs.

[0011]

An image forming apparatus of the present invention comprises an image forming section for forming image data based on external input information, and a predetermined image forming based on the image data created by the image forming section. An image forming unit that forms an image on a medium, and an image forming medium on which an image is formed by the image forming unit, two or more discharge units or discharge positions including a normal discharge unit or a normal discharge position that is used during normal operation. A medium ejecting section for selectively ejecting the medium, an ejecting designating section for designating an ejecting section to be ejected by the medium ejecting section, an image data creation error by the image creating section, or an image created by the image forming section. An error detection unit for detecting a formation error, wherein the discharge designation unit detects an error in the image forming medium discharged from the medium discharge unit when the error detection unit detects an error. Characterized in that it specify that discharged from the discharge portion other than the normal discharge unit as the body.

The external input information is, for example, a command, attribute information and data sent from the host.

An attribute determination unit that determines the attribute of the image data when the error detection unit detects an error from the external input information is provided, and the error detection unit detects an error and the attribute determination is performed. The image forming medium ejected from the medium ejecting unit when it is determined that the unit has a specific attribute, for example, confidential data designated by the user, may be ejected to the specific ejecting unit as an error medium. When configured in this manner, the error medium discharged to the specific discharge unit, that is, the medium that deforms the image forming medium determined to have a specific attribute to a state different from the state of the image forming medium discharged to the normal discharge unit It is desirable to further include a deformation means.

The image forming apparatus of the present invention further comprises an image data holding unit for holding image data corresponding to all image forming media discharged as an error medium in medium units, and a medium for the discharged image forming medium. A recovery processing unit that releases the designation of the discharge unit or the discharge position of the designation unit and that transmits the image data held in the image data holding unit to the image forming unit.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of a printer which is an embodiment of an image forming apparatus of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the printer device 1 of this embodiment has a receiving unit 2 and a language analyzing unit 3 serving as an image creating unit.
And an intermediate code creating section 4, an image developing section 5 serving as an image forming section, and a print output section 6, a sheet conveying section 7 serving as a medium discharging section, and a controller 8. The receiver 2 has
A host 10 that generates print data is connected.

The language analysis unit 3 analyzes print data received by the reception unit 2 from the host 10. The intermediate code creation unit 4 analyzes the above-mentioned intermediate code based on the analysis data of the language analysis unit 3. To create. Image development unit 5
Is to expand the intermediate code to generate real image data to be printed. The print output unit 6 and the paper transport unit 7 print the image on a predetermined image forming medium, for example, a printing paper based on the actual image data generated by the image developing unit 5, and print the printed image as described later. The paper is ejected to a predetermined ejection portion or ejection position.

The controller 8 is a CPU (Ce
ROM that stores control programs and parameters for implementing the functions described later by using the ntral Processing Unit)
The control circuit includes a (Read Only Memory), a RAM (Random Access Memory) for temporarily holding image data, and the like. The controller 8 controls the initialization processing of the memory and the control of the entire printer device, and also designates an error detection unit that detects a memory shortage error and an overrun error at the time of image formation, and a discharge destination of printed printing paper. It has a function as a discharge designation unit and a recovery processing unit that performs recovery after error detection.

First, the error detector will be described. The error due to the memory shortage can be detected during image formation. The printer device 1 according to the present embodiment has one
The page image is divided into three virtual bands,
Each virtual band is processed by the physical band on the memory in order,
Image formation is performed by a so-called banding method. The overrun error is an error that occurs when the data amount of the intermediate code becomes large or the process of expanding the intermediate code into image data becomes complicated and cannot be in time for the image forming process. When an interrupt occurs four times during processing, it is possible to detect an overrun error as an error. This is easily realized by the DMA interrupt management function of the CPU. The presence / absence of error detection can be distinguished by turning on / off an error flag in page units, for example.

Incidentally, the image forming error detected by the error detecting section does not prevent the next image forming process from being disabled unlike the jamming of the printing paper in the conveying path such as a paper jam. However, if the image formation is continued as it is, the normal printed matter is output with wasteful error paper mixed. Therefore,
It is necessary to distinguish the printing paper used when an image forming error occurs from the printing paper used during normal operation. The discharge designation unit designates a discharge unit, which will be described later, in order to distinguish them. Specifically, when the error detection unit detects an image formation error and turns on the error flag, a drive control signal for an actuator, which will be described later, is generated for each corresponding page,
This is output to the paper transport unit 7. The operation of the paper transport unit 7 will be described later.

Next, the recovery processing section will be described.
At the time of this processing, the error detection unit or a memory control unit (not shown) holds the image data at the time of error detection in a memory such as a RAM in page units. Then, after the discharge designation unit outputs the drive control signal, after a certain time has elapsed, the error flag is released to stop the generation of the drive control signal, and the held image data is printed out by the print output unit. Send to 6.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a specific example of the mechanism of the print output unit 6 and the paper transport unit 7.

Referring to FIG. 2, the paper transport unit 7 includes a paper feed tray 11, a paper feed roller 12, transport rollers 13 and 14,
The paper sensor 15, the conveyance roller 16, the paper discharge roller 17, the paper discharge tray 18 that is a normal discharge unit, the trash tray 19 that is a discharge unit other than the normal discharge unit, the actuator 21,
It is composed of an L-shaped arm 22 and a carrier plate 23. Reference numerals 31 and 32 are a photoconductor drum and a transfer unit included in the print output unit 6.

The paper feed tray 11 stores the print paper S, and the paper feed roller 12 sequentially feeds the print paper S in the paper feed tray 11 one by one. The conveyance rollers 13 and 14 guide the printing paper S that has been fed from the conveyance path L to the photosensitive drum 31 and the transfer section 32 to prompt printing. The paper sensor 15 is for detecting the presence or absence of the printing paper S in the transportation path L, and the transportation roller 16 is for ejecting the printed printing paper S via the paper ejection roller 17 to the ejection tray 18 or the trash tray. It is discharged to any one of 19.

Now, the operation of switching the discharge destination to the discharge tray 18 or the trash tray 19 will be described in detail.

The actuator 21 is composed of, for example, an electromagnetic actuator or the like, and drives the L-shaped arm 22 upward based on a signal from the controller 8, that is, a drive control signal from the above-mentioned discharge designating section. . One end 22a of the L-shaped arm 22 is rotatably supported by a support shaft (not shown), and the other end 22b of the L-shaped arm 22 is provided with a transport plate 23 swingably. Further, a fixed shaft 24 is provided near the carrier plate 23, and the carrier plate 23 is always in contact with the fixed shaft 24.

During normal operation, the error flag is off and the discharge designating section does not generate a drive control signal, so the actuator 21 is not driven. Therefore, the transport path formed by the transport plate 23 is the transport roller 1
6 → paper discharge roller 17 → paper discharge tray 18. On the other hand, when the error detection unit detects an image formation error, the error flag is turned on, and the ejection control unit generates a drive control signal. As a result, since the actuator 21 is driven, the carrier plate 23 is displaced to the position shown by the broken line in FIG. The transport path formed by this is the transport roller 1
6 → Trash tray 19

In the present embodiment, the normal printed matter is discharged to the paper discharge tray 18 as usual, and when an image forming error is detected, the error paper is discharged to the trash tray 19 and the recovery processing unit continues. The print processing is performed, and the printed matter is output again from the image data having the error. FIG. 3 shows a printer device 1 for that purpose.
6 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of FIG. In addition, S shows a processing step.

Referring to FIG. 3, when the power is turned on, the controller 8 performs an initialization process such as a memory check (S1). After the initialization process, when data and the like are sent from the host 10, the receiving unit 2 receives the PDL and sends it to the language analyzing unit 3 (S2). The language analysis unit 3 analyzes the PDL and sends the result data to the intermediate code creation unit 4. The intermediate code creating unit 4 creates an intermediate code based on this result data (S3). The image expanding unit 5 expands the created intermediate code and performs image forming processing (S4). During the image forming process, the error detection unit of the controller 8 always checks whether or not an image forming error has occurred (S5), and if no error is detected, the error flag for each page is turned off (S6). On the other hand, if an error is detected, the error flag is turned on (S7).

After that, the print output unit 6 performs an image output process based on the image data, that is, forms an image on a print sheet for each page (S8). After the image formation, the discharge designation unit checks the state of the error flag (S9), and if it is off, the print sheet S after the image formation is designated to be discharged to the discharge tray 18 (S10). On the other hand, if the error flag is on, the print sheet S after the image formation is designated to be discharged to the trash tray 19 (S11).
Then, the image forming process from S4 to S11 is repeated for all pages.

In this way, when an image forming error occurs, the error paper is ejected to the trash tray 19 and the normal printed matter is ejected to the paper ejection tray 18.
Even if the operator leaves the seat, the printing process can be automatically executed to the end.

In the above embodiment, the actuator 21 is driven to selectively eject the printing paper S to one of the two ejection trays. However, the error paper ejection method is as follows. It is not limited to this. For example, by controlling the horizontal angle of the discharge rollers, even when the same discharge tray is used, the normal printed matter is on the left side,
The error paper may be configured to change only the discharge position, such as on the right side, and the number of paper discharge trays may be set to an arbitrary number according to the design of the printer device.

When printing image data having a specific attribute such as confidential data,
In order to prevent the error paper from being left in a state where anyone can see it, the error paper may be discharged to a specific discharge unit. The attribute of the image data in this case is specified by the user as a command of the job or by attribute information attached to the job.
In addition, an attribute determination unit that determines the attribute of the image data based on the designation is provided. The specific discharging unit is, for example, a tray with a key. Alternatively, in order to transform the error sheet in the case of confidential data into a state different from that in normal printing, the sheet is discharged to a tray with a shredder.

Further, the printer has been described as an example of the image forming apparatus, but any image forming unit that forms image data without a stop mechanism may be used in, for example, a copying machine or a facsimile. It is applicable as well. Also, the printer device is not limited to an electrophotographic printer device such as a laser printer, but may be applied to, for example, a serial printer configured to drive and print without stopping a print head. it can. Further, for the sake of convenience, the example in which the printing paper is used as the image forming medium has been described, but the image forming medium is not necessarily limited to the printing paper, and a medium such as an OHP film capable of forming an image on the surface thereof. If so, the type does not matter.

[0036]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, even if an image forming error occurs, only the error medium is ejected to the ejecting portion or the ejecting position different from the ordinary ejecting portion and the image forming process is performed. As a result, the printing process is interrupted due to an image forming error and the operator does not have to remove the error paper.

Further, the operator can immediately check the error medium without searching the printed matter,
It is also possible to know in which part of the printed matter the error occurred.

Furthermore, since appropriate measures can be taken even when printing image data such as confidential data, it is possible to eliminate the possibility of leaking secrets.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a paper transport unit of the printer device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the printer device according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printer Device 2 Receiving Section 3 Language Analysis Section 4 Intermediate Code Creating Section 5 Image Development Section 6 Print Output Section 7 Paper Conveying Section 8 Controller 11 Paper Feed Tray 12 Paper Feeding Rollers 13, 14 Conveying Roller 15 Paper Sensor 16 Conveying Roller 17 Ejection Paper rollers 18 Paper ejection tray 19 Trash tray 21 Actuator 22 L-shaped arm 23 Conveyor plate

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An image forming unit that forms image data based on external input information; an image forming unit that forms an image on a predetermined image forming medium based on the image data created by the image forming unit; A medium ejecting unit for selectively ejecting the image forming medium on which the image is formed by the image forming unit to any one of two or more ejecting units including a normal ejecting unit used during normal operation; and the medium ejecting unit. A discharge designation unit that designates a discharge unit to be discharged, an error detection unit that detects an image data creation error by the image creation unit or an image formation error by the image formation unit, and the discharge designation unit, When the error detection unit detects an error, the image forming medium ejected from the medium ejection unit is designated as an error medium to be ejected from an ejection unit other than the normal ejection unit. An image forming apparatus symptoms. 2. An image forming unit that forms image data based on external input information; an image forming unit that forms an image on a predetermined image forming medium based on the image data created by the image forming unit; A medium ejecting unit that selectively ejects the image forming medium on which an image is formed by the image forming unit to any one of two or more ejecting positions including a normal ejecting position used during normal operation; and the medium ejecting unit. A discharge designation unit that designates a discharge position to discharge, and an error detection unit that detects an image data creation error by the image creation unit or an image formation error by the image formation unit, and the discharge designation unit, Specifies that the image forming medium ejected from the medium ejecting unit when the error detecting unit detects an error is ejected to an ejecting position other than the normal ejecting position as an error medium. Image forming apparatus characterized by. 3. An image forming unit that forms image data based on external input information; an image forming unit that forms an image on a predetermined image forming medium based on the image data created by the image forming unit; A medium ejecting unit for selectively ejecting the image forming medium on which the image is formed by the image forming unit to any one of two or more ejecting units including a normal ejecting unit used during normal operation; and the medium ejecting unit. A discharge designation unit that designates a discharge unit to be discharged, an error detection unit that detects an image data creation error by the image creation unit or an image formation error by the image formation unit, and the error detection unit detects an error. An attribute determination unit that determines the attribute of the image data from the external input information when the error detection unit detects an error and the attribute determination unit is An image forming apparatus, wherein an image forming medium ejected from the medium ejecting unit when it is determined to have a predetermined attribute is designated as an error medium to be ejected to a specific ejecting unit. 4. The medium deforming means for deforming the error medium ejected to the specific ejecting unit into a state different from the state of the image forming medium ejected to the normal ejecting unit. Image forming device. 5. An image data holding unit that holds image data corresponding to an image forming medium discharged as an error medium in medium units, and a discharging unit or a discharging position of a medium designating unit for the discharged image forming medium. 5. The recovery processing unit for canceling the designation and transmitting the image data held in the image data holding unit to the image forming unit, further comprising: The image forming apparatus described.