JPH09277668A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable printing to be performed by easily determining the relative positions of a sheet and a printing head. SOLUTION: A carriage 17 with a printing head 19 is arranged in a case main body 11 in such a manner that the carriage 17 is transferable laterally. The carriage 17 is installed so that it can be brought to a standstill at an arbitrate position. In addition, a sheet P can be printed at such a standstill position using the printing head 19. Further, a center mark 25 for visually checking the printing center of the sheet P to be supplied to a position below the printing head 19 and a print width indicating mark 26 are arranged on the same line of the carriage 17. In addition, a mark 27 for specifying a print start position is provided on the lateral part of the carriage 17. It is possible to set both carriage 17 and sheet P at a desired position for printing by manually registering them to their free relative positions while viewing each of the marks.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly to a printer which can visually identify a print center position of a long card or label used as a spine of a file, and can arbitrarily and easily make various layouts. The present invention relates to a simple type printer that can be selected.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Heretofore, there has been known a label or card for a heading which can be adhered to or attached to a spine of a file or the like. There is a mode used as a file. Generally, writing of characters on this type of label or card is mostly by handwriting, and there is an individual difference in obtaining beautiful character display, and appearance can not be said to be good,
In addition, there is an inconvenience that much time is spent on handwriting.

In recent years, printers specially designed for printing the labels and cards have become commercially available, and headings corresponding to each file are printed on the labels, and the labels are attached to spines of files or the like. The mode of doing has become widespread. This type of printer has various print modes according to the paper width and length as in the existing word processor, etc., so that a specific print mode is set at the time of input work or at the start of printing. By doing so, printing corresponding to the paper size can be performed.

[0004]

However, such a printer employs a closed structure as a whole except for a paper feed port and a feeding port, and it is impossible to access a peripheral area of a print head by hand. It has become. Therefore, it is inevitable to input various printing conditions, such as setting the paper width and specifying the offset width, at the start of input or at the start of printing, and the system is not provided with the simplicity that anyone can easily use. In particular, when a single-sheet label or the like used as a spine is to be printed, it is necessary to obtain a clear character display and to shorten the work time required for printing, thereby increasing the value of use as a printer. I can't expect that. As described above, in the conventional printer, at least the work of inputting the character information and the work of setting the printing conditions are always required, and there is a disadvantage that the working time cannot always be reduced.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to enable a position of a carriage equipped with a print head to be manually moved to an arbitrary position where printing is desired, and to enable visual confirmation of a printing center and a start position to easily and quickly obtain a desired position. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer capable of printing characters and the like.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention freely selects a relative position between a sheet supplied to a print head and the print head while observing the position of the sheet.
A configuration that allows setting is adopted.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a control unit disposed in a case main body for controlling predetermined information input through an input unit, and the case main body connected to the control unit. In a printer provided with a carriage provided inside and a print head provided on the carriage, the carriage is provided so as to be movable and stationary at an arbitrary position, and at the stationary position of the carriage, the print head is provided. A structure is employed in which printing is possible and a center mark for visually confirming the print center of the paper supplied to the print head is provided on or near the carriage. With this configuration, it is possible to leave the paper set in the carriage movement area in the case main body, move the carriage on the paper, and align it with the center where printing is desired while looking at the center mark. Therefore, it is possible to omit the operation of inputting the printing conditions according to the paper size.

In the printer, it is preferable that print width display marks are provided on both sides of the center mark, or print start position display marks for visually specifying the print start position are provided on or near the carriage. By using the print width indication mark, it is easy to select a well-balanced character size corresponding to the paper width, while using the print start position indication mark to set the top margin of the paper Etc. can be omitted.

Further, it is also preferable to adopt a configuration in which the input unit is provided with a function of outputting a print command to a print head, such as a character which is reversed from the last character of the inputted character information to the first character in order. Has been done. According to this configuration, for example, when printing is performed only on the lower area of a vertically long label or the like, the lower area can be positioned under the print head as the head of the paper feeding side and printing is not required. It is possible to eliminate a wasteful paper feeding operation in the margin portion.

[0010]

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

FIGS. 1 and 2 are external perspective views of a printer according to the present embodiment, and FIG. 3 is an upper plan view of the printer with a cover opened. In these drawings, a printer 10 includes a case body 11 having an open top surface, a cover 12 hingedly connected to the rear end of the case body 11 and provided to be openable and closable, and a front side of the case body 11. A keyboard 14 as an input unit disposed on the upper surface, a control unit 15 for performing predetermined processing of information input from the keyboard 14, a liquid crystal display 16 connected to the control unit 15, A carriage 17 movably provided in the direction;
A print head 19 is provided in the carriage 17 and connected to the control unit 15 via a flat cable 18.

As shown in FIG. 2, the case main body 11 is formed with a slit hole 11B extending laterally in the rear wall 11A, and a paper P such as a label or a card printed from the slit hole 11 is formed. Can be extended. A paper feed bar 20 and a guide bar 21 are arranged in the inner depth side region of the case body 11 along the left-right direction of the case body 11.
A carriage 17 is mounted movably in the left-right direction so as to straddle 21. A cutout 12A is formed in the cover 12, and the cutout 12A allows the liquid crystal display 16 to be seen from the outside even when the cover 12 is closed.

The carriage 17 is provided so as to be manually movable along a guide bar 21 to an arbitrary position. As shown in FIG. 3, the carriage 17 is equipped with a print head 19, a cassette ribbon (not shown), and the like inside.
A center mark 25 and a pair of print width indicating marks 26 located on both sides of the center mark are provided. The center mark 25 and the print width display mark 26 are formed by forming protrusions on the front end surface of the carriage 17. Here, the center mark 25 is provided at a position corresponding to the center in the width direction of the character to be printed by the print head 19, while the print width display mark 26 is provided at the print head 19.
Is provided at a position corresponding to the maximum width of a character or the like to be printed. Incidentally, in the present embodiment, although not particularly limited, the center mark 25 and each print width display mark 2
6 is set to 9mm each, the maximum distance is 18mm
Characters of width can be printed. On the left side of the carriage 17, a print start position display mark 27 is provided so as to protrude from a side surface portion of the carriage 17. The print start position display mark 27 indicates the start point of printing by the print head 19 in the horizontal direction of the print head 19, whereby the paper P is set even if the position of the print head 19 is not visible from the outside. Occasionally, an approximate indication of the start of printing can be visually confirmed.

The control unit 15 includes, in addition to various functions necessary for inputting and outputting characters, such as Roman character conversion and kana conversion, a character inverted from the last character to the first character based on the input character information. And a function of outputting a print command.

Further, the printer 10 according to the present embodiment
In addition to being operable by an internal battery (not shown), a commercial power supply can be used via an adapter. In FIG. 3, reference numeral 30 is a right end guide of the paper P, and is provided so as to be movable in the left-right direction in the drawing.

Next, a series of operations when printing is performed using the printer 10 will be described.

After the power is turned on, when a predetermined character or symbol is input by operating the keyboard 14, the input character is displayed on the liquid crystal display 16 in a vertically written state. Before or after the input operation, a printing condition according to the user's request, such as whether the printing is in a vertical writing format or a horizontal writing format, is selected.

Next, as shown in FIG. 4A, the cover 12 is opened and the carriage 17 is moved to the right to widen the work area, and one edge of the paper P is directed in the depth direction. Put in. Then, as shown in FIG. 4B, the carriage 17 is moved onto the paper P to position the paper P under the carriage 17. In this state, a desired print start position is visually checked while viewing the print start display mark 27. At this time, the guide 30 is set so that play in the left-right direction of the sheet P does not occur so that the sheet P is fed straight. Next, as shown in FIG. 4C, the carriage 17 is manually moved to the left. At this time, the vicinity of the center position where characters are desired to be printed in the width direction of the paper P is aligned while viewing the center mark 25.
Here, assuming that printing is performed substantially at the center of the paper P in the width direction for convenience, the center mark 25 may be aligned with the visual imaginary center line C of the paper P.

By turning on the print start switch in the state where the input work and the setting of the paper P are completed, the paper P is automatically sent and characters and the like are printed on the paper P. The leading edge of the paper P is the rear wall 11 of the case body 11.
It is fed out from the slit hole 11B formed in A. Then, the printed paper P can be attached to a spine such as a file.

In some cases, characters or the like to be printed on the paper P are printed only on the lower end area of the paper. In this case, FIG.
When the paper is set at the position shown in (B), a print mode in which printing is to be performed in the order from the last character to the first character may be set, so that when the print start switch is turned on, the lower end of the paper P is set. Printing on the area can be easily performed.

In the above embodiment, the printer 1 of the type in which the keyboard 14 is formed integrally with the case body 11 is used.
0, but the present invention is not limited to this.
The case body 11 and, consequently, the control unit 15 via a cable
Also includes the type connected to.

The center mark 25 and the print width display mark 2
6 and the printing start indication mark 27 can be displayed by engraving on the carriage 17 or the case main body 11 which is a peripheral portion thereof, or by attaching a label for marking, in addition to being formed by a projection.

Although the notch 12A is formed in the portion of the cover 12 corresponding to the liquid crystal display 16, a viewing window may be formed in the cover 12 instead.

[0024]

The present invention is constructed and operates as described above, so that the position of the sheet can be freely determined while visually observing the position on the sheet where printing should be performed. In particular, in the present invention, when the print layout is changed, the paper is set at a coarse position so that the paper can be freely moved, while the carriage is moved so that the center of the print head is viewed at the center mark. It is possible to obtain a very novel printing mode not available in existing printers, in which the relative positioning between the paper and the print head can be visually checked by performing positioning or the like, and printing can be started with the desired position determined. it can. Therefore, it is possible to provide a printer that satisfies the simplicity required especially when the paper used for the file spine is used.

Further, since the print width display marks are provided on both sides of the center mark, it is easy to intuitively grasp the selection of a balanced character size according to the left and right widths of the paper, and it is possible to make a printing error. There is no inconvenience of reprinting or the like caused by the above.

Further, since the print start position indicating mark for visually identifying the print start position is provided on the carriage, it is not necessary to set the top margin or the bottom margin on the paper from the input unit. Printing can be realized through simple operations.

Further, since the control unit is provided with a function of outputting a print command of characters which are reversed in order from the last character to the first character, printing is particularly performed in the lower area using a long sheet of paper. At this time, it is also possible to swiftly perform printing by eliminating the unnecessary paper feeding operation that may occur due to the margin portion.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of a printer according to an embodiment viewed from above.

FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of the printer as viewed from the rear.

FIG. 3 is an upper plan view of the printer with a cover opened.

4 (A), (B), and (C) are explanatory views showing a procedure for performing printing using the printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 printer 11 case body 14 keyboard as input unit 15 control unit 17 carriage 17 print head 25 center mark 26 print width display mark 27 print start position display mark P paper

Front page continued (72) Inventor Shigehiro Kawai 6-1, 1-1 Oimazatominami, Higashinari-ku, Osaka KOKUYO CORPORATION (72) Inventor Yuki Shiozawa 435 Shimodonooka, Iida-shi, Nagano Heiwa Co., Ltd. Inside the watch factory

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A control unit disposed in the case main body, which controls information input through an input unit, a carriage connected to the control unit and provided in the case main body, and a carriage provided in the carriage. And a carriage provided in the vicinity of the carriage, wherein the carriage is provided so as to be movable and stationary at an arbitrary position, and printing can be performed by the print head at a stationary position of the carriage. The printer is provided with a center mark for visually confirming the print center of the paper supplied to the print head. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein print width display marks are provided on both sides of the center mark. 3. The printer according to claim 1, wherein a print start position indicating mark for visually observing the print start position is provided on the carriage or in the vicinity thereof. 4. The input unit has a function of outputting a print command for a character or the like which is reversed in order from the last character to the first character of the input character information.
The printer according to 2 or 3.