JPH0930025A - Printing control method and apparatus of thermal printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To inexpensively control the printing operation of a thermal printer. SOLUTION: Color conversion and color correction are performed to the data of a image file by a printer driver 14 and thermal control data for controlling a thermal head 17 is calculated with respect to the data after conversion and sent to a thermal printer 12. The thermal printer 12 becomes simple constitution not having a thermal control data calculation part and an image data storing RAM.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control method and a print control apparatus for a thermal printer which records by heat.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the advent of inexpensive and high-performance personal computers, high-resolution, multicolor image data has become easy to handle for personal use. However, a thermal printer for printing these prints is increased in cost in the conventional print control method and print control device of the thermal printer, and therefore a cheaper and higher quality thermal printer is required.

A print control device for a conventional thermal printer will be described below. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a print control device of a conventional thermal printer.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 21 is a host computer holding an image file. A thermal printer 22 prints an image file with a thermal head 29 having a heating element. Reference numeral 23 is application software that takes in an image file and gives an output instruction to the thermal printer 22. A printer driver 24 performs color conversion from the display color to the print color for the image data of the image file and sends the converted data to the thermal printer 22. A communication control unit 25 receives image data transmitted from the host computer 21 by the printer driver 24 and sends it to a random access memory 26 (hereinafter abbreviated as RAM 26) inside the thermal printer 22. The RAM 26 is provided to store the image data sent from the host computer 21 inside the thermal printer 22. 27 is a host computer 21
The heat control unit calculates the heat generation temperature of the thermal head 29 from the image data sent from the RAM 26 and stored in the RAM 26, and calculates the heat control data in consideration of the heat accumulation of the thermal head 29. A thermal head drive circuit 28 energizes the heating elements of the thermal head 29 according to the thermal control data.

The thermal printer 2 constructed as described above
The operation of the second print control device will be described below.
First, in the host computer 21, the user takes in an image file by the application software 23 and issues a print command by the thermal printer 22. This image data is output by the printer driver 24 to the RE which is the three primary colors displayed on the display of the host computer 21.
3 print from D, GREEN, BLUE (hereinafter RGB)
The primary colors YELLOW, MAGENTA, CYAN
RGB-YMC conversion for conversion into (hereinafter YMC) is performed, color correction is performed so that the difference between the printed image and the display image due to color is minimized, and then the image is transmitted to the thermal printer 22. The communication control unit 25 on the thermal printer 22 side receives the image data from the host computer 21, and sends the image data to the RA of the thermal printer 22.
It is temporarily stored in M26. When the reception is completed, the heat control unit 2
Reference numeral 7 analyzes the image data on the RAM 26, calculates the heat generation temperature of the thermal head 29, and controls the second and subsequent energizations of the heat generation element to suppress the heat accumulation of the thermal head 29 in consideration of the accumulated heat. Thermal control data, which is energization data, is calculated. Next, the thermal head drive circuit 28
According to the thermal control data, the heating elements of the thermal head 29 are energized to perform printing, and an image is formed on a medium such as thermal recording paper.

[0006]

When printing is performed by the conventional host computer 21 and thermal printer 22 as described above, the image data is once printed by the thermal printer 2.
The RAM 26 with a large capacity is loaded on the thermal printer 22 side in order to read the data into the internal RAM 26 and calculate the heat control data.
Need. For example, paper A6 size, resolution 300
Printing a DPI 1280 × 960 dot full color image requires a RAM 26 of about 3.6 Mbytes, which increases in proportion to the paper size and resolution. Therefore, the cost required for the thermal printer 22 also increases in proportion to this, and there is a problem in that it is not possible to manufacture an inexpensive and high-quality thermal printer 22.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object thereof is to provide a print control method and a print control apparatus for a thermal printer which does not cost the thermal printer.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention converts image data into thermal control data for controlling heat generation of a thermal head by a computer and transmits the thermal control data to a thermal printer. The thermal printer prints by causing the thermal head to generate heat according to the sent thermal control data.

Further, storage means for storing image data to be printed by the thermal printer, conversion means for converting the image data into thermal control data for controlling heat generation of the thermal head, and transmitting means for transmitting the thermal control data to the thermal printer. It is equipped with and.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the thermal control data is sent to the thermal printer by the above method and configuration.
The thermal printer can print by simply heating the thermal head according to the received heat control data.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a print control device for a thermal printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 is a host computer holding an image file. A thermal printer 12 prints an image file by a thermal head 17 having a heating element. Reference numeral 13 is application software for fetching an image file and giving an output instruction to the thermal printer 12. Reference numeral 14 performs color conversion from the display color (RGB) to the print color (YMC) for the image data of the image file,
The heat generation temperature of the thermal head 17 is calculated from the converted data, the heat control data considering the heat accumulation of the thermal head 17 is calculated, and the heat control data is transferred to the thermal printer 12.
Printer driver to send to.

Reference numeral 15 is a communication control unit that receives the heat control data transmitted from the host computer 11 by the printer driver 14 and sends it to the thermal head drive circuit 16. The thermal head drive circuit 16 energizes the heating elements of the thermal head 17 according to the heat control data to actually print and form an image on the medium.

When the user prints, the user specifies the image file to be printed and activates the application software 13. The thermal printer 12 issues a print command for this image file. Application software 1
3 starts the printer driver 14 in the background. The printer driver 14 expands the image file data into bitmap data and stores it in the image memory inside the host computer 11. This image data is sent to the host computer 11 by the printer driver 14.
Are the three primary colors of the display. RGB-YMC conversion is performed to convert from RGB to YMC, which is the three primary colors of printing, and color correction is performed so that the difference between the printed image and the displayed image due to color is minimized. The heat generation temperature of the head 17 is calculated, and heat control data, which is heat element energization data, is calculated by performing control such as suppressing the second time and subsequent energizations of the heat element in consideration of heat accumulation in the thermal head 17. . Then, the printer driver 14 transfers the heat control data to the thermal printer 12.
Send to Communication control unit 15 on the side of the thermal printer 12
Receives thermal control data from the host computer 11 and sends it to the thermal head drive circuit 16. The thermal head drive circuit 16 energizes the heating elements of the thermal head 17 in accordance with the sent thermal control data to perform printing, and an image is formed on a medium such as thermal recording paper.

In the control method and control device for the thermal printer 12 according to the present invention, the image data is printed by such a process.
The inside of 2 has a simple configuration without the heat control unit 27 and the RAM 26 for storing image data described in the conventional technique.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, in order to send the heat control data to the thermal printer, it is necessary to provide the thermal printer with the storage means for storing the image data and the conversion means for converting the image data into the heat control data. Therefore, the cost of the thermal printer can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a print control device for a thermal printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional print control device for a thermal printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Host Computer 12 Thermal Printer 13 Application Software 14 Printer Driver 15 Communication Controller 16 Thermal Head Drive Circuit 17 Thermal Head

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A thermal printer for printing with a thermal head having a heating element, and a computer for holding image data to be printed by the thermal printer,
The computer converts image data into heat control data for controlling heat generation of the thermal head, transmits the heat control data to the thermal printer, and the thermal printer heats the thermal head according to the sent heat control data. A printing control method for a thermal printer, characterized by performing printing. 2. Storage means for storing image data to be printed by a thermal printer for printing with a thermal head having a heating element, and heat control data for controlling heat generation of the thermal head based on the image data stored in this storage means. A print control device for a thermal printer, comprising: a conversion means for converting the thermal control data into a thermal printer; and a transmission means for transmitting the thermal control data converted by the conversion means to a thermal printer.