JPH09314961A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To start printing even in the case where a designated taking-off tray is full of printed sheets when printing is desired and further prevent arbitrary printing from being performed to deliver printed sheets to another taking-off tray even in the case where the taking-off tray becomes full during printing. SOLUTION: For example, a plurality (two stages in this case) of taking-off trays connected to a host unit by a network are provided to an engine (printer) part. Although a user selects a taking-off tray 1 when data of a document are sent through the network to perform printing, printing is not performed in the case where the tray 1 is already full of printed sheets. In such a case, a taking-off tray 2 is selected to start printing. When the taking-off tray 2 is also full of printed sheets, printing is not performed because printing is not performed to any portions. On the other hand, even in the case where the taking-off tray 2 is selected and the printing can be started, if the taking-off tray 2 becomes full during the printing of the document upon the reception of data, an error signal is emitted as the printing of the document is halfway and the printing is suspended because a document finish code is not sent even in the state that the taking-off tray 1 is empty and that the printing can be performed.

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 is used by being connected to a network such as Ether and which has a plurality of paper discharge trays.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There are already printers that print an error when the discharge tray is full. You can eject the paper to a different tray when printing is not started, but if the paper ejection tray becomes full while printing one document, you can switch the tray without permission, and It is not good because it is confused whether it has been ejected.

[0003]

As described above, the conventional printer is very inconvenient because it displays an error and does not print when the discharge tray is full. The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and when printing is desired, it is possible to start printing even if the designated discharge tray is full, and the discharge tray becomes full during printing. Even so, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a printer that is easy to use and prevents printing on another discharge tray without permission.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, in a printer connected to a network and having a plurality of paper discharge trays, after receiving a document end code during printing from the network and ending the printing. If the specified output tray cannot be printed because the specified output tray is full when printing the next document of, search for an available output tray, select that output tray, and output to that output tray. Therefore, when printing is desired, printing can be started even when the designated discharge tray is full.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a printer which is connected to a network and has a plurality of paper ejection trays, the paper ejection trays are arranged in the middle of one print document classified by a document end code during printing from the network. When it is full, it prints an error and stops printing, so that even if the output tray is full during printing, it will not be printed on another output tray without permission. It is the one.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of emulation switching commands, and a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting paper full and paper empty, the emulation switching command is received during printing from the host. When you start printing the next document after printing is finished, select the output tray to switch to the specified output tray, or if the output tray is full and paper cannot be output, the paper is inserted. This is characterized in that a paper discharge tray that is not yet selected is selected and printing is performed. Therefore, when printing is desired, printing can be started even when the specified paper discharge tray is full.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of paper ejection trays capable of detecting emulation switching commands, paper full and no paper, a designated paper ejection tray is full and paper is loaded. When changing the selection to a paper ejection tray that is not loaded, the paper ejection tray to be changed can be limited, and even if there is another tray that does not contain paper, it is not selected. By limiting the output tray that is switched to, to some extent, it is possible to prevent the printer user from making a misunderstanding such as "not printed" and to the extent that other users cannot print. It is a thing.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting emulation switching commands, paper full and paper empty, when the printer is in the hexa-dump mode, When printing the next document after receiving the emulation switching command and ending printing, select the output tray by printing to the output tray that is not currently specified and is not full. Characterized by
Therefore, in the hexa-dump mode, it is not possible to set the output tray with a command (since the command is printed but not recognized), it is possible to start printing even if the specified output tray is full. It is a thing.

[0009]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of a controller to which a printer according to the present invention is applied. In the figure, 100 is a controller, 101 is a program in a program ROM 104, and a mode instruction from the panel device 110. , A CPU that controls the entire controller 100 by commands from the host device 112. 102
Supplies font data and programs from the outside I
The C card 103 is a non-volatile storage device (NVRAM) for storing the contents of the mode instruction from the panel device. 104 is a program ROM in which a control program of the controller is stored, 105 is a font ROM for storing font pattern data, and 106 is a CPU.
A RAM used as a work memory 101, an input buffer for input data, a page buffer for print data, a memory for download fonts, and the like. An engine interface 107 communicates with the engine (printer) 108 for commands, statuses, and print data. 108 is an engine (printer) that actually prints,
109 is a panel interface for communicating commands and statuses with the panel device 110; 110 is a panel device for notifying the user of the current printer status and mode instruction; 111 is a host interface for communicating with the host device 112. And usually Centro I
/ F and RS232C, but other than that, Ether Net
Connected to the host via a network such as or Local Talk. A host device 112 is a higher-level device of the printer.

(Invention of Claim 1) FIG. 2 is a flow chart for explaining the operation of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the host device 112 is connected to a network. A case where the (printer) unit 108 has two discharge trays 1, 2 will be described. Now, when data of a certain document is sent from the network for printing,
It is assumed that the user has selected the discharge tray 1 but cannot print because it is full. At this time, the paper discharge tray 2 is selected and printing is started. When the discharge tray 2 is also full, printing cannot be performed anywhere, so printing is not performed.

(Invention of Claim 2) It is assumed that the paper discharge tray 2 is selected and printing can be started, and the paper discharge tray 2 is full while the data received document is being printed. At this time, even if the discharge tray 1 is empty and printable, the document end code has not been sent, and an error is issued because the document is in the middle, and printing is interrupted. This process is performed until the document end code arrives, and printing is continued. When the document end code comes, the printing ends. If the document end code does not come, printing continues until the paper discharge tray becomes full.

(Invention of Claim 3) FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the host device 112 is not the host interface 111.
In the following description, it is assumed that there are three trays 1, 2, 3 connected to each other, paper is stored in the paper discharge tray 1, and paper is not stored in the paper discharge trays 2 and 3. When printing one document consisting of a plurality of pages, a printer having a plurality of emulations issues an emulation switching command at the beginning of the document data, and then sends print data. This one document is called a job,
When an emulation switching command is detected,
Recognize as the start of the job. Here, when print data arrives in the job start state, the output tray information is obtained and if the output is possible, printing is performed as it is, and if the output tray is full, switching to another output tray and printing is performed. to continue.

(Invention of Claim 4) Also, here, a switchable tray can be set in advance.
In the above case, if the switchable sheet discharge tray is set to the sheet discharge tray 3, the sheet is not switched to the sheet discharge tray 2 even if there is no sheet, and the sheet is switched to the sheet discharge tray 3. If there is paper in the paper discharge tray 3, even if there is no paper in the paper discharge tray 2 and printing is possible, it is not set as a switchable tray and an error is output and printing is not performed.

(Invention of Claim 5) Normally, in the hexa-dump mode, the data sent from the host is not detected as a command but is printed as it is. Even when the printer is in the hex dump mode, if the emulation switching command is detected and recognized as the start of the job, it is possible to solve the problem when the discharge tray is full even in the hex dump mode. Since the operation in this case is the same as that of claim 1, refer to the flowchart of FIG.

[0015]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, in a printer connected to a network and having a plurality of paper discharge trays, the next printer after receiving a document end code during printing from the network and finishing printing. When printing a document, if the specified output tray is full and printing is not possible, an empty output tray is searched for, the selected output tray is selected, and the sheet is output to that output tray. , When you want to print, you can start printing even if the specified discharge tray is full.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, in a printer which is connected to a network and has a plurality of paper ejection trays, the paper ejection tray is provided in the middle of one print document classified by a document end code during printing from the network. When the paper is full, an error is issued and the printing is stopped. Therefore, even if the paper discharge tray becomes full during printing, another paper is not printed by itself.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, emulation switching commands, and a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting paper full and paper empty, the emulation switching commands are issued during printing from the host. When printing the next document after receiving and printing, select the output tray to switch to the specified output tray, or if the output tray is full and paper cannot be output, Since the discharge tray that is not contained is selected and printing is performed, printing can be started even when the designated discharge tray is full when printing is desired.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of paper ejection trays capable of detecting emulation switching commands, paper full and paper empty, the designated paper ejection tray is full and paper is not supplied. When changing the selection to the output tray that does not contain paper, the output tray to be changed can be limited, and even if there are other trays that do not contain paper, they will not be selected, so it will be switched automatically. By limiting the discharge tray to some extent, it is possible to prevent the printer user from making a mistake such as “not printed” and to a certain extent prevent other users from printing.

According to the fifth aspect of the invention, in a printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of emulation switching commands, and a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting paper full and no paper, when the printer is in the hexa-dump mode. , When starting printing of the next document after receiving the emulation switching command and ending printing, select the output tray by printing to the output tray that is not currently specified and is not full. Therefore, in the hex dump mode, the output tray cannot be set by the command (since the command is printed but not recognized), printing can be started even when the specified output tray is full.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a controller to which a printer according to the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is another flowchart for explaining the operation of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Controller, 101 ... CPU, 102 ... IC
Card, 103 ... Nonvolatile storage (NVRAM), 1
04 ... Program ROM, 105 ... Font ROM, 1
06 ... RAM, 107 ... Engine interface, 10
8 ... Engine (printer), 109 ... Panel interface, 110 ... Panel device, 111 ... Host interface, 112 ... Host device.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A printer, which is connected to a network and has a plurality of paper discharge trays, starts printing the next document after receiving a document end code and ending printing during printing from the network. A printer characterized in that, when the designated discharge tray is full and printing cannot be performed, a free discharge tray is searched for, the discharge tray is selected, and the sheet is discharged to the discharge tray. 2. A printer connected to a network and having a plurality of paper discharge trays, when the paper discharge tray becomes full in the middle of one print document classified by a document end code during printing from the network. Is a printer characterized by generating an error and stopping printing. 3. A printer having a plurality of emulations, emulation switching commands, and a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting paper full and paper empty, receiving emulation switching commands during printing from the host, and ending printing. When you start printing the next document after printing, select the output tray to the specified output tray, or if the output tray is full and cannot be output, there is no paper in the output tray. A printer characterized by selecting and printing. 4. A printer having a plurality of emulations, a plurality of paper ejection trays capable of detecting emulation switching commands, paper full and paper empty, and a paper ejection tray in which the designated paper ejection tray is full and no paper is contained. When changing the selection to, the printer is characterized in that the paper discharge tray to be changed can be limited, and even if there is any other tray that does not contain paper, it is not selected. 5. A printer having a plurality of emulations, emulation switching commands, and a plurality of paper discharge trays capable of detecting paper full and paper empty, and receiving the emulation switching command when the printer is in the hexadump mode. When you start printing the next document after printing
A printer that prints to an output tray that is not currently specified and is not full.