JPH10236713A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To avoid confusion of output discharge papers and improve facility for a user by assigning a specific tray of a multi-stage tray device to a paper discharge tray according to a selected input route among a plurality of input routes. SOLUTION: A tray assigning device 106 examines whether an image data is input to an input changeover device 103 from an image readout device 101, or from a circuit connecting device 102. In case of image data from the image readout device 101, the tray assigning device 106 is set so that paper discharge is output to the upper tray of a multi-stage tray device 105 of upper/lower two stages. In case of image data from the circuit connecting device 102, the tray assigning device 106 is set so that the paper discharge tray is the lower tray. Hereby, the paper discharge tray can be distinguished according to difference of the input routes of the image data, and hence confusion of the output paper discharge can be avoided.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus having a multi-stage tray device, for example, a copying machine with a sorter for performing printing through a line (network line, telephone line, other communication line).

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when printing is performed by a printing apparatus, even when printing image data from an image reading apparatus connected to the printing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as copy printing),
Even when printing image data from a computer using a line connected to a printing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as print printing), a tray for holding output paper discharge is not distinguished. Similarly, no distinction was made between print, print and discharge.

[0003]

In a printing apparatus having such a configuration, there is usually a difference in the period during which output paper is held in the printing apparatus between copy printing and print printing and between print prints. is there. For this reason, there has been a problem that it is not possible to distinguish the respective output paper sheets and to confuse them.
For this reason, the conventional printing apparatus is very inconvenient for the user.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve such a conventional problem, and has as its object to provide a printing apparatus which can avoid confusion of output paper and is highly convenient for a user. I do.

[0005]

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, a printing apparatus provided by the present invention comprises the following (1) to (1).
It is described in (3).

(1) A printing apparatus having a multi-stage tray device including a plurality of trays and capable of inputting image data from a plurality of input paths, wherein a printing apparatus is provided in a selected one of the plurality of input paths. Accordingly, a tray designating device for designating a specific tray of the multi-stage tray device as a discharge tray is provided (hereinafter, referred to as a first printing device).

(2) In the first printing apparatus, a tray monitoring device for monitoring the presence or absence of discharged paper in each tray of the multi-stage tray device, and a tray for switching a tray for which discharge is designated based on the information of the tray monitoring device. A device provided with a designated device (hereinafter, referred to as a second printing device).

(3) The second printing apparatus is provided with a tray designating apparatus for selecting the printing and discharging of image data from the line communication apparatus to the lower empty tray (hereinafter referred to as the third printing apparatus). ).

[0009]

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

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a first printing apparatus.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes an image reading device for reading an image, and reference numeral 102 denotes a printing device connected to an external line (not shown).
A line connecting device for connecting to the image reading device 103;
1, an input switching device for selecting which data to use from the line connection device 102; a printing device 104 for forming image data as an image on a sheet of paper; a multi-stage tray device 105 for holding printed paper ejection; Reference numeral 106 denotes a tray designation device that designates a tray to be used in the multi-stage tray device 105 based on information from the input switching device 103.

FIG. 2 shows a processing procedure of an embodiment in the case where a multi-tiered tray device 105 having two trays, an upper tray and a lower tray, is used. Here, it is set so that the image data from the image reading device 101 is held in the upper tray of the multi-stage tray device 105 and the image data from the line connection device 102 is held in the lower tray of the multi-stage tray device 105.

First, at 201, the tray designation device 1
In step 06, it is checked from which input source the input switching device 103 has selected image data. In the present embodiment, it is determined which of the image reading apparatus 101 and the line connection apparatus 102 has input the image data. In the case of image data from the image reading device 101, the tray designation device 106
Is set to output the paper to the upper tray of the multi-stage tray device 105. In the case of the image data from the line connection device 102, the tray designation device 106 sets the discharge tray to the lower tray in 203. Printing and paper ejection are performed in step 205 shown as a guideline of the processing procedure, and the output paper ejection is ejected to a designated tray of the multi-stage tray device 105 and held.

FIG. 3 shows a second printing apparatus and a third printing apparatus.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a printing apparatus.

In FIG. 3, reference numeral 301 denotes an image reading device for reading an image, and 302 denotes a printing device connected to an external line (not shown).
303 is an image reading device 30
1, an input switching device for selecting which data is to be used from the line connection device 302; 304, a printing device for forming image data as an image on a sheet of paper; 305, a multi-stage tray device for holding a printed discharge; A designation device 306 designates a tray to be used in the multi-stage tray device 305 based on information from the input switching device 303, and a reference numeral 307 denotes a tray monitoring device for detecting whether or not a discharge tray is held in each discharge tray of the multi-stage tray device 305. is there.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the processing procedure of the embodiment shown in FIG.

In the present embodiment, it is assumed that there are three or more discharge trays, and that the uppermost tray is fixedly secured for printing and discharging from the image reading apparatus 301. I have. The tray located below the uppermost row is also used for printing and discharging image data input via the line connection device 302.

First, at 401, the input switching device 3
When it is determined that the image data from the image reading device 301 is valid, the discharge tray is assumed to be at the top in step 402. The information assumed at the uppermost stage is transmitted to the multi-stage tray device 305 at 407, and the multi-stage tray device 305 sets the uppermost tray as a paper discharge tray, and performs printing and paper discharge at 408 shown as a guide to the processing procedure.

In step 401, when image data is input from the line connection device 302, it is assumed in step 403 that the discharge tray is at the bottom. 404: tray monitoring device 307
Checks if there is any output paper left on the assumed tray. As a result of the check, if the output tray is assumed to be an empty tray, the information for specifying the lower tray is 4
At 07, it is transmitted to the multi-stage tray device 305. The multi-stage tray device 305 sets the output tray to the lowermost stage, and performs printing and paper discharge.

If the assumed tray is not empty as a result of the confirmation by the tray monitoring device 307 at 404, the next higher tray is assumed to be the discharge tray at 405. At this time, 406
In this case, if the assumed tray is at the uppermost stage, printing / discharging is not performed since the image data from the image reading device 301 is exclusively reserved in the present embodiment. Provide the user with unprinted information if possible.

If the paper ejection tray assumed at 405 is not at the top, the process returns to step 404, and it is checked whether print ejection remains on the assumed tray. This operation is repeated until a vacant tray is found. If a vacant tray is found at a position other than the uppermost tier, the tier is transmitted to the multi-stage tray device 305 at 407, and the multi-stage tray device 305 sets an output tray. Thereafter, printing / discharge is performed at 408 indicated as a guide.

[0022]

As described above, according to the first printing apparatus, it is possible to distinguish the discharge tray for each input path of image data, and to avoid confusion of output discharge.

Further, according to the second printing apparatus, it is possible to detect a tray on which no output sheet is left, and to avoid the confusion of the output sheet by using the existing tray as much as possible. Becomes possible.

Further, according to the third printing apparatus, since the print discharge by image data printing from the line communication device is discharged to a lower stage of a tray having several steps, the print discharge from the image reading device is performed. Therefore, it is possible to keep the upper tray empty, thereby improving the convenience for the user.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing flow according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a second embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing flow according to a second embodiment;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 101 Image reading device 102 Line connection device 103 Input switching device 104 Printing device 105 Multi-stage tray device 106 Tray designation device

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus having a multi-stage tray device composed of a plurality of trays and capable of inputting image data from a plurality of input paths, the printing apparatus being adapted to a selected one of the plurality of input paths. And a tray designation device for designating a specific tray of the multi-stage tray device as a discharge tray. 2. A multi-stage tray device comprising: a tray monitoring device for monitoring the presence or absence of a discharge in each tray of a multi-stage tray device; and a tray specifying device for switching a tray to specify a discharge based on information of the tray monitoring device. Claim 1
The printing device according to the above. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a tray designation device for selecting printing of image data from the line communication device to a lower empty tray.