JPH10337907A - Printing data-processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simplify a printing apparatus in constitution and speed up the printing by providing a correcting means which moves the position of printing data to be output to each printing part in accordance with the shift amount of a plurality of the printing parts. SOLUTION: A printer driver 4, when receiving image data from an application software 3, stores the data in a band buffer and carries out a shift correction process for a printing start position to a plurality of printing parts by a shift correction-processing part 4a. When the plurality of printing parts shift with respect to the printing direction and start the printing at the same time, printing start positions are shifted among the printing parts. Therefore, in order to eliminate the shift, the printing start position of one printing part is corrected to be moved in the movement direction by the amount of shifted dots.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print data processing apparatus for performing predetermined processing on print data output to a printing apparatus having a plurality of printing units. In this specification, “printing” includes not only printing of characters and symbols but also printing of images.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, personal computers (PCs)
The character and image data created in step (1) are transferred to the printing apparatus in the data format of the print image, converted into a data format for print output in the printing apparatus, and printed on paper.

[0003]

However, in a printing apparatus having a plurality of printing sections and capable of printing a plurality of lines at the same time, each printing section may be provided shifted in the printing direction. If printing is started simultaneously in a plurality of printing units, the printing start position is shifted for each printing unit.
For this reason, it is necessary to perform a printing operation after performing a process of correcting a shift of a printing start position between respective printing units with respect to print image data transferred from a personal computer. For this reason, the conventional printing apparatus requires a circuit and a memory for correcting the printing position deviation, and the printing apparatus is complicated. In addition, the time for the printing process becomes longer because the time for the shift correction process is required.

Further, in the case of a printing apparatus that performs printing in both directions of the reciprocating movement of the printing unit, it is necessary to partially reverse the output order of the print data so as to correspond to the moving direction of the printing unit. Therefore, a memory is required for the printing device, and the configuration of the printing device is complicated. Further, time is required for the reverse process of the data order, and the time for the printing process is lengthened.

[0005] As described above, conventionally, in a printing apparatus, since the printing data transferred from a personal computer is subjected to correction of a shift of a printing start position, reverse processing of the order of the printing data, and the like, the printing apparatus is complicated, and printing is complicated. There is a problem that the processing time becomes long.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a print data processing apparatus capable of simplifying the configuration of a printing apparatus and speeding up a printing operation.

[0007]

A print data processing apparatus according to the present invention outputs print data to a printing apparatus that prints a plurality of lines at the same time using a plurality of printing sections arranged in a printing direction. A print data processing device for correcting the position of print data output to each printing unit according to the amount of displacement between the plurality of printing units.

[0008] The correction means of the print data processing device corrects the print data by moving the position of the print data output to each print unit in accordance with the amount of displacement between the plurality of print units. Thus, the plurality of printing units can start printing from the same position on the printing target surface, and the printing operation of a plurality of lines can be performed simultaneously without causing a shift in the printing start position. In addition, a circuit and a memory for correcting the print data from the printing device are not required, so that the printing device can be simplified and the printing process can be speeded up.

Further, a print data processing apparatus according to the present invention is a print data processing apparatus for outputting print data to a printing apparatus which performs printing in both a forward stroke and a return stroke of a printing unit movable in a predetermined direction. In the print data, the data alignment order of the data portion in which the data alignment order does not match the order in which the printing unit should print in either the forward pass or the return stroke is changed to the order in which the printing unit should print. It is provided with a data order changing means for matching.

[0010] The data order changing means of the print data processing device changes the data order of the print data so as to correspond to the moving direction of the reciprocating printing unit. As a result, it is possible to output print data arranged in a correct order even to a printing device in which the printing unit performs printing in a reciprocating process.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A print data processing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention provides a print data processing apparatus for printing a plurality of lines at the same time using a plurality of printing units arranged in a printing direction. A print data processing device for outputting, comprising a correcting means for moving the position of print data output to each print unit in accordance with the amount of displacement between a plurality of print units. Thus, even in a printing apparatus in which a plurality of printing units are arranged in a shifted manner, printing of a plurality of lines can be started from the same position on a printing target surface, and a shift in a printing position can be prevented.

In addition, since the corrected printing data is output to the printing apparatus, it is possible to omit a circuit and a memory for correction from the printing apparatus, thereby simplifying the printing apparatus. Further, the correction processing in the printing apparatus is omitted, whereby the printing processing time is shortened, and the printing output operation can be sped up.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the configuration of the print data processing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, when the number of data of the corrected print data is not a multiple of eight, And data replenishing means for replenishing non-printing data so that the number of data becomes a multiple of eight. As a result, the print data can be made to match the predetermined output data format, and an appropriate print output can be obtained.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a print data processing apparatus for outputting print data to a printing apparatus which performs printing in both forward and backward strokes of a printing unit which is reciprocally movable in a predetermined direction. Device, and of the print data,
A data order changing unit that matches the data alignment order of the data portion that does not match the order to be printed by the printing unit with the order to be printed by the printing unit in the order in which the data is arranged does not match the order in which the printing unit should print in one of the forward pass and the return stroke Things.

As a result, print data in which the data alignment order has been changed in accordance with the printing operation of the reciprocating printing unit is output to the printing device. For this reason, the data order change processing on the printing device side becomes unnecessary, and the printing device can be simplified, and the printing operation time can be shortened to speed up the printing operation.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the print data processing apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention, the data order changing means changes the data alignment order of the data portion in byte units or word units. To change. Thereby, the reciprocating printing operation can be appropriately performed on the print data handled in byte units or word units.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the print data processing apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention, the data order changing means changes the data alignment order of the data portion on a bit-by-bit basis. It is. Thereby, the data is changed in bit units, and the reciprocating printing operation is appropriately performed.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the print data processing apparatus according to the third aspect of the present invention, the data order changing means changes the data alignment order in byte units or word units. Further, it is changed in bit units. This makes it possible to change the data order in byte units, word units and bit units.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided a print data processing apparatus which is capable of reciprocatingly moving in a predetermined direction and simultaneously printing a plurality of lines in both the forward stroke and the return stroke by a plurality of printing units which are arranged shifted in the predetermined direction. A print data processing device that outputs print data to a printing device that performs printing, a correction unit that moves a position of print data output to each printing unit according to a shift amount between a plurality of printing units, Of the print data,
Change the data alignment order of the data part that does not match the order in which the print unit should print in either the forward pass or the return stroke so that the print unit matches the order in which the print unit should print Means.

As a result, the structure of the printing apparatus can be simplified, and the speed of the printing operation can be increased.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system including a print data processing device of the present invention. In FIG.
The printing system includes a host computer 1 that generates print data and a printing device 2 that prints out the data generated by the host computer 1.

The host computer 1 includes application software 3 for generating character data and image data, and character and image data transferred from the application software 3 (hereinafter collectively referred to as print data).
A printer driver 4 that performs data processing such as deviation correction on the data and converts the data into command-format transfer data, and a printer interface 5 that transfers command-format print data to the printing device 2. Here the printer driver 4
Corresponds to the print data processing device of the present invention.

The printing apparatus 2 includes a computer interface 6 for receiving command-format transfer data transferred from the host computer 1, a command analyzing unit 7 for analyzing commands of the received transfer data and extracting print data, A data processing unit 8 for converting the print data into print output data; and a print unit 9 for performing print processing based on the print output data. A plurality of printing units 9 are provided, and a plurality of lines can be printed simultaneously.

In this printing system, the printer driver 4 provided in the host computer 1 performs a shift correction process, a data order inversion process, a bit fill process, and a raster division process, which are conventionally performed in a printing apparatus. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the printer driver.

Here, the shift correction processing section 4a corresponds to the correction means of the present invention, the data order inversion processing section 4b corresponds to the data order changing means, and the bit fill processing section 4c corresponds to the data supplementing means.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the flow of data processing in the printer driver. Hereinafter, data processing in the printer driver 4 will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the following processing, the print data is composed of a plurality of raster data, and the raster data means one line of data, and is composed of a plurality of byte data. The byte data is basic unit data for processing, and is composed of eight bit data. The shift correction processing and the bit fill processing are performed in byte units.

The printer driver 4 receives the image (print) data 13 from the application software 3 and stores it in the band buffer 14. Then, the shift correction processing unit 4a performs a shift correction process of the printing start position for the plurality of printing units.

(1) Deviation Correction Processing FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a deviation occurring at a printing start position between a plurality of printing units, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a deviation correction processing of print data. 4A to 4C, the print head 30 of the printing apparatus 2 has a plurality of printing units, in the illustrated example, two printing units A and B, and the two printing units A and B print. It is arranged shifted from the direction. In the figure, the printing unit A is arranged at a position shifted from the printing unit B in the printing direction. For this reason, as shown in FIG. 4C, the printing operation is simultaneously started on the two printing units A and B from the time when the printing head 30 reaches a predetermined position, for example, the printing unit B reaches the printing start position of the printing paper. Then, a shift d occurs between the printing start position of the printing unit A and the printing start position of the printing unit B.

Therefore, the following shift correction processing is performed on the print data in order to eliminate the shift d. In FIG. 5, for example, the shift d between the printing unit A and the printing unit B is assumed to be two dots. FIG. 5A shows a bit configuration of print data when the print units A and B move rightward. When the printing units A and B move to the right, the printing start position of the printing unit A is shifted rightward by two dots from the printing start position of the printing unit B. Therefore, in order to correct this shift, the printing start position of the printing unit A may be moved leftward by two dots. That is, as shown in the right diagram of FIG. 5A, the print data of the print unit A may be moved forward by 2 dots (2 bits) with respect to the print data of the print unit B.

As shown in FIG. 5B, when the printing units A and B move to the left, the printing data of the printing unit B is conversely changed from the printing data of the printing unit A. That is, it is only necessary to move forward by two dots (two bits).

FIGS. 6 to 8 are schematic diagrams showing the operation of the shift correction processing. Referring to FIG. 3 and FIGS. 6 to 8,
The operation of the shift correction process will be specifically described. The print data is read from the band buffer 14 to the raster buffer 15 for each raster data, and the number of read raster data is counted by the raster number counter 16. When raster data of the number of rasters for one page is read into the raster buffer 15, data is sequentially read in byte units from the first raster data, and the number of read bytes is counted by the byte number counter 19.

In FIG. 3 and FIG. 6, the first byte data 40 is read out, the lower 2 bits of data corresponding to the shift amount d are temporarily stored, and the first byte data 40 is stored in the second shift register 18. Input and right logical shift by 2 bits corresponding to the shift amount. At this time,
An 8-bit “0” is input to the first shift register 17. Then, a bit-OR operation is performed on the 8-bit data from the first shift register 17 and the right logical shift byte data from the second shift register 18 to obtain the first byte data 40a on which the deviation has been corrected.

Next, as shown in FIG. 3 and FIG.
The byte data 41 is read, the lower two bits are temporarily stored, and the second byte data 41 is input to the second shift register 18. Then, a right logical shift of 2 bits corresponding to the shift amount is performed, and the shifted second
The byte data 41a is obtained. On the other hand, the lower two bits of the temporarily stored first byte data 40 are stored in the first byte data.
The shift register 17 inputs (8 bits−shift amount (2
Bit)), a logical shift to the left is performed by
Obtain 1b. Then, a bit-OR operation is performed on the byte data 41a from the second shift register 18 and the byte data 41b from the first shift register 17 to obtain output byte data 41c on which deviation correction has been performed. This shift processing for the second byte data 41 is repeated until the last byte data in the raster data.

Further, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 8, by performing the above-described processing on the last byte data 42 of the raster data, the output byte data 42 of the last byte is obtained.
Obtain a. The "X" of the first and second bits of the output byte data 42a indicates the lower two bits of the last byte data immediately before.

When the above processing is completed, the lower two bits of the last byte data 42 remain. Therefore, the remaining 2 bits of data are subjected to a bit fill process, which will be described later, to obtain 8-bit fill byte data. The print data obtained by the above-described shift correction processing is output to the output buffer 20.

(2) Data Order Reverse Processing When the print head of the printing apparatus performs a printing operation in both reciprocating strokes, the data alignment order and the printing order are reversed in one of the reciprocating directions, for example, in the return stroke. Becomes
Therefore, the data order reversal processing unit 4b performs a process of reversing the print data on a byte or word basis and further on a bit basis. FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing the byte inversion process, and FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of the bit order inversion process.

In FIG. 9, for example, the data for one raster is 1280 bytes. As shown in FIG. 9A, when the print head 30 moves to the right to perform printing, the alignment order of the print data stored in the output buffer 20 matches the order of the data to be printed. Therefore, there is no need to change the order of the print data.

However, as shown in FIG. 9B, when the print head 30 moves to the left and prints, the data alignment order in the output buffer 21 and the order of the data to be printed are reversed. ing. Therefore, the following inversion processing is performed.

First, when the data order is reversed on a byte basis, print data corresponding to a return stroke is read from the output buffer 20 on a raster basis from the last byte of one raster data toward the first byte. Decrement the read pointer. As a result, the data sorting order can be reversed in byte units.

When the data order is reversed in word units, the data sequence can be reversed by reading data from the last word toward the first word in the same manner.

When the data order is reversed on a bit-by-bit basis, the order of the bit data can be reversed using the bit-order reverse pattern table 21 previously obtained according to the bit pattern in one byte. FIG.
Is an explanatory diagram of the bit data order inversion processing. The bit order inversion pattern table 21 stores bit pattern data in which the order from the LSB (least significant bit) to the MSB (most significant bit) for each bit pattern is reversed. The bit pattern of the print data read out from the output buffer 20 in raster units is determined for each byte of the raster data, and the print data is replaced with reverse pattern data whose bit order has been reversed with reference to the bit order reverse pattern table 21. Thus, the order inversion of the bit data is performed.

Also, the above-described data order inversion processing in byte units or word units and data order inversion processing in bit units can be performed in combination with each other.

(3) Data Filling Process When the misalignment correction process of (1) is performed, the corrected raster data of the print data may not be a multiple of eight. In this case, the bit-fill processing unit 4c performs a bit-fill process for correcting the raster data to a multiple of eight. FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of the bit fill process. For example, non-printing data (non-printing data) is set to “0”. When the sum of the shift correction pixel and the number of effective pixels is not a multiple of 8, as in the raster data 50, the remainder obtained by dividing the sum of the shift correction pixel and the number of effective pixels by 8 is obtained, and the remainder is subtracted from 8. The fill byte data 50a is obtained by filling (replacing) the bit number with data "0" that is not printed. That is, the data fill buffer 22 is replaced with non-print data. Therefore, a bit operation is performed on the surplus data and the bit data (non-print data) of the data fill buffer 22 to obtain output byte data 23. In the example of FIG. 11, "0" is filled in the eleventh to sixteenth data. In the case shown in FIG. 8, since 2 bits of data are left, 6 bits (8−2 = 6) are filled with “0” to obtain 1-byte fill byte data.

(4) Raster division processing When the above processing is completed, the raster division processing unit 4d divides the print data into raster units and outputs the data to the printer interface 5.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention, the print data processing device is configured to perform the shift correction process, the data order inversion process or the data fill process on the print data. The configuration of the printing device connected to the printer is simplified, and the printing process is sped up.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system including a print data processing device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer driver.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a flow of data processing in a printer driver.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a shift occurring at a printing start position between a plurality of printing units.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a shift correction process of print data.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an operation of a shift correction process.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an operation of a shift correction process.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing an operation of a shift correction process.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing byte reverse processing;

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of bit data order inversion processing;

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of a bit fill process.

[Description of Signs] 1 Host computer 2 Printing device 3 Application software 4 Printer driver 4a Misalignment correction processing unit 4b Data order inversion processing unit 4c Bit fill processing unit 4d Raster division processing unit

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A print data processing device for outputting print data to a printing device that simultaneously prints a plurality of lines by using a plurality of printing units that are arranged shifted in a printing direction. A print data processing apparatus comprising: a correction unit that moves a position of print data output to each printing unit according to a shift amount between the print units. 2. The data number of the corrected print data is eight.
2. The print data processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a data replenishing unit that replenishes non-print data so that the number of print data becomes a multiple of eight when the data is not a multiple of the print data. 3. A print data processing device for outputting print data to a printing device which performs printing in both a forward stroke and a return stroke of a printing unit which is reciprocally movable in a predetermined direction. Data order changing means for aligning the data alignment order of data portions which do not match the order in which the printing unit should print in one of the forward pass and the return stroke with the order in which the printing unit should print A print data processing device comprising: 4. The print data processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said data order changing means changes the data alignment order of said data portion in byte units or word units. 5. The print data processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said data order changing means changes the data alignment order of said data portion on a bit-by-bit basis. 6. The print data processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said data order changing means changes the data alignment order in byte units or word units and further changes in bit units. 7. A printing apparatus which prints a plurality of lines simultaneously in both forward and backward strokes by a plurality of printing units which are reciprocally movable in a predetermined direction and which are arranged shifted in the predetermined direction. A print data processing device for outputting,
Correction means for moving the position of the print data output to each print unit in accordance with the shift amount between the plurality of print units, and, among the print data, the data alignment order is one of the forward pass and the return pass. Data order changing means for matching a data alignment order of a data portion which does not match an order to be printed by the plurality of printing units to an order to be printed by the printing unit. Processing equipment.