JPH1035059A - Printing control method, printing system and storing medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To carry out printing quickly. SOLUTION: A face-up printer discharging with a recording face up, and a face-down printer discharging with the recording face down are combined. The face-up printer is so controlled as to start printing from a tip of a printed data and print in an ascent order, and the face-down printer is so controlled as to start printing from the last page of the printed data and print in a descent order (S403 to 408). Further, in each printer, whether or not a page to be printed with one side printer is printed with the other side printer is judged, and when printed, printing is ended by considering that all data are ended to be printed. Thus, the printing can be quickly carried out, and prints are not required to be arranged again.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a print control method and a print system, and more particularly to a print control method, a print system, and a storage medium for printing a document of a plurality of pages by a plurality of printers.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Usually, when printing a document on a host computer, one of available printers is selected for printing. Further, when a document is divided and printed by a plurality of printers, the document is divided by a specific page, and the divided pages are printed in the same order by all printers used for printing.

[0003]

However, when printing with one printer, even if there are other printers that can be used, it is not possible to perform printing at a speed higher than the capability of the printer used for printing. Even when printing is performed by a plurality of printers, it is difficult to optimally distribute the number of pages to be printed by each printer if the printing speeds of the printers used for the divided printing are different.

Further, when a failure such as an error or a paper outage occurs in a certain printer, a special process is required in order to print a page in charge of the failed printer on another printer.

[0005] Further, when an image that cannot be printed due to an obstacle is printed by another printer, it cannot be printed in an appropriate printing order and orientation. For example, when printing a 100-page document with two printers at 50 pages each, if one of the printers prints 30 pages and stops running out of paper, if the remaining 20 pages are printed by the remaining printers, It is not possible to print in the order in which the pages were printed in succession, and it is necessary to rearrange them after printing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional example. When printing a document with a plurality of printers, the present invention aims at optimizing the number of pages to be printed and eliminating the need to rearrange the sheets after printing. This is the purpose of 1.

Further, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed is optimally distributed to eliminate the necessity of rearranging the sheets after the printing is completed. When stopped, the second purpose is to automatically enable the remaining pages to be printed by another printer, and not to affect the processing even if the stopped printer recovers from the failure and starts printing. I do.

Further, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed is optimally distributed with respect to pages shared by a pair of face-up and face-down printers, so that it is not necessary to rearrange the pages after printing is completed. In addition, when a failure occurs in one of the printers and printing stops, a third object is to automatically print the remaining pages on another printer.

Further, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed is optimally distributed with respect to pages shared by a pair of face-up and face-down printers, eliminating the need to rearrange paper after printing. If one of the printers fails and printing stops, the other printers automatically print the remaining pages and the pages shared by the printers that could not form a face-up / face-down pair The fourth object is to eliminate the necessity of rearranging after printing.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has the following arrangement. That is, a face-up printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing upward, or a face-down printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing downward, or a print control method for performing printing using both of them. And a single face-down printer as a set, a determining step of determining whether there is a usable set, and if there is a usable set,
Assign print data to be printed to the set, set the face-up printer included in the set to print in descending order from the last page of print data to be printed in the set, and set the face-down printer to A setting step of setting to perform printing in ascending order from the first page of the print data to be printed in the set; and print data printed according to the setting in the setting step by the face-up printer and the face-down printer forming the set are mutually continuous. End determination step of determining when to perform printing and ending printing at that time.

A printing system for printing print data using a face-up printer that discharges print data with the print surface facing upward, a face-down printer that discharges print data with the print surface facing downward, or both. Determining means for determining whether there is a usable set as a set of one face-up printer and one face-down printer; and, if there is a usable set, allocating print data to be printed to the set, Set the face-up printers included in a set to print in descending order from the last page of print data to be printed in that set, and set the face-down printer to print in ascending order from the first page of print data to be printed in that set. Setting means for performing the setting, and the face-up printer and the face-down printer forming the set To determine when the print data printed in accordance with setting by the constant process are continuous with each other, and a termination judgment means for terminating the print at that time.

Also, a computer-readable storage medium for storing a program for performing printing using a face-up printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing upward, a face-down printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing downward, or both. When one face-up printer and one face-down printer are used as a set, a code of a determination step for determining whether there is a usable set, and when there is a usable set, printing is performed on the set. Print data to be printed, the face-up printers included in the set are set to print in descending order from the last page of the print data to be printed in the set, and the face-down printers are set to print the print data to be printed in the set. Of the setting process for setting to print in ascending order from the first page of Print data printed according to the setting by the setting step is determined when the successive one another by a printer and facedown printer, and a code termination determination step for terminating the print at that time.

[0013]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[First Embodiment] Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a network system according to the present embodiment.

In this system, a client computer 101, a print server computer 102, a face-up printer 103, and a face-down printer 104 are connected to a network to form a system. A face-up printer stacks recording paper with its recording surface down when discharging the recording paper, while a face-down printer stacks recording paper with its recording surface facing up. Printer. That is, the face-down printer discharges the pages of the discharged document in the order of input, and the face-up printer reverses the order of the pages of the discharged document in the input order. Paper as shown. These may be printers having only one of the mechanisms, but in the present embodiment, a printer that can be switched to either one is used.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the computers 101 and 102 used in the present embodiment.

This computer has a central processing unit (CPU) 201 for controlling the entire computer, and an external interface 20 for connecting to a network or a printer.
2. Keyboard 203 and pointing device 204 for operator operation, storage device 205 for storing programs and data executed by CPU 201, data input for supplying programs and data from outside, such as magneto-optical disk and floppy disk The main part is constituted by the device 207.

FIG. 3 shows a printer 10 used in this embodiment.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the third and fourth embodiments.

This printer has a central processing unit (CPU) 301 for controlling the entire printer, a face-down paper discharge unit 302 for discharging the recording paper with its recording surface down, and an image on the recording paper based on the image data. Image forming unit 30 to be formed
3. A face-up paper ejection unit 304 for ejecting recording paper with the recording surface up, a print paper cassette 305 for supplying recording paper, a data buffer 306 for storing print data received from a host computer, a network or An external interface 307 for connecting to a host computer constitutes a main part thereof.

FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view showing a configuration in the case where the printer of FIG. 3 is a laser beam printer for forming an image by an electrophotographic method using a laser.

In the figure, reference numeral 740 denotes an LBP main body,
An image is formed on recording paper, which is a recording medium, based on the supplied character pattern and the like. Reference numeral 700 denotes an operation panel on which a switch for operation, an LED display, and the like are arranged.
Is a printer control unit for controlling the entire LBP 740 and analyzing character pattern information and the like. The printer control unit 701 mainly converts character pattern information into a video signal and outputs the video signal to the laser driver 702. An external memory 711 for supplying font data, a page description language emulation program, and the like can be connected to the printer control unit 701.

The laser driver 702 is a semiconductor laser 70
And a laser beam emitted from the semiconductor laser 703 in response to an input video signal.
04 is turned on / off. The laser beam 704 is swung right and left by a rotary polygon mirror 705 to scan on an electrostatic drum 706. Thus, an electrostatic latent image of a character pattern is formed on the electrostatic drum 706. This latent image is developed by a developing unit 707 around the electrostatic drum 706,
Transferred to recording paper. A cut sheet is used as the recording paper, and the cut sheet recording paper is stored in a paper cassette 708 mounted on the LBP 740, taken in the apparatus by a paper feed roller 709 and a transport roller 710, and
06.

The toner image transferred to the recording paper is fixed by a fixing unit 71.
2 and is fixed on the recording paper. The recording paper on which the image is formed is discharged from the face-up discharge unit 714 with the recording surface facing upward when the wedge 713 is turned upward, and is discharged from the face-down discharge unit 715 when the wedge 713 is turned downward. The paper is ejected with the recording surface down.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a printing process by the host computer 101 in the system of FIG. This procedure is performed by the central processing unit 201 in the memory 20.
5 is executed by executing the program stored in.

When printing is performed from the client computer 101, the central processing unit 201 determines whether there are two or more pages to be printed (S401).
If the determination in step S401 is Yes, the currently available printers are listed up in the network system (S402) and displayed on the display device 206. It is determined whether one face-up printer and one face-down printer can be used among the printers listed in step S402 (S403). This determination is made by setting the use of each printer in advance.

If the determination in step S401 is No, or if the determination in step S403 is No, one printer is selected from the printers listed in step S402 (S410).
The print start page and the printing order of the pages are determined according to the paper discharge direction of the printer selected in 410 (S411). That is, if the selected printer is a face-down printer, printing is performed in ascending order from the first page of the print target page,
In the case of a face-up printer, it is determined that printing is performed in descending order from the last page of the print pages.

Subsequently, printing is performed by the selected printer in accordance with the printing start page and the printing order of the printing target page determined in step S411 (S412). Subsequently, it is determined whether all the pages to be printed have been printed (S4).
13), if the determination in step S413 is Yes, the process ends; otherwise, the process returns to step S412.

On the other hand, if the determination in step S403 is Yes
If so, the divided printing process is performed. First, step S
A face-up printer and a face-down printer are selected from the available printers listed in 402 (S404), and the face-up printer 103 is selected.
Is set as the last page of the print target page (S405), and the print start page of the face-down printer 104 is set as the first page of the print target page (S406). Even when the operator selects a printer to be output from the printer displayed on the display device 206, the selection in step S404 and the step S405
And the setting of step S406 has priority.

Subsequently, the face-up printer 103
Then, the pages to be printed are printed in descending order (S407), and the data is sent to each printer by the face-down printer 104 so that the pages to be printed are printed in ascending order (S408). In FIG. 4, step S407 and step S
Although 408 and 408 are drawn in parallel, they may be performed as parallel processing under a multitask OS, and for example, one page is alternately sent to each printer under a single task OS.

When printing is started in each printer, it is determined whether printing by both printers has been completed (S409). If the determination in step S409 is Yes, the process ends. Returning to S407,
Subsequently, the printing process is performed.

FIG. 5 is applied in step S407.
5 is a flowchart showing in detail a print request process for a face-down printer. Note that P1 and P2 are variables representing page numbers to be printed by the face-down printer and the face-up printer, respectively, and their areas are secured in the memory.

First, a page P2 currently being printed by the other printer, which is performing divided printing, is acquired (S501), and it is determined whether the page P2 is the same as the page P1 to be printed by the face-down printer (S502). If P1 = P2, it can be determined that the page to be printed by the face-down printer is being printed by the face-up printer. If the determination in step S502 is Yes, it can be determined that all pages have been printed by one of the printers, and the process ends (S506). If No, the face down is performed to print the page P1 to be printed. The print data of page P1 is sent to the printer (S503).

If the print data of page P1 has been sent in step S503, it is determined whether or not printing has been performed up to the last page of the print target page, that is, whether or not P1 = last page number (S504), and in step S504. If the determination is Yes, the process ends (S506), and if No,
The page to be printed is set to P1 with a new page number that becomes the next page in ascending order from the page printed in step S503 (S505), and the process returns to step S501. For example, if the document is a continuous document, 1 is added to P1.

According to the above procedure, the face-down printer can print from the head of the document to be printed to the page printed by the face-up printer in an order that does not require rearrangement.

FIG. 6 is applied in step S408.
5 is a flowchart illustrating a printing process in a face-up printer.

First, a page P1 being printed by the other face-down printer, which is performing divided printing, is obtained (S1).
601), it is determined whether the page is the same as the page P1 to be printed by the face-up printer (S602). Step S6
If the determination in step 02 is Yes, the process ends (S60).
6) If No, print data of page P2 to be printed is sent to the printer (S603).

After the printing in step S603 is completed,
It is determined whether the first page of the print target page has been printed (S604). If the determination in step S604 is Yes, the process ends (S606). If No, the page to be printed is printed in step S603. A new page number that becomes the next page in descending order from the page is set to P2 (S605), and the process returns to step S601. For example, if the document to be printed is a continuous document, 1 is subtracted from P2.

With the above procedure, the face-up printer can print from the end of the document to be printed to the page printed by the face-down printer in an order that does not require rearrangement.

As described above, by printing a document by performing the procedures in FIGS. 5 and 6 in parallel, the printing by the face-up printer and the printing by the face-down printer, which are obtained by dividing one document, differ in the performance difference between the two printers. Regardless, it ends almost at the same time. That is, optimal distribution of load can be realized without imposing a biased load on one of the printers. Thus, high-speed print output can be realized, and further, it is not necessary to rearrange the recording paper after printing.

The printer need not be of the LBP type. FIG. 14 shows an example of an ink jet engine.

In the same figure, the spiral groove 500 of the lead screw 5005 which rotates via the driving force transmission gears 5011 and 5009 in conjunction with the forward and reverse rotation of the drive motor 5013
The carriage HC engaged with the carriage 4 has a pin (not shown) and is reciprocated in the directions of arrows a and b. An ink jet cartridge IJC is mounted on the carriage HC. Reference numeral 5002 denotes a paper pressing plate, which presses the paper against the platen 5000 in the moving direction of the carriage. Reference numerals 5007 and 5008 denote home position detecting means for confirming the presence of the lever 5006 of the carriage in this area and switching the rotation direction of the motor 5013. A member 5016 supports a cap member 5022 for capping the front surface of the recording head.
Reference numeral 5015 denotes a suction unit that suctions the inside of the cap, and performs suction recovery of the recording head through the opening 5023 in the cap. Reference numeral 5017 denotes a cleaning blade. Reference numeral 5019 denotes a member which allows the blade to move in the front-rear direction. These members are supported by a main body support plate 5018. It goes without saying that the blade is not limited to this form and a known cleaning blade can be applied to this example. Also, 5021 is
The lever for starting suction for suction recovery moves with the movement of the cam 5020 that engages with the carriage, and the driving force from the drive motor is controlled by known transmission means such as clutch switching.

Of course, other types of printers can be used.

[Second Embodiment] In the network system according to the first embodiment, when printing is started,
The same effect can be obtained even when the present invention is applied to a case where a set of a face-up printer and a face-down printer cannot be used simultaneously.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a printing process by the host computer according to the second embodiment. Note that the host computer on which this process is executed is the computer 101 included in the network system of FIG.

First, the central processing unit 201 of the client computer 101 determines whether there are two or more pages to be printed (S701). Step S701
If the determination in step S70 is Yes, the printers currently available in the network system are listed (S70).
2) It is determined whether one face-up printer and one face-down printer can be used from among the printers listed in step S702 (S703).

If the determination in step S703 is Yes, a divided printing process is performed. First, step S702
A face-up printer and a face-down printer are selected from the available printers listed in step (S704), and the start page of the face-up printer 103 is set as the last page of the print target page (S70).
5), the print start page of the face-down printer 104 is set as the first page of the print target page (S70).
7). Subsequently, the pages to be printed are printed in descending order by the face-up printer 103 (S707), and the pages to be printed are printed in ascending order by the face-down printer 10 (S708). When printing is started in each printer, it is determined whether or not printing has been completed in both printers (S709). If the determination in step S709 is Yes, the process ends. If No, the process returns to step S707.
Subsequently, the printing process is performed. The processing in steps S707 and S708 is the same as that in FIGS. 5 and 6, respectively.

If the determination in step S701 is No, or if the determination in step S703 is No, one printer is selected from the printers listed in step S702 (S710).
The print start page and the page print order are determined according to the paper discharge direction of the printer selected in 710 (S711). That is, if the selected printer is a face-down printer, printing is performed in ascending order from the first page of the print target page,
If the printer is a face-down printer, printing is performed in descending order from the last page of the print pages. Subsequently, printing is performed in accordance with the print start page and the print order of the print target page determined in step S711 (S712). Subsequently, it is determined whether all the pages to be printed have been printed (S713).
If the determination in step S713 is Yes, the process ends. If the determination is No, the division printing is performed in step S710.
It is determined whether a printer that is paired with the printer selected in (1) is usable (S714). That is, if the printer selected in step S710 is a face-up printer, a face-down printer is available, and if the printer selected in step S710 is a face-down printer, a face-up printer is available.
The determination at 14 is Yes.

If the determination in step S714 is Yes, if the type of usable printer is a face-up printer, printing is performed in descending order from the last page, and if the type of usable printer is a face-down printer, printing is performed in ascending order from the first page. (S715), the process proceeds to step S707.

According to the above-described procedure, the printout can be performed when the face-up printer and the face-down printer become usable, even if they are not both usable at the start of printing. Therefore, as in the first embodiment, print data is distributed to both printers so that printing is simultaneously completed from both the beginning and end of the document from the time when printing is started by the two printers. As a result, the efficiency of print processing can be improved, and the efficiency of using network resources can be improved. [Third Embodiment] In this embodiment, even if one printer is stopped due to a failure in the system according to the first or second embodiment, the remaining pages are automatically deleted by another printer. Printable. In the present embodiment, in the network system shown in FIG. 1, step S4 in FIG.
7 and step S707 in FIG. 7 are executed according to the procedure in FIG. 8, and step S408 in FIG. 4 and step S70 in FIG.
8 is executed according to the procedure shown in FIG. Therefore, the description of the parts common to the first or second embodiment is omitted.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the processing of the face-down printer in the present embodiment.

First, a page P2 currently being printed by the other printer, which is performing divided printing, is acquired (S801), and it is determined whether or not the page P1 is the same as the page P1 to be printed by this printer, that is, whether P1 = P2. (S802). Step S
If the determination in 802 is No, the page P1 to be printed
Is printed by the printer (S803). Step S
After the printing in 803 is completed, it is determined whether the last page of the print target page has been printed (S804). If the determination in step S804 is Yes, the process ends (S80).
6) If No, print scheduled page P1 is stored in step S
The next page is set in ascending order from the page printed in 803 (S805), and the process returns to step S801.

If the determination in step S802 is Yes, it is determined whether an error or a paper jam has occurred in the other printer of the pair in printing the page P1 to be printed (S807). . Step S807
If the determination in step (1) is Yes, a print stop instruction is issued to the printer determined to have an error (S808).
The process returns to step S803, and the page P1 is printed by the face-up printer.

By checking the error in this manner, even if an error has occurred in the other page, the page in which the error occurred during printing can be printed by a printer in which no error has occurred.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the processing of the face-up printer in this embodiment.

First, a page P1 being printed by the other printer that is performing divided printing is acquired (S901), and it is determined whether the page P2 is the same as the page P2 to be printed by this face-up printer (S902). If the determination in step S902 is No, the page P2 to be printed is printed by the face-up printer (S903). Step S902
After printing in step S90, it is determined whether or not the last page of the print target page has been printed (S904), and step S90 is performed.
If the determination in Step 4 is Yes, the process ends (S906),
If No, the page to be printed P2 is set to be the next page in descending order from the page printed in step S903 (S905), and the process returns to step S901.

If the determination in step S902 is Yes, it is determined whether an error or a paper jam has occurred in printing the page to be printed (S907). If the determination in step S907 is Yes, a print stop instruction is issued to the printer that has determined that an error has occurred (step S907).
908), the process moves to step S903. Step S
In step 903, a page that cannot be printed by the face-down printer of the pair due to an error is printed by the face-up printer.

According to the above procedure, the errors of both printers forming a pair are checked, and if one of them has an error, the page in which the error has occurred is printed by the printer in which the error has not occurred. can do. [Fourth Embodiment] In the present embodiment, a system will be described in which one document is divided and printed using three or more printers. It is assumed that the network system of the present embodiment connects at least three printers as shown in FIG.

FIG. 10 shows a control procedure by the host computer 1201 for printing using three printers. The configuration of the host computer 1201 is as shown in FIG.

First, it is determined whether there are three or more pages to be printed (S1001). Step S1001
If the determination in step (1) is Yes, the printers currently available are listed (S1002) and displayed on the display device 206. It is determined whether a pair of a face-up printer and a face-down printer and another face-down printer among the printers listed in step S1002 can be used (S1003).

If the determination in step S1001 is No, or if the determination in step S1003 is No, one printer is selected from the printers listed in step S1002 (S1012), and step S1012 The printing order is determined for the print start page and the page according to the paper discharge direction of the printer selected in (1).
013). That is, if the selected printer is a face-down printer, printing is performed in ascending order from the first page of the print page, and if the selected printer is a face-up printer, printing is performed in descending order from the last page. Subsequently, step S101
Printing is performed in accordance with the print start page and the print order of the print target pages determined in step 3 (S1014). Subsequently, it is determined whether all the pages to be printed have been printed (S1015), and the determination in step S1015 is Yes.
If so, the process ends; if No, step S1014
Return to

If the determination in step S1003 is Yes, divided printing processing is performed. First, step S10
02, a pair of face-up printer and face-down printer is selected from the available printers listed in step S02 (S1004), and the face-up printer 103 is selected.
Print start page from the top of the print target page
The page is set (S1005), and the start page of the face-down printer is set as the first page of the print target page (S1006). Next, a face-down printer other than the printer selected in step S1004 is selected from the printers listed in S1002 (S1002).
7) The print start page of the face-down printer selected in step S1007 is set at 2 from the top of the print target page.
The printing order is set in ascending order on page / 3 (S100
8). When selecting the face-up / face-down pair in step S1004, even if the operator selects a printer to be output from the printer displayed on the display device 206, the selection in step S1004,
The settings in steps S1005 and S1006 have priority.

Subsequently, the first two-thirds of the page to be printed are printed by the face-up printer and the face-down printer pair selected in step S1004 (S1).
010), the remaining 2/3 to the last page is printed by the face-down printer selected in step S1007 (S1009). Then, it is determined whether or not printing by both printers has been completed (S1011), and step S1 is performed.
If the determination in 011 is Yes, the process ends, and if No, the process returns to step S1009 to continue the printing process. The processing in step S1010 corresponds to performing steps S407 and S408 in the first embodiment or steps S707 and S708 in the second embodiment in parallel.

In this example, a face-down printer is selected in step S1007, and step S1008
Is set to print in ascending order from the first page of the assigned page, but the same effect can be obtained by selecting a face-up printer and printing in descending order from the last page of the assigned page.

In this embodiment, the case where three printers are used has been described. However, similar effects can be obtained by applying the present invention to the case where four or more printers are used. In this case, create a pair of a face-down printer and a face-up printer, and if the unpaired printer is a face-up printer, start printing from the last page of the portion assigned to that printer. Print in descending order, and if it is a face down printer,
The printing start page and the printing order are determined so that the printer can print in ascending order from the first page of the portion to which printing is assigned. Further, for a paired printer, a portion to be printed may be assigned to each pair, and the control shown in the first to third embodiments may be performed for each pair. [Fifth Embodiment] As a fifth embodiment, among the printers used for divided printing, a printer that cannot form a face-up printer / face-down printer pair is used to share printing, thereby improving efficiency. A network system that prints well will be described.

The configuration of the system is as shown in FIG. 12, and the control of each printer is as shown in FIG. 5, FIG. 6, or FIG. 8, FIG. 9 of the first or third embodiment. FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a process in which a host computer determines a printer on a network to be used for printing, and determines a print start page and a print order.

First, the currently available printers are listed up (S1101) and displayed on the display device 206. Next, it is determined whether at least one pair of a face-up printer and a face-down printer can be used among the printers listed in step S1101 (S1102).

If the determination in step S1102 is No, steps S1103 to S1105 are skipped.

If the determination in step S1102 is Yes, divided print processing is performed. First, step S11
The document to be printed is divided according to the number of available printers listed in 01, and the assigned printer is assigned to a paired printer (S1103). If the number of pages of the document is smaller than the number of printers, the printers that do not form a pair are preferentially removed from the listed printers to match the number of pages. It is also assumed that, of the divided documents, two consecutive sections are assigned to a pair of printers, and the other sections are assigned to an unpaired printer. Next, of each pair, the print start page of the face-up printer is assigned to the last page of the page in charge of printing (S1104), and the start page of the face-down printer is set as the first page of the pages to be printed (S11).
05).

Subsequently, among the printers used for the divisional printing, the printers which cannot form a face-up / face-down printer pair are listed (S110).
6), the number of printers listed in S1106,
Of the pages to be printed, the remaining pages that are not printed by the face-up and face-down printer pairs are divided, and the allocation of each printer listed in step S1106 is determined (S1107). Next, one of the printers listed in step S1106 is selected, and it is determined whether the printer is a face-up printer (S1108). Step S1108
If the determination in step S110 is Yes, the printer is set to print in descending order from the last page of the assigned page (S110).
9).

If the determination in step S1108 is No, the printer is set to print in ascending order from the first page of the assigned page (S1110). Step S11
After 09 or S1110, it is determined whether the setting has been completed for all the printers listed in step S1106 (S1111). If the determination in S1111 is Yes, the process ends, and if No, S1108
And the steps S1108 to S1111 are repeated for all the printers that have been added to the list.

As described above, the page to start printing and the order of printing are determined for both a paired printer and an unpaired printer.

Subsequently, the page to be printed is printed by the printer listed in step S1101 (S1).
112, S1113). A step S1113 prints the remaining 2/3 to the last page on the face-down printer selected in the step S1007 (S1013).
09). Then, it is determined whether or not printing by both printers has been completed (S1011). If the determination in step S1011 is Yes, the process ends;
Returning to step 09, the printing process is continuously performed. Step S10
The process of step 10 is performed in step S40 in the first embodiment.
7 and S408, or steps S707 and S708 in the second embodiment are performed in parallel.

When the settings are made, the responsible part is sent to each printer and printed according to the settings (S111).
2, S1113). This process is performed for each printer in parallel. The processing performed in step S1113 corresponds to FIGS. 5 and 6 or FIGS. Step S111
2 simply sends the print data for the assigned charge to each printer in the order set from the set print start page.

In step S1114, it is determined whether printing has been completed in all printers, and if completed, the printing process is terminated.

According to the above procedure, in the system according to the present embodiment, print output can be performed using as many printers as possible. At this time, printing is performed in the order corresponding to face-up and face-down for each printer, so that the printed matter is completed as a set of documents simply by overlapping in order, and there is no need to rearrange the printed matter.

[0076]

[Other Embodiments] Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine) Machine, facsimile machine, etc.).

Another object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus, and to provide a computer (or CPU) of the system or the apparatus.
Or MPU) reads and executes the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) Performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, The case where the CPU of the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing.

When the present invention is applied to the storage medium, the storage medium stores program codes corresponding to the above-described flowcharts. Each module shown will be stored in a storage medium.

That is, at least one set of a face-up printer and one face-down printer is used as a set, and a code of a determination step for determining whether there is a usable set, and if there is a usable set, Print data to be printed, and set the face-up printers included in the set to print in descending order from the last page of the print data to be printed in that set, and set the face-down printer to print in the set in descending order. The code of the setting step for setting to print in ascending order from the first page of the print data to be printed, and the time when the print data printed according to the setting in the setting step by the face-up printer and the face-down printer forming the set are continuous with each other. Judge,
At that time, the program code of each module of the code of the end determination step for terminating the printing may be stored in the storage medium.

[0084]

As described above, the printing control method and apparatus according to the present invention have the following effects.

First, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed can be optimally distributed, and the need to rearrange the paper after printing can be eliminated.

Second, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed is optimally distributed, eliminating the need to rearrange the paper after printing is completed. When the printing is stopped, the remaining pages are automatically made printable by another printer, and even if the stopped printer recovers from the failure and starts printing, the processing is not affected.

Third, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, the number of pages to be printed is optimally distributed with respect to pages shared by a pair of face-up and face-down printers facing each other, eliminating the need to rearrange after printing. In addition, when a failure occurs in one of the printers and printing stops, the remaining pages can be automatically printed by the other printer.

Fourth, when a document is printed by a plurality of printers, it is necessary to optimally distribute the number of pages to be printed with respect to pages shared by a pair of face-up and face-down printers facing each other and rearrange the paper after printing is completed. If one of the printers fails and printing stops, the remaining pages are automatically printed by the other printer, and the printer that could not form a face-up / face-down pair is shared There is no need to rearrange pages after printing.

[0089]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a computer used in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer used in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing of the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a printing process performed by the face-down printer according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a printing process in a face-up printer according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a process according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a printing process in a face-down printer according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a printing process performed by a face-down printer according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of a process according to a fourth embodiment using three printers.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a process for causing a printer that cannot form a face-up printer / face-down printer pair to perform printing in the fifth embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a system to which the fourth and fifth embodiments are applied.

FIG. 13 is a sectional view of a laser beam printer used in the embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a sectional view of the ink jet printer.

FIG. 15 is a diagram of a memory map on a medium storing a program according to the present invention.

Claims (27)

[Claims] 1. A print control method for performing printing using a face-up printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing upward, a face-down printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing downward, or both. A determination step of determining the presence or absence of a usable set as a set of a face-up printer and one face-down printer; and, if there is a usable set, assigning print data to be printed to the set; Is set to print in descending order from the last page of print data to be printed in that set, and to the face-down printer, prints in ascending order from the first page of print data to be printed in that set. A setting step of setting to be performed; and a setting step by the face-up printer and the face-down printer forming the set. A print control method comprising: determining a point in time when print data printed according to the setting is continuous with each other; and terminating the printing at that point in time. 2. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the setting step allocates the entire print data to a set of printers. 3. The end determination step includes, for each of the two printers in the set, a point in time at which a page with the same page number as that printed by the other printer is to be printed, and a point in time when print data is continuous with each other. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the determination is performed. 4. If it is determined in the determining step that there is no combination of a face-up printer and a face-down printer that can be used, one printer is selected and all print data is allocated, and the printer In the case of a printer, a control step of performing printing in descending order with the last page of print data as a print start page, and in the case of a face-down printer, performing a control step of performing printing in ascending order with the first page of print data as a print start page. The print control method according to claim 1, further comprising: 5. The control step determines that the other printer paired with the printer is available during printing by one printer, and when the other printer becomes available, If the other printer is a face-up printer, the printer is set to perform printing in descending order with the last page of the print data as a printing start page, if the other printer is a face-up printer. In the case of a face-down printer, the method includes a step of setting printing to be performed in ascending order with the first page of the print data as a print start page and performing printing, and determining the end of printing by the end determination step. The print control method according to claim 4. 6. The end determination step determines, for each of the two printers in the set, that a failure has occurred during printing of a page to be printed by one of the printers with the other printer, and that the failure has occurred. 6. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein when it is determined that the page is printed, the page is printed by a printer having no trouble. 7. The setting step according to claim 1, wherein when it is determined that there are a plurality of usable sets, a page to be printed is assigned to each set.
7. The print control method according to any one of claims 1 to 6. 8. The setting step includes allocating print data to a printer that does not form a pair together with a usable pair,
For each of the printers that do not make a pair, in the case of a face-up printer, the last page of the assigned print data is set to be printed in descending order as the print start page, and in the case of a face-down printer, 8. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein printing is performed in ascending order using a first page of the print data as a print start page. 9. The determining step determines whether one face-down printer can be used together with the printer set, and allocates two-thirds of data to be printed to the printer set by the setting step. 2. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the face-down printer is set so that the remaining third is printed in ascending order from the top. 10. A printing system for printing print data using a face-up printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing upward, a face-down printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing downward, or both. Determining means for determining whether or not there is a usable set as a set of one face-up printer and one face-down printer; and if there is a usable set, assign print data to be printed to the set. Set the face-up printers included in a set to print in descending order from the last page of print data to be printed in that set, and set the face-down printer to print in ascending order from the first page of print data to be printed in that set Setting means for performing setting, and a face-up printer and a face-down printer forming the pair. A printing system comprising: a determination unit configured to determine a point in time when print data printed according to settings in a fixed step are continuous with each other, and to end printing at that point. 11. The printing system according to claim 10, wherein the setting unit allocates the entire print data to a set of printers. 12. The end determination means sets a point in time at which a page having the same page number as that printed by the other printer is to be printed for each of two printers in the set as a point in time when print data is continuous with each other. The printing system according to claim 10, wherein the determination is performed. 13. When the determination means determines that there is no usable set of a face-up printer and a face-down printer, one printer is selected and all print data is allocated, and the printer In the case of a printer, control means for performing printing in descending order with the last page of print data as a print start page, and in the case of a face-down printer, controlling means to perform printing in ascending order with the first page of print data as a print start page. The printing system according to claim 10, further comprising: 14. The control unit determines that the other printer paired with the printer is available during printing by one printer, and when the other printer becomes available, If the other printer is a face-up printer, the printer is set to perform printing in descending order with the last page of the print data as a printing start page, if the other printer is a face-up printer. In the case of a face-down printer, setting means to perform printing in ascending order with the first page of print data as a print start page, and means for performing printing,
14. The printing system according to claim 13, wherein the end determination unit determines the end of printing. 15. The end determination unit determines, for each of two printers in the set, that a failure has occurred during printing of a page to be printed by one of the printers by the other printer, and that the failure has occurred. 15. The printing system according to claim 10, wherein when it is determined that the page is printed, the page is printed by a printer having no obstacle. 16. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein, when it is determined that there are a plurality of usable sets, the setting unit allocates a page to be printed to each set. The printing system according to any one of the above. 17. The setting means assigns print data to printers that do not make a set together with usable sets, and assigns the print data to each printer that does not make a set in the case of a face-up printer. It is set to print in descending order with the last page of the print data as the print start page, and in the case of a face-down printer, set to print in ascending order with the first page of the assigned print data as the print start page. Claim 1
17. The printing system according to any one of 0 to 16. 18. The determining means determines whether one face-down printer can be used together with the set of the printers.
12. The printing system according to claim 11, wherein two-thirds are assigned to the set of printers, and the remaining third is set so that the face-down printer prints in ascending order from the top. 19. A computer-readable storage medium for storing a program for performing printing using a face-up printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing upward, a face-down printer that discharges paper with its print surface facing downward, or both. A set of one face-up printer and one face-down printer as a set, a code of a determination step for determining whether or not there is a usable set, and if there is a usable set, printing is performed on the set. Print data to be printed, the face-up printers included in the set are set to print in descending order from the last page of the print data to be printed in the set, and the face-down printers are set to print the print data to be printed in the set. A setting process code for setting to print in ascending order from the first page of the A storage medium, comprising: a code for an end determining step of determining a point in time when print data printed by the linter and the face-down printer in accordance with the setting in the setting step are continuous with each other, and terminating the printing at that point. 20. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein in the code of the setting step, the entire print data is assigned to a set of printers. 21. In the code of the end determination step, the print data for each of the two printers in the set is determined by the time when the same page number as the page number printed by the other printer is to be printed. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the storage medium is determined as a time point. 22. When it is determined by the code in the determining step that there is no usable set of a face-up printer and a face-down printer, one printer is selected and all print data is allocated, and the printer In the case of a face-up printer, control is performed so that printing is performed in descending order with the last page of print data as a print start page, and in the case of a face-down printer, control is performed so that printing is performed in ascending order with the first page of print data as a print start page. 22. The storage medium according to claim 19, further comprising a step code. 23. In the code of the control step, during printing by one printer, it is determined that the other printer paired with the printer is usable, and the other printer is usable. Assigns print data not printed by the one printer to the printer, and when the other printer is a face-up printer, performs printing in descending order with the last page of the print data as a print start page. In the case of a face-down printer, the code includes a code of a step of setting the first page of the print data to be printed in ascending order as a print start page and performing printing, and the end of the printing is determined by the code of the end determination step. 23. The storage medium according to claim 22, wherein the determination is made. 24. In the code of the end determination step, it is determined that a failure has occurred during printing of a page to be printed by one of the two printers forming a pair on the other printer, and 24. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein when it is determined that the page has occurred, the page is printed by a printer having no obstacle. 25. The method according to claim 19, wherein, in the code of the setting step, when it is determined that there are a plurality of usable sets, a page F to be printed is assigned to each set. 25. The storage medium according to any one of 21 to 24. 26. In the code of the setting step, print data is allocated to a printer that does not make a pair together with a usable set of printers.
In the case of a face-up printer, the last page of the assigned print data is set to start printing in descending order, and in the case of a face-down printer, the first page of the assigned print data is used as the print start page. 26. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein printing is performed in ascending order. 27. In the code of the determination step, it is determined whether one face-down printer can be used together with the set of the printers.
20. The printer of claim 19, wherein two thirds of the data to be printed is allocated to the set of printers, and the remaining third is set so that the face-down printer prints in ascending order from the top. A storage medium according to claim 1.