JPH11170654A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer applicable to printing on a bankbook. SOLUTION: Two pages of a spread bankbook 31 is regarded as one page in which two areas 31A, 31B are present. A print format for the bankbook is then defined using the top margin m1, the number of lines m2 in the first half area, the width m3 at the binding part, the number of lines m4 in the second half area, and the amount of line feed. The bankbook format is then set in the memory of a printer and used for managing the vertical position of a print head at the time of printing the handbook.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to not only sheet-shaped
The present invention relates to a printer capable of printing on a “passbook”.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the case of printing on a sheet of paper such as a normal single sheet or continuous form, the printer firmware checks whether or not the next printing position exceeds the page length of the paper in the vertical position management of printing. If it exceeds, the page is broken or the paper is discharged.

[0003]

There is a demand for printing not only on ordinary sheet-shaped paper but also on passbooks. However, when a passbook is opened, there is a binding portion at the center, and there are two printable areas above and below the binding portion. Therefore, in the above-described vertical position management in the conventional printer firmware, it is necessary to perform printing correctly on a passbook in a double-page spread state. Can not do.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a printer capable of printing on a passbook in a two-page spread state.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A printer according to the present invention includes a carriage, a print head, a paper feed mechanism, and a controller for controlling these, and the controller regards two pages of a passbook as one page. Using the passbook format data that defines the format of the deemed page,
Performs vertical position management during passbook printing. According to this printer, since two spread pages of a passbook are regarded as one page and defined by one passbook format data, the vertical position management of passbook printing can be performed using only this one passbook format data.

[0006] In the passbook format data, the top margin, the first half print area, the binding portion, and the second half print area of the assumed page can be defined. By using such passbook format data, accurate printing can be performed only in the first half print area and the second half print area of the passbook. For example, based on the passbook format data, the current vertical position of the print head, and the requested vertical movement amount, when the print head is currently in the first half print area and moves by the requested vertical movement amount, the print head moves to the binding portion. Is detected, and in this case, vertical position control such as vertically moving the print head to the second half print area can be performed.

[0007] The printer may preferably comprise a non-volatile memory for storing passbook format data. This saves the user from having to set the passbook format every time printing is performed.

Preferably, when the print head passes through the binding portion in the vertical movement process, the carriage can be retracted to a horizontal position off the book. This eliminates the possibility that the head or the carriage hits the bulge of the binding portion of the passbook, and the vertical movement can be performed without any trouble.

[0009]

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

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the control system.

As shown in FIG. 1, the printer 1 uses a front paper supply / discharge port 3, a rear paper supply port 5, and a CSF (cut sheet feeder) 7 to supply and discharge passbooks, cut sheets, and continuous paper. Can be paper. That is, a passbook and a cut sheet can be manually fed from the front paper feed port 3, and a cut sheet and a continuous sheet can be fed manually from the rear paper feed port 5.
Single sheets can be automatically fed from SF7.

A print head 11 is provided for the fed paper.
Is moved by the carriage 9 in a direction penetrating the paper surface of the drawing, thereby performing printing while scanning the paper surface in the horizontal (row) direction. All the printed sheets are discharged to the front paper supply / discharge port 3.

As shown in FIG. 2, the controller 13
Print data is received from a host computer (not shown), interpreted to create a print image of each page, drive the print head 11 based on the print image, and determine the horizontal and vertical positions of the print head 11 with respect to the paper. In order to control, the carriage 9 and the paper feed mechanism 15 are controlled.

As basic data for performing the vertical position control, the controller 13 includes a nonvolatile memory 17 such as an EEPROM (a volatile memory such as a RAM).
In the table, various print format data 19 to 27 corresponding to the paper type and paper feeding method are provided. That is, passbook print format data 19, CSF-fed single-sheet format data 21, front-formatted single-format data 23, rear-formatted single-format data 25, and continuous-sheet format data 25. Format data 27 and the like.

The print format data 19 to 27
May be specified by the host computer each time printing is performed, instead of being registered in the memory in advance as illustrated. However, if the print format data 19 to 27 are registered in the non-volatile memory 17 in advance as shown in the figure, there is an advantage that the user does not have to set the format every time printing is performed. This advantage is greater because format data is more complicated than single-sheet or continuous paper as described above.)

Since a cut sheet or continuous sheet has one printable area in one page, the format data 21 to 27 include, for example, the top margin amount and the page length (or print length) of one sheet (= 1 page). (The number of lines) and the like (the bottom margin amount n3, the line feed amount, the paper size, etc. may be added).

On the other hand, the passbook format data 19 includes
Two pages of the passbook are regarded as one page, and the following data is included. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, when two pages of the passbook 31 in the double-page spread state are regarded as one page, two printing areas are sandwiched in the one page with the center binding portion 33 interposed therebetween.
That is, there are a first half print area 31A and a second half print area 31B. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4, the passbook format data 19 includes the top margin amount m1, the number of lines in the first half print area 31A (first half print line number) m2, the binding part amount m3, and the number of lines in the second half print area 31B (second half). Print line number) m4 and line feed amount. When the first printing area 31A and the second printing area 31B have the same width, that is, m2 = m4,
m4 can also be omitted.

The controller 13 manages the vertical position when printing on each sheet based on the format data 19 to 27 described above. Vertical position management during printing on cut sheets or continuous paper can be performed by a conventional method. Hereinafter, the vertical position management at the time of printing on the passbook will be described in detail.

In the vertical position management during passbook printing, control parameters A, B, and C shown in FIG. 3 are used. That is,
Parameter A is the width of the first half print area 31A (distance in the sub-scanning direction), parameter B is the width from the front end of the first half print area 31A to the front end of the second half print area 31B, and parameter C is the front end of the first half print area 31A to the second half print area 31B. Is the width (that is, the page length) up to the rear end. The controller 13 obtains A = m2 from the passbook format data 19 shown in FIG.
The control parameters A, B, and C are determined in accordance with the relationship of × line feed amount, B = A + m3, C = B + m4 × line feed amount.

The controller 13 performs a vertical movement process of the print head (actually, a paper transport process) according to the flow shown in FIG. In FIG. 5, V is the vertical position at which the print head 11 is currently located, and M is the vertical movement amount to the destination to which the print head 11 should go next. Vertical movement amount M
Is typically a line feed amount × line feed number, but may also be a page break amount, which is determined based on a print command from the host computer.

As shown in FIG. 5, the controller 13 first determines whether or not V + M is equal to or greater than C, in other words, when the print head 11 is moved from the current vertical position V by the vertical movement amount M, the controller 13 exceeds the page length C. Then, it is determined whether or not the data is lost (step S1). If it exceeds, the sheet is discharged for a page break (step S2).

If the length does not exceed the page length C, that is, if it is within the page, then V + M is equal to or more than A and V + M
Is smaller than B, in other words, if the print head 11 moves by the movement amount M, it is determined whether or not the print head 11 enters the binding portion 33 between the first half print area 31A and the second half print area 31B (step S3). . If the print head 11 enters the binding section 33, the print head 11 is moved by BV, that is, the print head 11 is moved to the head of the second half print area 31B (step S4). In the course of this movement, the sheet passes through the binding section 33. At the time of passing the binding section, a retreating movement process of the carriage 9 described later (see FIGS. 6 and 7) is also performed.

If the result of the determination in step S3 does not enter the binding section 33, then V is less than A and V + M
Is greater than or equal to A, in other words, it is determined whether or not the current position V of the print head 11 is within the first half print area 31A and moves into the second half print area 31B when moved by M (step S5). ). If the result is yes, the print head 11 is moved by the movement amount M (step S6).
Since the sheet passes through the binding section 33 even in this moving process, the retracting movement process of the carriage 9 is performed at that time.

If the result of step S5 is no,
Since the print head 11 moves only in the first half print area 31A or only in the second half print area 31B, the print head 11 is simply moved by M (step S7).

FIG. FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a retracting movement process of the carriage 9 when passing through the binding unit.

The current vertical position V is the binding portion 33 of the passbook 31.
Otherwise, the carriage 9 passes right above the passbook 31. However, when passing through the binding section 33,
Since the binding portion 33 is bulged, it is necessary to prevent the carriage 9 and the print head 11 from bulging. Therefore, at the stage where printing in the first half printing area 31A is completed, the carriage 9 is retracted to a horizontal position (typically a home position) deviating from the book 31, and then passes through the binding portion 33 to the second half printing area 31B. At this stage, the carriage 9 is returned from the retracted position to the printing position immediately above the passbook 31.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the evacuation movement processing.

As described above, at the stage where printing of the first half print area 31A has been completed, the carriage 9 is moved to the retreat position off the book (step S11). Subsequently, the carriage 9 is relatively moved in the vertical direction by a predetermined movement amount (step S12). In the movement process of this step S12, the sheet passes through the binding section 33 and enters the second half printing area 31B. Subsequently, the carriage 9 is moved from the retracted position to the passbook 3.
1 and is set at the printing start position of the second half printing area 31B (step S13).

According to the embodiment described above, the passbook 31
It is possible to skip the binding portion 33 and print correctly only in the first half print area 31A and the second half print area 31B. By the way, even in the conventional printing method for continuous paper, printing is performed only on a printable area in each page by skipping perforations connecting each page, and this method is applied to printing of the passbook 31. It is also possible. However, in the conventional continuous paper printing method, the format of each page separated by perforations is defined by a top margin, a page length, a bottom margin, and the like, and vertical position management is performed for each page using this format. . Therefore, if this conventional vertical position management of continuous paper is applied to the passbook,
The first half and the second half of the spread of the passbook are treated as separate pages. In this case, since the first half and the second half of the passbook are symmetrically combined at the binding portion, the top margin and the bottom margin are set reversely in the format of the first half and the format of the second half. It is necessary to perform a cumbersome process of alternately using. On the other hand, as in the above-described embodiment, by treating two pages of the passbook as one page and defining one format,
Vertical position management can be easily performed in one format.

Further, as still another method of realizing the vertical position management for the passbook, a method of skipping printing at the binding portion of the passbook by a command from the host computer can be adopted. However, in that case, it is necessary to prepare a dedicated command for print skipping, and the user needs to be aware of where in the page to skip. On the other hand, in the present invention, the host computer (user) does not need to worry about skipping within a page, and can simply create a document and send it to the printer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a schematic configuration of a printer according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control system of the printer.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a print format in a passbook in a two-page spread state.

FIG. 4 is a view showing a configuration of print format data of a passbook.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a print head vertical movement process.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a relative movement locus of a carriage with respect to a passbook in a double-page spread state.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a carriage retreat movement process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printer 3 Front paper feed port 5 Back paper feed port 7 Automatic paper feeder 9 Carriage 11 Print head 13 Controller 15 Paper feed mechanism 17 Non-volatile memory 19 Passbook format data

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A system comprising a carriage, a print head, a paper feed mechanism, and a controller for controlling the carriage, the print head, and the paper feed mechanism, wherein the controller regards two pages of a spread book as one page. A printer that manages the vertical position at the time of passbook printing using passbook format data that defines the format of the assumed page when the passbook is considered. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the passbook format data defines a top margin, a first half print area, a binding portion, and a second half print area in the assumed page. 3. The printer according to claim 1, further comprising a nonvolatile memory for storing said passbook format data. 4. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine that the print head is currently located in the first half print area based on the passbook format data, a current vertical position of the print head, and a requested vertical movement amount; A printer for vertically moving the print head to the second half printing area when the print head is positioned within the binding portion when moved by the vertical movement amount. 5. A printer for retracting the carriage to a horizontal position off the passbook when the controller passes through the binding section in the process of vertical movement of the print head.