JPS59126591A - Character output control system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a character output control method, and particularly to a character output for arranging characters or figures at arbitrary positions on a page and outputting edited data. It is related to the control method.

[Prior art]

Conventionally, as a printer that outputs characters, one page is printed on each page.
Serial printers that print one character at a time and line printers that print one line at a time are known, but in both cases the paper size, character size, etc. are fixed for each device.
And the output position of characters or figures on the page is fixed. In other words, a set of coded characters (text information) or coded graphic information (for example, a set of commands for drawing straight lines, circles, arcs, etc., graphic information), etc. are sequentially sent to the printer from the host device along with control information. When input, the printer converts these into a pattern of characters and figures and prints them on paper. In this case, the printing position of the characters, figures, etc. depends on the line spacing specified by the control information and the character pitch. is determined within each page by specifying the font size. Therefore, the printer cannot output characters or graphics at arbitrary positions on the page.

By the way, recently, in addition to the function of editing and printing standard Japanese and English texts, there are also functions such as using various 7-onts, editing images, creating 7 ohms, creating graphs, creating illustrations, creating numerical tables, or these functions. There is a demand for a function that allows for synthetic editing, and for this purpose, it is essential to be able to output characters and figures at arbitrary positions on the page. As described above, conventional printers have the drawback of lacking flexibility in meeting the demand for outputting characters and graphics at arbitrary positions. This also applies to raster scan printers or raster scan display devices. Raster scan type display devices and printers scan the page from left-L to top-right, then move vertically and scan again from top-left to top-right of the page, repeating this process for output. Generally, horizontal movement is called main scanning, and vertical movement is called sub-scanning. For example, television receivers and CRT displays are known as raster scan displays, and devices that make hard copies of displayed screens, laser printers, and the like are known as raster scan printers.

The following describes output control of characters, figures, etc. of raster scan type display devices and printers.

I will explain. Usually, the "raster position" of a raster scan type output device is the position of the horizontal scanning line on the raster scan screen, and the "raster number" is the number counted from the top of the horizontal scanning line. ``Scan'' means to move the main scan in the horizontal direction by slightly shifting it in the vertical direction.
In other words, this is a method that performs sub-scanning.

Now, as a method for outputting characters and figures at arbitrary positions on a page, there has been a conventional method described in Japanese Patent Application No. 14977/1983, "
A "Print Pattern Generator" has been proposed. This is provided with control registers for storing the line size (line spacing), the position of the character within the line, and the character size (character pitch) in order to place a character at any position within the line. In other words, in this device, the number of this control register is specified for each character on the page memory, and when reading the character/< turn from the character pattern memory of each character during line printing, the number of the control register in the line is specified from the specified control register. The raster position of the character pattern is read to determine the raster address of the character pattern.

However, the in-line raster position information stored in this control register is no longer needed after the corresponding character is output, so during the non-printing period (return time) on raster scan, the in-line raster position information is used to indicate the in-line raster position. Values must be updated for all control registers. Therefore, when there are many control registers to be updated, it is difficult to complete the update within a limited short recovery time (for example, 50 μs). , it is impossible to update everything within the recovery time.

For this reason, in practice, the number of control registers must be limited to a few, and only a few characters can be placed in free positions on a line; cannot have one control register each, so it is forced to be fixed.

Another conventional method for obtaining freedom in output position is to connect the page memory to the next stage of the character pattern memory, that is, to connect the page memory for an entire page to the driver/pattern memory. There is a method of configuring using memory.

In this case, each time a character is specified, it is necessary to retrieve the character pattern from the character pattern memory and move it to the desired placement coordinate position in the page memory, so a large amount of page memory is required. , and requires a considerable amount of time to transfer a large number of character patterns.

[Purpose of the invention]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to eliminate these conventional drawbacks, it is an object of the present invention to provide a character output control system that allows characters or figures to be placed at any position on a page in any order.

[Summary of the invention]

The character output control method of the present invention allows output characters and
A character output device that receives graphic data and coordinate data, edits the arrangement on the page according to the data, and outputs the edited data as a serial dot string. The page control memory is divided into rows and columns and addressed, and the above coordinate data is converted into addresses according to the above division and displacement coordinates within the division, and the above output character/figure data and the above division are sent to the corresponding addresses of the page control memory. The present invention is characterized in that it has a calculation device for storing internal displacement coordinates, generates a pattern memory address from the output character/graphic data and the intra-section displacement coordinates, and controls the inter-character pitch.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Fig. 1 is a conceptual diagram of partitions of page control memory showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram of character data format sent from a host device, Fig. 3 is a correspondence diagram of page control memory and character positions, and Fig. 4 1 is a block diagram of a page control memory, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a character output device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the page control memory is a memory whose elements are sections OO to MN divided into M rows and N columns, and one section includes rasters vertically and L dots horizontally (here, K
, L, M, and N are arbitrary integers), these sections correspond to the print area. More specifically, the section is used as a reference for setting the printing area at an arbitrary position.

First, the data editing process will be explained.

From a host device (e.g. CPU) to a character output device,
Character or graphic data to be output is sent in the format shown in FIG. That is, for each character to be output, a coordinate identifier (denoted as [coordinates] in Fig. 2), coordinate data (X1Yi), and a character identifier ([character] in Fig. 2) are provided.
), and character or graphic data 8□ are sent successively in this order, and a [page end] code is sent at the position where one page ends.

Here, the coordinate data (xlyl) indicates the coordinates of the beginning of a single character area, and various definitions are possible for X□ and Y□, but here, the x raster number (horizontal scanning line number)
Let Yl be the number of dots arranged on the horizontal scanning line (dot number). Further, the character or graphic data is usually a character code and command information for drawing a straight line, circle, or the like.

In FIG. 5, 1 is a word calculation unit, 2 is a page control memory, 3 is a row buffer, 4 is a raster counter, 5 is a subtracter, 6 is a pattern memory, 7 is a pattern register, 8
The interdigital dot counter 9 is an AND circuit.

Data received from the host device via the interface line 11 undergoes coordinate transformation in the calculation device 1.

That is, the calculation device fil with decoding and division functions is
When the character or graphic data shown in Figure 2 is sent,
First, coordinate data and character data are determined. After decoding the coordinate data using the coordinate identifier, the calculation device l
is the coordinate X by dividing the vertical coordinate X□ by K, which is the unit of the partition element, and obtaining the quotient m
If the row to which □ belongs, that is, the m-th row, is determined, and the value of the remainder is 11, then the raster position within the section to which the coordinate x1 belongs, that is, the X□-th raster, is determined. That is, as shown in FIG.
Determine the row and further determine the position of Ai within the partition by the remainder x1.

Next, the n-th column and the y-th dot are determined by performing the same division operation on the horizontal coordinate Y□. That is, as shown in Fig. 3, the nth column is determined by dividing the dot number, coordinate ¥1, by the number of dots forming the section, and the remainder y□ is used to determine the value of A□ in the section. Determine the position. In this way, the coordinates (
Having determined that X□, Yl) is located at the X□th raster, 11th dot in the partition (m, -), computing device l accesses the page control memory 2 and writes the result. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, the page control memory 2 includes areas for the first to N-th columns for each of the first to Nth rows. The respective areas include an area (A□) 22 for storing character codes and an area (C□) 2 for storing character sizes.
3, and an area for storing displacements within the section (xt+y
4) Contains 24 and 25.

The computing device 1 stores the division result in the x1 field area 24 and the y□ field area 25 of the address in the nth column below the mth row definition area 21 on the page control memo 1-2.

Here, the value of the x4 field area 24 is the raster position within the page, and the value of the yl field area 25 indicates the number of dots between the previous character and the previous character.

Next, when the computing device 1 decodes that it is character or graphic data A□ using the character identifier, the computing device 1 reads the first rask address at the beginning of the pattern data of the character or graphic in the butterfly memory 6. After making the correspondence so as to indicate the instruction, this character or graphic data A□ is stored on the pixel address field 22 at the address of the mth row and nth column on the page control memory shown in FIG.

Of course, the character data is a character code, and the graphic data is a command for drawing a figure.

Therefore, if it is a sentence, m rows and n columns, m rows and n+
Character codes are stored continuously in the pixel address field 22 in the 1st column, m rows, n+2 rows, etc., and in the case of a group of figures, lines, circles, and arcs to form the figure are stored consecutively. A set of commands for drawing are successively stored one by one in the field 22. This completes the process of editing on the page control memory.

In this way, the coordinates (X□
, Yl) are the values expressed by the raster number and dot number on one page, and the calculation device 1 divides these values into sections (
m, n) into raster numbers and dot numbers, and are stored at a predetermined address in the page control memory together with character or graphic data A1. Note that although coordinate data (Xl t Yl ) is sent in advance of each character on the character data string, the coordinate data (Xl, Y□) may be omitted. If the coordinate data (X□, Y□) is omitted, the previous character or figure is controlled to be in the same position as the previous character in the vertical direction and adjacent to the previous character in the horizontal direction. It is necessary.

In other words, even if the coordinate data of the character data A That's good. Normally, when data is sent from a host device, character data is sent in the order of raster scanning, so the character A immediately before character A1 has the same raster number, and also has a dot number that is 1 character minus 1 character lower. . Therefore, when the coordinate data is omitted, the computing device l writes the coordinate data within the section of the character A□ in the page control memory, so the same value as the previous character A is written in the xi field 24, and the same value as the previous character A is written in the y□ field. The difference from the previous character A is written in 25-1.

−1 For example, when the character spacing value is zero, a value of 0 is written in the yF field 25.

If the coordinate data is completely omitted and sent, the character data will be sent sequentially from the 0th row and 0th column, that is, the top left of the page.
It is controlled by partitions of predetermined size and predetermined values of X□ and y□ (initial values). In this case, the initial value of the page control memory is stored in advance in a separate memory 10, and each time the page of output data changes, this is updated and the updated value is set in the page control memory 2. Ru. This initial value is prepared in advance on the memory 10 within the device, but if the updated value is sent in a freely formatted form from the host device, it is possible to control the output position arbitrarily. becomes. Therefore, only the output data can be sent from the host device and the coordinate data can be made unnecessary, so the amount of output data sent from the host device can be reduced.

Note that the value c1 in the field 23 on the page control memory in FIG. 4 is control information for character size display that is not directly related to the present invention.

In this way, the page control memory 2 has the conventional page control memory 2.
Memory and P! r, is the same number of (N+2)
) is provided, and the character data (A
□) and displacement coordinates are stored.

Therefore, by sending arbitrary positional coordinates from the host device to the character output device together with character or graphic data, it becomes possible to arrange and print the characters or graphics at any position on the page.

In addition, coordinate data is not necessarily added to each character or figure data sent from the host device, but coordinate data is added only when you want to output a character or figure at a position that is not continuous with the previous character or figure. Just send it. In that case, initial values of consecutive coordinate data are stored in the initial value memo IJ 10 shown in FIG.

As the output data is edited on the page control memory 2 using the method described above, and when a page end identifier ([page end] in FIG. 2) is detected on the character data, one line of data is Move data to row buffer 3. From row buffer 3, the first pattern is sequentially input from the first column.
Rask address (pixel pattern memory address)
A□, character control information C11 in-line raster position X□ two-character interval dot value y are respectively taken out via data 11!31, 32, 33°34. Of these, pixel pattern memory address A□ is supplied as part of the address of pattern memory 6 by data [31. Further, the in-line raster position x1 is sent to the subtracter 5 via the data line 33, and is subtracted from the count value (R) of the raster counter that specifies the in-line scanning position of the scanning line raster scan.

When the subtraction result, that is, the value of (R-x□), is negative or larger than the character control information c1 specified via the data line 32, the control 1151 sets the AND circuit 9 to '0''. and inhibits output line 72.

Further, when the calculation result (RXl) is a positive value and is equal to the character size but smaller, (R-x,) is sent to the pixel pattern via the data line 52 as the in-pixel raster address of the pattern memory 6.・Memory address 11!
! 31, the pattern memory 6 is accessed via the memory address line 35, and the read character or graphic pattern is set in the pattern register 7. Character or graphic patterns are entered line by line in pattern register 7.
When read out, data il! is read out one dot at a time via serial data [71] at a timing corresponding to the dot pattern period. ! Since the AND circuit 9 is open, the signal is sent out to the output device via the data line 91. Here, the upper address for accessing the pattern memory 6 is the start address of the character pattern to be output, and the lower address is the row address of the character pattern.

When the data on the pattern register 7 for one pixel is sent out, the inter-character dot value y1 is sent from the line buffer 3 to the inter-character dot counter 8 via the data line 34, and the inter-character dot value y1 is set to 1 by the inter-character dot counter 8. It advances dot by dot and sends "0" data onto the data line 72 via the data line 81 until it counts the y1 value.

In this way, the character or graphic pattern is output from the position of the x1th raster, y-th dot in the m-th row and n-th column. The raster counter is cleared each time new data is provided in the row buffer 3, and is updated corresponding to the raster scan of the scan line. Note that this raster counter 4 is compared with the size of a row and is also used to detect that scanning of one row has been completed, but since this is not directly related to the present invention, a description thereof will be omitted.

Also, as shown by Aj in FIG. 3, the coordinates (Xj.

The character or graphic data whose starting position is ``Yj'' is also divided into sections (m) in exactly the same way as in the case of A1 above.

By converting the data into raster numbers and dot numbers in n) and storing them together with character or graphic data Aj at a predetermined address in the page control memory, a pattern can be displayed at that position on the page.

In addition, the calculation device l performs division to obtain the coordinate (Xl).

Find the section (m:n), the X□ raster, and the y□ dot from Yl), but in this case, the value of , if the coordinates (X□, Y□) are omitted and sent, the X□ raster has the same value as the immediately preceding character or figure, and the y□ dot is from the end position of the adjacent character to the boundary. This is the sum of the number of dots in the character and the number of dots from the border to the start position of the character. However, if the size of the characters or symbols is larger than the size of the section, the y-th
1 dot is the number of dots from the end position of the adjacent character to the start position of the relevant character. In this way, depending on the size relationship between characters and sections, and depending on the output device,
The value of is determined.

In addition, with conventional page memory, in order to place characters or figures at any position on the page, it is necessary to embed space data in all non-printing positions from the top left to that position, or Whereas it is necessary to process a shift operation to reach that position, in the present invention, coordinate data is attached to character or graphic data, so data can be stored in the page control memory starting from the address corresponding to the coordinates. It is possible to create data that does not depend on the output order of lines and characters of the output data, and there is no need for embedding spaces or shifting operations.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the present invention, characters and figures can be output to any position on a page by specifying the output position, and the capacity of image memory and hardware There is no need to embed space characters or shift operations in page memory.
If applied to a raster scan type printer or display device, efficiency and economy can be achieved when outputting character and graphic data in various formats.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a conceptual diagram of partitions of page control memory showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram of character data format sent from a host device, Fig. 3 is a correspondence diagram of page control memory and character positions, and Fig. 4 5 is a block diagram of a page control memory showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a character output device showing an embodiment of the present invention. : tztt arithmetic unit, 2: page control memory, 3: line buffer, 4: raster counter, 5: subtractor, 5+ pattern memory, 7: pattern register, 8: character spacing dot counter. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5

Claims (1)

[Claims] C1) Receives character/graphic data and coordinate data to be output from a host device, edits the arrangement on the page according to the data, and outputs the edited data as a serial dot string. In a character output device, a page control method that divides the position on one page into a predetermined number of rows and columns and assigns addresses, converts the above coordinate data into an address according to the above division and a displacement coordinate within the division. , has a calculation device that stores the output character/figure data and the intra-section displacement coordinates at the corresponding address of the page control memory, and calculates a pattern/figure from the output character/figure data and the intra-section displacement coordinates.
A character output control method characterized by generating a memory address and controlling the pitch between characters. ■When the calculation device receives output character/figure data with coordinate data omitted from the host device, it stores intra-section displacement coordinates in the page control memory using the initial values of the coordinate data stored in advance. A character output control method according to claim 1, characterized in that: (3) The address of the pattern memory is determined by the output character when the value obtained by subtracting the line displacement value of the intra-section displacement coordinate from the value of the in-line scan counter is a positive value and is less than or equal to the size of the character/figure. - The character output control method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that upper and lower addresses are formed together with graphic data.