JPS60227566A - Image forming equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output printed matters while classifying them by providing a page memory receiving the content of main information and storing it by page, and a page register and a print number register counting respectively number of pages and prints. CONSTITUTION:The designated number of sheets of printing is set to the number of sheets of printing register 10 and the main information transmitted sequentially from a computer 1 is stored in order to the page memory among the page memories 7. Every time one page's share is stored, 1 is added to the page register 8 and when the main information transmission end command is received, the content of the register 8 is copied to a page counter 9. Further, the content of the 1st page in the main storage stored in the memory 7 by pages is fed to a printer 3 and the printed matter is outputted to a tray. Then the number of pages of the counter 9 is decremented by ''1'' and when the content of the counter 9 is not zero, the process restores to the printer 3 for print, the page number of the counter 9 is decremented by one and this procedure is repeated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical field] The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and particularly to an image forming apparatus having sorting means for arranging each copy into pages when outputting a plurality of copies of an image formed product consisting of a plurality of pages. .

[Prior art]

Conventionally, as a means for sorting printed matter using this type of apparatus, it is common to provide a so-called mechanical sorter with a mechanical structure in the printed matter output section of the printer.

However, such a mechanical sorter has a complicated mechanism and generates mechanical noise during operation. Moreover, the sorting capacity is naturally limited by the number of bins of the sorter, so it is impossible to sort a large number of copies. In addition, sorting has disadvantages such as "printed matter jams" that tend to occur inside the sorter during sorting operations. [Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made by focusing on these conventional drawbacks. It has a means for storing the main information to be imaged on a page-by-page basis, a means for storing the number of pages and the number of copies of the image, and a means for sequentially outputting the contents of the main information on a page-by-page basis and outputting this output for each copy. It is an object of the present invention to provide an imaging apparatus having sorting means with repeating control means.

〔Example〕

1 to 3 show an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 1 shows printing using so-called host processing, which can output the output of a host computer that processes and outputs complex information consisting of a wide variety of characters, figures, tables, etc. at high speed as printed matter. This is a block diagram of the main parts of the system. In the figure, 1 is a host computer (hereinafter referred to as a computer), 2 is a control device that inputs print information (hereinafter referred to as main information) output from this computer 1 and processes it in a manner described later, and 3 is this control device 2 This is a printer that outputs the above-mentioned main information as printed matter while controlling the printing process by outputting the information. The printer 3 of this embodiment is, for example, a laser printer suitable for high-speed printing.

The control device 2 is formed by a microcomputer.

That is, 4 is an input interface section that controls communication with the computer 1, 5 is an output interface section that controls the printer 3, and 6 is a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as control means) that is the logical center of the control device 2. Control unit, program
It consists of a counter, stack, stack pointer, various registers, timing generator, etc.

This control means 6, a page memory 7 that stores main information page by page, and a page register 8 that stores the number of pages and number of copies to be printed respectively, and adds and subtracts in accordance with the input and output of the main information. The page counter 9 and copy register 10 form a means for sorting printed matter. The page memory 7 stores the main information sent from the computer 1 one page at a time, page by page.
RAM is used as internal memory. Also, depending on the main information,
A large-capacity magnetic disk device or the like is used as the external memory. The page register 8 temporarily stores how many pages each part of the main information consists of. Every time main information is input to the page memory 7, the number of pages is added up by a reversible counter (page counter) 9, and the result is stored in the page register 8. Next, when main information is output from the page memory 7 to the printer 3, the addition result is copied from the page register 8 to the page counter 9, and the subtraction is repeated every time one page is sent out. The number of copies register 1o stores the designated number of prints input from the computer 1, and stores the stored number of copies every time the main information for all the pages stored in the page memory 7 is output to the printer 3. It has a function to subtract one by one.

Next, the operation will be explained based on the flowchart shown in FIG.

The printing process of this invention can be roughly divided into two types 70-.

- is a normal print sequence, in which the main information from the computer 1 is input to the printer 3, which is sequence-controlled by the flilJ control device 2, and printed, and the printed matter is output without any particular sorting. The other sorting is a print sequence, which is applied when printing a printed matter consisting of multiple pages in multiple lines.

First, it is determined whether a sorting print transmission start command has been received from the computer 1 (step 1).

If the command has not been received, a normal print sequence is selected, main information is input from the computer 1 to the printer 3 via the control device 2, and the printed matter is output as is (step 13). When it is determined that the sorting has received the print transmission start command, the sorting print sequence is selected and the following steps 2 to 12 are performed.
is executed.

First, the designated number of copies to be printed is set in the number of copies register 10 (step 2). Page register 8 is cleared to O (step 3). It is determined whether the main information transmission path T command has been received from the computer 1 (step 4). If not received, the main information sequentially sent from the computer 1 is stored in the corresponding page area of the page memory 7 in that order (step 5). Each time one page is stored, the page register 8 is incremented by one (step 6), and the process returns to step 4. When it is determined in step 4 that the main information transmission end command has been received, the contents of the page register 8 are copied to the page counter 9 (step 7). Furthermore, the content of the first page (or last page) of the main information stored page by page in the page memory 7 is called up and sent to the printer 3-' for printing, and the printed matter is sent to the print receiver (not shown). Output on a plate (step 8). The number of pages copied to the page counter 9 at the same time as this output is subtracted by 1 (step 9). Next, it is determined whether the content of the page counter 9 is O (zero), and if it is not 0, the process returns to step 8 (step 10). Hereinafter, steps 8 to 10 are repeated, but when the main information is called from the page memory 7 in step 8, the page to be called is sequentially forwarded each time it is repeated.

When it is determined in step 10 that the content of the page counter 9 is O, the content of the number of copies register 10 is subtracted by 1 (step 11). Further, it is determined whether the contents of the copy number register 10 have become 0 (step 12).

If it is not O, the process returns to step 7, and printing of the main information and output of the printed matter are repeated. If it is O, it means that one cycle of sorting and printing has been completed, and the process returns to step 1.

As a result of the above operations, for example, in the case of j copies of printed matter consisting of i pages, as shown in FIG.
The printed matter of copy J arranged in page order is sent to the printer 3.
The output will be stacked one after another on the receiving tray. When calling from the page memory 7 from the last page, the printed matter is outputted from the printer 3 with the front side facing up. On the other hand, when calling from the first page, if you print the printout with the front side facing down (that is, turn it over), you can simply take out the first copy and bind it after printing is completed, making it easy to use as needed. It is possible to obtain a number of printed copies. The output section of the printer 3 can be simply a tray, so
Phenomena such as jams do not occur. An increase in the number of pages can be easily dealt with simply by increasing the capacity of the page memory 7, so a large-scale mechanical sorter is completely unnecessary and no noise is generated.

Although the above embodiments have been described using a laser as a printer, it can also be applied to printers using other methods.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the printer control device 2 includes the page memory 7 that receives the content of main information and stores it page by page, the page register 8 and the number of copies register 10 that respectively count the number of pages and copies. With the simple structure of providing a mechanical sorting device, it is possible to sort and output printed materials without using any mechanical sorting equipment.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart of the one shown in FIG. 1,
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the output state. 2......Control device 3...Printer 6...Control means (CPU) 7...
...Page memory 8 ...Page register 9 ...Page counter 10 ...Copy number register Fig. 7

Claims (1)

[Claims] means for receiving main information to be imaged and storing said main information page by page; means for storing the number of pages and the number of copies of images; and means for sequentially outputting the contents of the main information page by page; An image forming section H8 characterized by comprising a control means for repeating the output for the number of copies.