JPS6111277A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate unnecessary printing and damages to a printing head and to enhance an efficient utilization of a printer by automatically checking compatibility of characteristics of a printer, paper sizes and etc. with the forms of informations. CONSTITUTION:A printer 1 receives a printing selection information from a treatment device 2 to an interface portion which includes a transmitter-receiver buffer. A processor 5 is a portion which controls the whole of the printer 1, and reads from an interface portion 3 a printing selection information for a working storage. The treatment device 2 compares the form of printing information with the printable number of letters and the printable number of lines, and when judged to be able to carry out a normal printing, the printing information is transmitted to the printer, for instance, by a line after another. In the printer 1 the processor 5 adds control information such as letter spacing selection, line spacing selection and etc. to the printing information received from the treatment device 2, and the informations are transmitted through a printing control portion 10 to a printing mechanism 11 to execute printing. When the treatment device 2 judges that a normal printing is impossible, an appropriate action such as an issuance of cancellation of printing selection etc. can be taken.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printing device, and particularly to a printing device having a function of notifying the number of characters that can be printed depending on the paper size.

Many of the current printing devices are capable of printing on various paper sizes (for example, from 85-size to A3-size, etc.), and also allow selection of printing line spacing and character spacing from a wide variety of types.

On the other hand, due to the structural characteristics of printing devices, the printable area on paper is limited to a certain area inside the edge of the paper. etc., or adjust the format of the print information, but the conditions generally differ depending on the type of printing device.

[Problems to be solved by the prior art and the invention] Conventionally, when printing with such a printing device, the printing conditions are known from materials such as the operating manual of the printing device, and the printing information is adjusted to match the printing conditions. created and printed.

However, if the printing device is different or if the paper is specified incorrectly when printing, the result will be printing in a position that is off the paper, and this will only be recognized when printing is executed, resulting in unnecessary printing. This is a problem that requires some kind of improvement, as there is a possibility that the print head may be damaged.

[Means for solving problems]

The above-mentioned problem is that when connected to a processing device and printing output information of the processing device, there is a paper size detecting means, a means for holding print area information for the paper size, and a means for receiving print designation information from the processing device. , and based on the paper size detected by the detection means and the received print designation information, calculate the number of printable lines on one page and the number of printable characters on one line from the print area information, and notify the processing device. The problem is solved by the printing device of the present invention having the means.

[Effect]

That is, the printing apparatus has means such as a storage device that holds print area information for each paper size of paper that can be installed in the printing apparatus.

When receiving print designation information such as character spacing and line spacing from a processing device for printing, the printing device recognizes the set paper size and reads out print area information corresponding to the paper size.

The print area information shall include at least the horizontal and vertical lengths of the printable rectangular area, and by dividing these by the specified character spacing and line spacing, the number of printable lines per page and number of characters per line can be determined. .

The printing device notifies the processing device of these information, so the processing device can check whether normal printing is possible before printing by comparing it with the print information format, and check whether normal printing is possible. If there is no information, it is possible to stop printing and take appropriate measures such as changing the format of the print information.

〔Example〕

The figure is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

The printing device 1 receives print designation information from the processing device 2 into an interface section 3 including a transmission/reception buffer.

The processor 5 is composed of, for example, a microprocessor including a storage device for programs and a working storage area, and is a part that controls the printing apparatus 1 in general.

The processor 5 reads the print designation information from the interface unit 3 into the working storage area.

The paper mechanism 6 is configured to mount paper cassettes for various paper sizes, for example, and displays paper size information of the cassettes mounted on a signal line 7.

The processor 5 reads this display via the paper control unit 8, compares it with the paper size designation in the print designation information, and if they do not match, transfers, for example, paper exchange instruction information to the processing device 2 via the interface circuit 3.

When the specified paper is loaded, the processor 5 stores the print area information memory 9 using the paper size information as an index.
, the print area information corresponding to the paper size of the installed paper is read out.

The print area information memory 9 can be configured, for example, by a storage device exclusively for continuous printing.

The print area information includes the width and length of a rectangular printable area set within the paper surface, and, if necessary, other print control information specific to the paper size.

The processor 5 calculates the quotient of the width of the printable area divided by the character spacing specification value of the print specification information as the number of printable characters per line.

In addition, the quotient of the length of the printable area divided by the specified line spacing value is calculated as the number of printable lines per page, and this is sent to the sending/receiving buffer of the interface unit 3 along with the number of printable characters mentioned above, and transferred to the processing device 2. do.

The processing device 2 compares the format of the print information with the number of printable characters and printable lines notified above, and if it is determined that normal printing is possible, prints the print information sequentially, for example, one line at a time. Transfer to device.

In the printing device 1, the processor 5 adds control information such as character spacing designation and line spacing designation to the print information received from the processing device 2, and transfers the information via the print control unit 10 to the printing mechanism 11 to execute printing. .

If the processing device 2 determines that normal printing cannot be performed, appropriate measures can be taken, such as issuing a command to cancel the print designation to the printing device 1.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, by automatically checking the compatibility relationship between the print information format, the characteristics of the printing device, the paper size, etc., unnecessary printing can be avoided.
This has a significant industrial effect of improving the utilization efficiency of printing equipment, since damage to the print head can be avoided.
Ru.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figure is a configuration diagram of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a printing device, 2 is a processing device, 3 is an interface section, 5 is a processor, 6 is a paper mechanism, 9 is a printing area information memory, and 11 is a printing mechanism.

Claims (1)

[Claims] connected to a processing device, and when printing output information of the processing device, a paper size detection means, a print area information holding means for the paper size, a means for receiving print designation information from the processing device, and the detection means; Based on the detected paper size and the received print designation information, the printing apparatus includes means for calculating the number of printable lines on one page and the number of printable characters on one line from the print area information and notifying the processing device. printing device.