JPS6153073A - Printing system for printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance printing speed, eliminate starting and stopping actions of a printing head and markedly reduce vibration of a printer, by printing at an upper limit speed for a font for which the upper limit of printing speed is lowest, in the case where characters of a font suitable for high-speed printing and characters of a font suitable for low-speed printing are coexistent in a single line. CONSTITUTION:The printing time T in printing at a high speed and a low speed in combination and the printing time T' in totally printing at a low speed are culculated by a CPU2. In addition, the printing time T' in the case of printing a line at a stroke at the upper limit speed for a font for which the upper limit of printing speed is lowest is calculated. When the thus calculated printing time T and printing time T' are in the relation of T<T', the characters in each font are printed at the maximum printing speed for the font, while changing over the printing speed on a font basis. When T>=T', font data (a) and speed designating signals (b) are outputted to I/O port 3 so as to print at the upper limit speed for the font for which the upper limit of printing speed is lowest.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to print control in a serial impact printer.

[Conventional technology]

In wire dot matrix type serial impact printers (hereinafter referred to as printers), high-speed printing is possible due to the impact speed characteristics of the print head, and sparse fonts with long impact cycles (hereinafter referred to as high-speed fonts). For example, when alphanumeric characters, etc., and fine fonts that can only be printed at low speed and have a short impact cycle (hereinafter referred to as low-speed fonts), such as kanji, etc., are mixed, conventionally, high-speed printing is required for high-speed fonts. At the same time, low-speed fonts are printed at low speed.

Here, based on FIG. 2, a case where a low speed font such as Showa and a high speed font such as 59 are printed consecutively on one line will be described.

Figure 2 shows the speed of the print head ■, its printing, and the printing position
FIG. In FIG. 2, the low-speed font Showa is printed in the low-speed font printing section a, and the high-speed font 59 is already printed in the high-speed font printing section while accelerating the print head.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in order to print a low-speed font and a high-speed font that are close to each other at once, such a conventional example prints a high-speed font in the acceleration/deceleration section C in Figure 117, and applies force due to acceleration/deceleration to the impact wire. This causes a problem in which the printed character shape becomes disordered.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem, first, the Showa era in a slow font is printed at a low speed, and once this printing is completed, the print head is temporarily stopped. Then, the print head is pulled back from the character position to be printed by an extra necessary run-up distance for acceleration, and in the run-up section, the printing -\rad is accelerated to a high predetermined speed, and then a high-speed font is printed at high speed.

However, in this method, the print head is stopped once, pulled back by the run-up distance, and then accelerated and then printed. Therefore, when high-speed fonts and low-speed fonts are mixed in one line, the speed switching described above requires There is a problem in that it may take time to print the one line at a low speed because of the time.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to improve the printing speed and the reliability of printing by printing efficiently.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention uses the number of fonts for each class classified according to the upper limit of the printing speed of a certain line, the printing speed thereof, and the number of times of speed switching, in advance of printing a certain line. Calculate the printing time T in the case of a method in which each font is switched to the highest printing speed in its class and printed from the top, and the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest upper limit of printing speed among the fonts in the above row is calculated. means for calculating a printing time T' in the case of the method of printing the line;
The present invention is characterized by comprising means for selecting a printing method and printing according to the relationship between the printing time T and the printing time T'.

[Effect]

The present invention having the above features calculates the printing time T and the printing time T' before printing one line, and when the relationship between the printing time T and the printing time T' is T<T'. prints the line while switching speeds for each font at the highest print speed in its class, and when T≧T', prints the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest print speed limit among the fonts in the line. to print the line without changing the speed.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on FIGS. 1 and 3.

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of this embodiment showing printing processing for one line, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of hardware for carrying out the printing processing shown in FIG. 1. In FIG. 3, 1 is a memory that receives and stores coded print data from a host device (not shown). 2 is a CPU that performs font development, printing speed calculation, and printing speed control according to a program stored in the memory 1; 3
4 ports, 4 printer control unit, 5 printer,
6 is a read-only memory that stores font data.

Next, to explain the operation of the above configuration, first, 91 lines of coded print data are stored in the memory by a host device (not shown).
memorize it. The method of specifying high-speed fonts and low-speed fonts in print data by class is as follows: 1) Determine the character code.

2) There are methods such as determining the font after the shift code for specifying high speed/low speed, but either method may be used in this embodiment.

Font development of one line of print data stored in the memory 1 is performed by software running on the CPU 2 before printing one line.

At this time, at the same time, the number of fonts for each class classified into one class and the number of times the speed is changed are counted as the upper limit value of the printing speed of the line.

Based on the data obtained from the font development, the software running on the CPU 2 calculates a printing speed T when high-speed and low-speed printing is mixed and a printing speed T' when all printing is performed at low speed. That is, the printing time T when each font is printed at the highest printing speed in its class while switching the speed is calculated by the following equation (I).

T=VuNH+VLNc +TC...-be ■) In addition, ■H
: Printing speed VL during high-speed printing : Printing speed during low-speed printing NH : Number of characters in high-speed font NL : Number of characters in low-speed font Tc : Sum of speed switching times between high-speed and low-speed Printing time T' when the above line is printed all at once at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest upper limit value
is calculated by the following equation (6).
6) If the relationship between the calculated printing time T and printing time T' is T<T', each font is switched to the highest printing speed in its class and the line is printed one after another. , outputs font data and speed designation to I4 port 3. Also, when T≧T', font data and speed specification are output to the I/Q boat 3 so that the line is printed at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest print speed limit among the fonts in the line. do.

When the strong port 3 manually inputs the font data and speed specification stored in the read-only memory 6, the information is output to the printer control section 4 and the printer is operated under the control of the printer control section 4; Prints one line. Then, the above-described operations are sequentially performed for the next row as well.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the printing power formula of the printer according to the present invention, before printing a certain line, each font in the line is printed while switching the speed at the highest printing speed in its class. Calculate the time T, and calculate the printing time T' when the line is printed at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest printing speed limit among the fonts in the line without speed switching, and T and printing time T'
When the relationship between By printing the line without speed switching at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest upper limit value, if high-speed fonts and low-speed fonts are mixed in one line, the printing speed of the fonts in the line is When printing at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest upper limit value, the printing speed for printing the line is improved compared to the conventional method, and the printer's vibration is extremely reduced because the start and stop operations of the print head are eliminated. Demonstrate.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of printing processing for one line showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional example showing the relationship between print head speed and time, and Fig. 3 is similar to Fig. 1. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of software for performing the printing process shown in FIG.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a wire dot matrix serial impact printer that prints fonts of multiple classes with different upper limit values of printing speed, before printing a certain line, the upper limit value of the printing speed of this line is set. Based on the number of fonts for each class to be classified, their printing speed, and the number of speed switching, calculate the printing time T when each font is printed at the highest printing speed of each class while switching the speed, and Calculate the printing time T' when the line is printed without speed switching at the upper limit speed of the class with the lowest printing speed upper limit value among the fonts in the line, and calculate the relationship between the printing time T and the printing time T'. However, when T<T', each font is printed at the highest printing speed in its class while switching the speed, and when T≧T', the upper limit of the printing speed among the fonts in the above line is printed. A printer printing method characterized in that the line is printed at the upper limit speed of the lowest class without speed switching.