JPS63137875A - Control of stopping position of printing head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent skewing of a paper from occurring due to clamping of a glued part of the paper between the tip of a printing head and a platen, by preventing the printing head from being stopped at the glued part in the bottom of an envelope. CONSTITUTION:Where a paper to be printed is an envelope 10, an allowable range (u) of stoppage of a printing head 2 based on the paper width (w) of the envelope is set in a controller. When printing is performed outside the allowable range (u) while moving a printing head 2 rightward during printing, a command for stopping the head 2 is given after moving the head 2 to a position (c) outside the paper width (w). The allowable range (u) of stoppage is given as a value obtained by subtracting a stoppage inhibited range (m) from the paper width (w). The stoppage inhibited range (m) is given as e+d+g, where (e) is the width of a glued part at the bottom of the envelope, (d) is the approach run distance by which the head 2 is moved before it is actually stopped after the command for stopping the head is given, and (g) is an allowable width set by taking into account the scattering of the width (f) of the tip of the head 2, the approach run distance (d), etc. The stoppage inhibited range (m) is preset in the controller.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] This invention relates to a method for controlling a printer in a computer system, and in particular, it relates to a method for controlling a printer of a computer system, and in particular, for printing on general office paper (regular paper) and printing addresses on envelopes. Regarding a printer control method that can be performed together, the present invention relates to an eleventh method for controlling the stop position of a print head for the purpose of preventing paper skew during envelope printing.

1. Prior Art - A printer that can print on general office paper and address on envelopes is well known. Since envelopes are made of thicker paper than general office paper, this type of printer is equipped with a paper thickness detection means to set the print gap according to the paper thickness, and a paper identification sensor to detect the inserted paper. The paper is designed to identify whether it is a general office note or an envelope.

The operation of printing an address on an envelope will now be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3, which show an example of this type of printer. Second
．． In the device shown in Figure 3, the platen 1 is used to identify whether the inserted note is a general office note or an envelope.
Two paper detection sensors 3 and 4 are arranged on the paper insertion side. While the leading edge of general office paper is a straight line, the envelope 10 is provided with a flap 11, and the end 12 of this flap 11 is cut off diagonally, so that the leading edge of the paper is straight. The sides are not straight lines. Therefore, in the illustrated apparatus, it is determined whether the inserted paper is a general office note or an envelope 10 based on the difference in timing when the sensors 3 and 4 detect the leading edge of the paper.

(Initial positioning when the envelope 10 is inserted into the printing section and the beginning is found)
When this is performed, the print head 2 moves, for example, to a position P shown in the figure, and the paper thickness is detected at the position P. Next, the envelope 10 is sent to the address printing position, and the address instructed by the main unit is printed. The printing of this address is generally performed over two or three lines, but when the printing of the first line is completed, a stop command is given to the print head 2, and the print head 2 is moved to the right side of its travel path (the side opposite to the base table). ), give paper 10 a line feed feed.

-Problems to be Solved by the Invention- In normal printers, in order to improve processing speed, a stop command is given to the print head 2 immediately after printing one line of data, and a line feed is given to the paper. ing. Therefore, when printing is performed while the print head moves rightward, the print head 2 stops on the right side of the travel path when the paper is fed by line feed, and the stopping position is also not uniform. This is shown in the speed diagram of the print head in Fig. 4. When a stop command is given to the print head at position a or b, the gl head runs up a distance d to position A or B. Stop at.

Therefore, if the paper is an envelope 10, there may be cases where the printing head 2 stops gluing the bottom of the envelope on the part 13 and feeds a new line (the stop command is given in b in Figure 4). ). In this case, the setting of the print gap is that the gluing is done in a part other than part 13, and since the paper thickness is thicker in part 13, the gluing part 13 is set between the tip of the print head 2 and the platen. 1 and a large feeding load is applied to this part. Therefore, there is a problem in that a biased feeding load acts on the envelope 10, resulting in paper skew.

Means for Solving a Problem - The present invention solves the above problem by avoiding the printing head 2 from stopping at the bottom gluing section 13 of the envelope 10 during envelope printing.

That is, in the method of the present invention, when the paper to be printed is an envelope 10, the permissible stop width U of the print head 2 is set in the controller based on the paper width W of the envelope. If the print head 2 moves to the right during the printing operation and prints with a width that exceeds this permissible stop width U, the print head 1''2 is moved to a position C that exceeds the paper width W and then a stop command is issued. I try to give.

Specifically, the permissible stop width U is given as the value obtained by subtracting the prohibited stop width m from the paper width W, as shown in FIG. The stop prohibition width mlr, the 1 mark on the bottom of the envelope is the sum of the width e of the section and the run-up distance i%9d from giving the stop command to the print head 2 until it actually stops, plus the width of the print head 2. The tip width f (in the illustrated embodiment, the width of the ribbon mask 5) and the variation width of the run-up distance d are considered, and the margin width g set is added to the value, and the value is given to the controller as a set value in advance. .

If the ID sensor 6 for reading the identification mark provided on the paper is provided near the print head 2 as in the illustrated embodiment, the bottom side 14 of the envelope 10 can be detected by the ID sensor 6. , the paper width W can be automatically set by the controller. However, if you only use envelopes with standard dimensions, you can register the width (the length of the envelope in the vertical direction) for each type of envelope, and manually enter the type of envelope to be used to determine the corresponding paper width. It is also possible to provide the information to the controller. Furthermore, if the paper feed tray is provided with a side guide that is set according to the paper width, the paper width may be given to the controller from the setting position of this side guide.

If the stop position of the printing gutter 2 is controlled by the method described above,
After the printing head 2 stamps the envelope 10 while moving to the right, the printing head 2 can be prevented from stopping on the gluing section 13 of the envelope 10. That is, if the print width is short and is within the permissible stop width U, a stop command is given to the print head 2 immediately after printing is completed, and the print head 2 stops gluing from part 13.
(for example, the position shown in FIG. 4). Also,
If the printing width exceeds the permissible stop width U, the print head 2 moves beyond the paper width W to position C and then a stop command is given, so the printing hemlock 2 does not apply glue to the outside of the section 13 (no. Stop at position C in Figure 4).

Therefore, according to the present invention, paper skew at the time of line feed due to the gluing part 13 being pinched between the print head 2 and the platen 1 during line feed of the envelope 10 can be avoided.

One Embodiment - FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing the control procedure of one embodiment of the present invention, showing an example in which paper type detection and paper width detection are all performed automatically.

The printer has the paper detection sensor 3 described in FIG. 2.3.
4 and an ID sensor 6 are provided, and depending on the timing difference between the sensors 3 and 4 to detect the leading edge of the inserted paper, it is determined whether the paper is a general office note or an envelope paper. , if it is an envelope, set the envelope flag in the controller. The details of this determination operation are described in detail in the "Prior Art" section above.

Next, the paper is fed to the position indicated by the imaginary line in Figure 2 to cue the paper. ), the print head 2 is moved.

Then, when the print head 2 reaches the position indicated by P in FIG. 2, the print head 2 is temporarily stopped, the thickness of the paper is detected, and the print gap is set. And the paper is envelope 10
If so, further move the head 2 to the right,
The ID sensor 6 detects the bottom side 14 of the envelope 10, and the paper width W is detected from the amount of movement of the print head 2 at that time. Then, the value obtained by subtracting the prohibited stop width m registered in advance from the detected paper width W is set as the permissible stop width U in the controller.

Next, the paper is fed to the printing position, receives one line of print data from the main unit, and starts printing the data. At this time, the position of the print-rad 2 is referenced and It is determined whether the data is printed by moving the print head 2 to the right or to the left. When printing is performed by moving to the right, the envelope flag is referenced, and if it is an envelope, the data length and stop permissible width 11 are compared. If the data length is longer, after setting the stop control flag,
Perform printing operation.

When printing is completed, the stop control flag is referred to, and if the stop control flag is not set, a stop command is immediately given to the print head 2, and a paper line feed command is given. In this case, a stop command is given, for example, at position a in FIG. 4, and the printing machine stops at position A. On the other hand, if the stop control τ■ flag is set, the print head 2 is moved directly to printing, and
When exceeds the paper width W, a stop command is given, and then a paper line feed command is given.In this case, a stop command is given at position C in Figure 4, and the print head stops at position C. .

Effects of the Invention - According to the method of the present invention explained above, line feed is no longer performed with the print head stopping at the section when gluing envelopes. This eliminates the unbalanced feeding load that is applied to envelopes that are sandwiched between them and the platen, thereby preventing paper skew when feeding envelopes, and printing addresses on envelopes at the correct line spacing. It can be done without tilting. And since the method of this invention is carried out only when the paper is an envelope,
It does not reduce the printing speed when printing ordinary office paper, and the running width of the print head is increased only when there is a risk that the print head will stop pasting, so when printing envelopes. The rate of decrease in printing speed can also be suppressed to a small amount.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1A and 1S are flowcharts of an actual journey example of this invention, showing a series of controllers C1α that are continuous in parts A, C, and C of both figures, and FIG. 3 is a front view of the same, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory drawing showing the movement diagram of the print head in relation to an envelope. In the figure,

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a method for controlling the stop position of the print head of a serial printer that can print on both general office paper and address printing on envelopes, the width (e) of the glued part (13) at the bottom of the envelope (10) ), the stopping prohibited width (m) consisting of the sum of the stopping run-up distance (d) and the margin width (g) of the print head (2)
is registered, and when the envelope (10) is used as paper, the registered stop prohibited width (
Set the permissible stop width (u) minus m) in the controller,
When printing is performed by moving the print head (2) to the right, the above-mentioned permissible stop width (u) is referred to, and the printing width is adjusted to the permissible stop width (u).
u), move the print head (2) to the paper width (
A method for controlling a stop position of a print head, the method comprising: moving the print head to a position beyond w) before stopping the print head.