JPS63276569A - Off-line printing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow an operator to certainly and easily reopen printing on the basis of the printing position data at the time of interruption outputted in a no-volatile manner, by outputting the data of the printing position at the time of interruption in a non-volatile manner to perform the searching for the printing reopening position at the reopening time of printing. CONSTITUTION:The predetermined key on a keyboard 112 is pushed. When 'printing interruption' mode function is selected, an output buffer 109 is cleared after the printing of one page developed on a page buffer 109 is finished to output 'output job name', 'output page number', 'MT file number' and 'MT block number' to the buffer 109 to apply printing to paper. When 'printing reopening' mode is selected, each parameter at the time of interruption is inputted from the keyboard 112. With respect to a page number, a parameter is inputted from the next page. The number of blocks from the head of a magnetic tape to the file number position at the interruption point of time are skipped. When the discriminator of the job number at the time of interruption is found out, all of the pages in a block are searched and, when the content of a number-of-page counter 108 coincides with the number of pages wherein the 'n+1' value at the time of interruption is inputted, the printing data of this page is developed on the page buffer 109 to return to a usual printing routine.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an offline printing device, and particularly relates to improved operability when restarting printing after interruption of offline printing.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, a printing device called an offline printing device uses a host computer to store data to be printed on some kind of information storage medium such as a magnetic tape or a floppy disk.
The mainstream is to set the information storage medium in an off-line printing device, read print data from the storage medium, and perform printing manually.

In addition, some online printing devices that are directly connected to an external host computer by cable, etc. are equipped with a large-capacity disk, and print data is input all at once from the host computer and written to the disk at high speed. ,
There is a method in which printing is performed after all print data has been written. However, such an online printing device is not substantially different from an offline printing device and should be classified as an offline printing device.

The above-mentioned offline printing device has the following characteristics: (1) Printing can be performed independently of the time point at which print data is generated.

■: You can print as many times as you like without putting a burden on the host computer.

■: You can print from any page, not from the beginning of the print data.

These are only possible if the data is separated from the host computer.

Now, the off-line printing device described above is characterized by storing a large amount of print data in storage means such as magnetic tape, but because of the large amount of data, there may be cases where printing must be interrupted midway through. . Conventionally, when an interruption occurs in such a case, when restarting the interrupted printing, the interrupted block or page number is calculated from the number of printed pages, etc. and enter that value on the offline printing device. The offline printing device "color-reads" the print data up to this manually entered block number position, and starts printing when that number is reached.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, it is necessary to remember the correct file number (or file name), job identification name, block number, page number, etc. at the time of interruption, and In order to avoid this, it was necessary to take note of the above matters. In other words, the operability is extremely poor.

Therefore, the present invention solves the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art, and when printing is interrupted midway, the information of the printing position at the time of interruption is outputted in a non-volatile manner in some form, and the printing restart position is determined when printing is resumed. The present invention provides an offline printing device that is useful for searching.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The configuration of an offline printing device according to the present invention proposed to achieve the above-mentioned problems includes a storage means for storing a print data file, and a storage means for printing the print data file. In parallel, a printing position information holding means updates and holds the current printing position information, an interruption instruction means interrupts the printing operation while the data file is being printed, and an interruption instruction means that interrupts the printing operation when the printing operation is interrupted. The present invention is characterized by comprising an output means for outputting printing position information in a non-volatile manner.

[Operation] According to the offline printing apparatus configured as described above, the operator can reliably and easily restart printing based on the print position information at the time of interruption that is output in a non-volatile manner.

[Embodiment] An off-line printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an offline printing apparatus according to an embodiment. This offline printing device includes a magnetic tape device 100.
In this system, character code data and control commands sent from the machine are inputted, and a character pattern is recorded by a page printing device such as a laser beam printing device.

In FIG. 1, 101 is an input buffer for temporarily accumulating character code data and control code data from the magnetic tape device 100 in blocks, 102 is a CPtJ consisting of a general-purpose microprocessor, and 103 is a controller for performing control described later. RO where programs and data are stored
M, 104 is a character generator that generates a character pattern corresponding to a specified character code.

105 is a file number counter that indicates the current file number of the magnetic tape; 106 is a block number counter that indicates the number of blocks currently input; 107 is a job name register that sets the current job name; and 108 holds the current page number. 109 is a page number counter, and 109 is a page buffer consisting of a RAM having the number of dots for one page;
110 is a printer interface section, 111 is a display device, 112 is an input keyboard for inputting commands for instructing the operation of the printing apparatus, and 113 is a printer section. 121 is a floppy disk device, which is controlled by a controller FDC121.

FIG. 2 shows the format of data stored on the magnetic tape of the magnetic tape device 100. The magnetic tape consists of a directory section 30 and a file section (20, 21, . . . ). - A wooden magnetic tape can contain multiple file sections, including a directory section, a file section,
Tape marks are inserted between the file sections.

20 indicates a first file, and 21 indicates a second file. One file can be logically divided into a plurality of jobs, and job identifiers (22, 23, 26) are added to separate the jobs. The file portion includes a plurality of blocks in addition to the job identifier, and IRGs are provided between the job identifier and the next block and between each block. One reading of the magnetic tape device 100 is performed from one IRG to the next IRG. In Figure 2 I
RG is shown with diagonal lines. Furthermore, each block logically consists of print data for a plurality of pages.

The directory section includes the number of files included in one magnetic tape, the number of jobs included in each file, the total number of blocks and total number of pages of print data for each job, and the like.

Print data sent block by block from the magnetic tape device 100 enters the input buffer 101. The CPU 102 reads the input data from the input buffer 101, sets it in the job name register 107 if it is a job identification name, sends the character code to the character generator 104 if it is print data, and writes the desired character pattern in the output page buffer. Generate at a predetermined location. Further, if the file changes, the file number counter 105 is incremented by 1, if the block changes, the block number counter 106 is incremented, and if the page changes, the page number counter 108 is incremented.

When the generation of print data for one page is completed, the page number counter 108 is incremented, and the image is sent to the printer section 11 via the printer interface section 110.
Send to 3. This process is repeated until the job is completed.

FIG. 3 shows a menu display screen for selecting various functions in this printing apparatus. To select these functions, move the cursor and press a predetermined key on the keyboard 112. When the print start 1 function is selected, printing is performed from the beginning of the -wood magnetic tape, the beginning of the designated file, or the beginning of the designated job. The ``Print Interrupt'' function is particularly relevant to this embodiment, and when this function is selected, the job name of the print data that was being printed up to that point,
After printing the file number, block number, page number, etc. on the printing paper, the printing operation is interrupted and the magnetic tape is rewinded.

I'm currently printing a certain job and the menu screen is showing? It is assumed that "Printing Interruption" is selected.

FIG. 4 shows an output sample of print position information output at 1 time when printing is interrupted in this embodiment. 40 is an output sheet.

41 is the date and time at the time of interruption, 42 is the job name at the time of interruption, 43 is the page number at the time of interruption, 44 is the file number of the magnetic tape at the time of interruption, and 45 is the block number of the magnetic tape at the time of interruption. 46 is an "r partition mark", which serves as a mark when a large number of printed output sheets overlap.

Control for outputting the interruption position information as illustrated in FIG. 4 when r printing interruption is selected will be explained according to the flowchart in FIG. 5.

In step 5500, the process waits until printing of one page, which was developed in the page buffer 109 at the time of interruption, is completed.

If print data is not being output at the time of interruption or if one page has been output, the page buffer 109 is cleared in step 5501. In step 5502, the CPU
The current date and time is calculated with reference to the internal timer 102, and the calculated date and time is output to the page buffer at the position 41 in FIG. In step 5503, the code of the job name stored in the job name register 107 is read out, and the character pattern corresponding to the code is sent to the character generator 1.
04 and output to the page buffer 109.

Similarly, in step 5504, the page number is obtained from the page number counter 108, and in step 5505, the file number is obtained from the file number counter 105.
At step 06, block numbers of the magnetic tape are output from the block number counter 106 to the page buffer 109, respectively.

In step 5507, a partition mark is generated at position 46 in FIG.

In this way, the creation of a page buffer of print position information at the time of interruption is completed. Next, the created image for one page is read from the page buffer 109 and sent to the printer section 113 via the printer interface 110, and the print position information is output on the paper 40.

In step 5509, the magnetic tape is rewinded, and in step 5510, the job is initialized. In this initialization, the job name register 107 and the like are cleared. After this initialization, the process returns to the main routine and waits for an input from the keyboard 112 (for example, rprint resume 1 or "print start 1, etc.").

To explain the above-mentioned process from the middle of printing to "Printing Interruption J" using a specific example, for example, in the example of Fig. 2, while printing job B, data that needs to be printed urgently is generated.
And what if job B is a long data of thousands of pages and will not finish printing any time soon? Select Print Interruption J to interrupt the currently executing job B. by chance,"
Assuming that the nth page of "Job B" in "2nd file" is being printed, the print position information at this time is, in the example shown in Figure 2, "Output job name 1 = "Job B", r output page Number J=rnJ, rMT file number J=r2J, rMT block number J='mJ are printed.

Remove the magnetic tape of the interrupted job and print the urgent job. After the printing of the urgent job is finished, the interrupted magnetic tape is transferred to the tape device 10 again.
Set to 0. At this time, the menu screen shown in FIG. 3 is displayed on the display 111, so select the ``Print Resume - Function''.
An input screen as shown in FIG. 6 is displayed on the screen. The above-mentioned printed parameters at the time of interruption are entered on this display screen from the top using the keyboard 112.

However, regarding the page number, it is necessary to print from the next page, so enter Fn+IJ.

Now, such control will be explained using the flowchart shown in FIG. At step 5600, the input screen shown in FIG. 6 described above is displayed. In step 5601, the above restart parameters are input from the keyboard 112. Step 56
02 reads the directory on the magnetic tape. From the contents of this directory, in step 3803, the total number of blocks stored on this magnetic tape from the beginning of the magnetic tape to the file number position at the time of interruption is calculated. In step 5604, the calculated block number is skipped (
forward space). The reason for skipping is that it is faster than reading one block at a time and searching to see if the interruption position has been reached.

When the first block of the specified file is reached, step 5
At 605, the block number counter 106 is initialized. At step 5606, the next block is read, and at the same time,
The counter 106 is incremented and then step 5607 checks to see if the block has the job identifier sought. If it does not have the identifier it is looking for, it returns to step 5605 and reads blocks one after another until it is found.

If the identifier of the job number at the time of interruption is found, proceed to step 3.
At 608, the page number counter 108 is initialized. In step 5609, the next block after the identifier block is read. This one block includes print data for several pages. In step 5610, all pages in the block are searched to see if the contents of page number counter 108 match the value of Fn+IJ at the time of interruption. If they do not match, the next block is read in step 5611, the page number counter 108 is incremented by the required number in step 5612, and the process returns to step 5609. This operation is repeated until the number of pages matches the number of pages entered. When this number of pages is eventually reached, the print data for this page is developed in the page buffer 109, and the process returns to the normal printing routine.

In this way, based on the form shown in FIG. 4 output at the time of interruption, printing is reliably and easily resumed from the print position at the time of interruption (from the next page). Furthermore, the output paper of the printing position information also informs that the printing is halfway through, which has the additional effect of preventing the printing from ending without being noticed due to halfway printing.

In the input shown in FIG. 6, it has been explained that all print position information is input from the keyboard 112, but for example, if there is no human power to input the page number, printing will be resumed from the first page number of the input block number. or
If no block number is input, printing may be restarted from the first block within the input file number/job number.

Also, in the above embodiment, the offline printing device uses a magnetic tape device as the data sending source, but instead of the magnetic tape device, a floppy disk or hard disk device can store all the input data and can be searched by hardware. If there is one, it is applicable to both.

Further, in this embodiment, the print position information was printed out, but instead of printing out the print position information such as the file number and page number at the time of interruption, the print position information such as the file number and page number at the time of interruption is
1 or in a predetermined area of a non-volatile storage medium such as a RAM (not shown) within the CPU 102. In this case, each time the interrupted job is printed, the print position information is stored in the FDD or RAM, and when printing is restarted, all the print position information stored up to that point is displayed on the display 111 as shown in FIG. indicate. In this case, the interruption position information regarding one job is displayed on one screen, and if there are multiple interrupted jobs, the interruption position information regarding one job can be interrupted one after another by pressing, for example, the r next screen J key (not shown) on the keyboard 112. Display the job interruption position. Since all print position information for each job is displayed on the screen shown in FIG. 6, the operator only has to select which file and which job to print. Printing resumes and
Once all the print data of the restarted job has been printed, the print position information corresponding to the job stored in the FDD or the like is erased. By storing the information in an FDD or the like in this manner, it is possible to provide an off-line printing device with better operability than when the above-described printing position information is output on paper.

Furthermore, although the off-line printing apparatus of the above-described embodiment has been described using a page printer that outputs one page of dot images as an example, the present invention can also be applied to an impact-type line printer. In particular, in the case of a line printer, if the printing position information at the time of interruption is outputted along with the line number, the operability will be further improved.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, when printing is interrupted midway, information regarding the print position at the time of interruption is output to a permanent recording medium such as printing paper or a nonvolatile storage medium such as a magnetic disk. When restarting printing, printing is reliably and easily restarted from the correct printing position.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is an overall block diagram of the offline printing device according to this embodiment, Fig. 2 is a structure diagram of data on a magnetic tape, and Fig. 3 is a menu screen displaying various functions of the offline printing device of this embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of output when printing position information is output on printing paper; FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing output control of print position information at the time of interruption according to this embodiment; FIG. 6 7 is a diagram illustrating an input screen when restarting printing, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a control procedure for restarting printing. In the figure, 100...magnetic tape device, 101...inlet cover'/7a, 102. CPU, 103. ROM, 1
04...Character generator, 105...File number counter, 106...Block number counter, 107...
・Job name register, 108...page number counter,
109... Output page buffer, 110... Printer interface section, 111... Display device, 112... Keyboard, 113... Printer section,
114...control board, 120...floppy disk controller, 121...floppy disk.

Claims (8)

[Claims] (1) storage means for storing a print data file; print position information holding means for updating and holding current print position information in parallel with printing the print data file; and, during printing of the data file, What is claimed is: 1. An offline printing device comprising: interruption instruction means for interrupting the printing operation; and output means for non-volatilely outputting printing position information at the time of interruption when the printing operation is interrupted. (2) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising restart instruction means for restarting the interrupted printing operation. (3) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print position information at the time of interruption is output as a print position in line units or page units. (4) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print position information at the time of interruption is a print position in file units or block units. (5) The offline printing device according to claim 1, wherein the storage means is a magnetic storage medium device. (6) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output means prints the print position information on a recording paper medium. (7) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the output means prints the printing position information on the same printing paper as the printing paper on which the print data was printed. (8) The offline printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output means outputs the printing position information to a nonvolatile storage medium as storage data.