JPS63283968A - Printing control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To execute perfect printing by miniaturizing a dot memory for storage of an image data, by a method wherein a page data is dot expanded to the image data and outputted to a printer following the order by which printing is to be executed without following the input order of the page data of a printing text. CONSTITUTION:A printing text from an external device is edited in a page data and is successively stored in a page buffer 103. At that time, the top address in the page buffer of the page data to be stored in the page buffer is stored in a page buffer table 107. Two explosion counters 108, 109 are prepared to control reading of the page data to be printed on an even page and an odd page, access the page buffer table to specify the page data to be alternately printed, read the page data in the page buffer, are dot-expanded to an image data, are stored in an image memory 105, and are delivered to a printer 106. Perfect printing on a cut paper can be carried out by only providing the image memory of two page contents by this method.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a print control method, and particularly to a print control method suitable for use in printing on both sides of a cut sheet.

[Conventional technology]

2. Description of the Related Art As a prior art related to a print control method for double-sided printing of print text input from a host computer or the like on cut paper, for example, the technology described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-185538 is known. This type of conventional technology is
Print text input from a host computer or the like was processed in the order in which it was input, and sent to a printing device in that order for printing.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

In general, printing devices that can print on both sides of a cut sheet cannot print page data in the correct order on both sides of the sheet even if the printing operation is performed according to the order of the input page data. For this reason, in the prior art, in order to print page data on both sides of a cut sheet in an orderly manner, the input print text is temporarily stored in a dot memory, and then the image data is read out from the dot memory in accordance with the printing order. However, there is a problem in that a dot memory is required to store a large amount of image data.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a print control system that enables correct duplex printing with a minimum number of dot memories for storing image data.

[Means for solving problems]

According to the present invention, when printing text from a host computer or the like, the object is to develop the page data into image data and print them according to the order in which the printing should be done, without following the input order of the page data of the print text. This is accomplished by outputting to a device. In other words, the purpose is to convert print text input from a host computer into page data, then sequentially store multiple pages in a page buffer, and alternately control two expansion counters that determine which pages should be printed. This is achieved by sequentially outputting page data from a page buffer in the order in which they should be printed using a printer, dot-developing the page data into image data in that order, and outputting the image data to a printing device. The expansion counter described above sequentially indicates the address position in the page buffer table that holds the address corresponding to each page data of the page buffer storing page data, and the address position indicated in the page buffer table is The address of the page buffer can indicate the page data to be printed.

[Effect]

Print text from the host computer is edited and converted into page data and sequentially stored in the page buffer. At this time, the start address in the page buffer of the page data stored in the page buffer is stored in the page buffer table. The expansion counter is used to control the successive printing of page data on even-numbered pages and odd-numbered pages.
The page buffer table is accessed to designate page data to be printed alternately, and the reading of page data in the page buffer is controlled.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the print control method according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of a double-sided printing device used in the present invention, FIG. 3 is a diagram explaining the flow of output pages, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between an expansion counter, a page buffer table, and a page buffer for explaining the present invention in detail.

1, 2, and 4 (!I, 101 is a reception buffer, 102 is a text editing section, 103 is a page buffer, 104 is a dot expansion processing section, 105 is an image memory, 106 is a printer, and 107 is a page Buffer table, 108 is an expansion counter A, 109 is an expansion counter B, 201 is an input stacker, 202 is an output stacker,
203 is a laser emitter, 204 is a photosensitive belt, and 205 is an intermediate stacker.

An embodiment of the print control method according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, includes a receiving buffer 101 that temporarily holds input text given from an external device such as a host computer;
A text editing unit 102 that edits input text and converts it into page data, a page buffer 103 that stores the edited page data, and a page buffer table that holds the storage address of page data for each page in the page buffer. 107 and page buffer table 10
Expansion counter A specifies and reads page data in page buffer 103 via 7.

B108, 109, and a dot expansion processing unit 1 that performs dot expansion of the page data read from the page buffer 103.
04, an image memory 105 for storing dot-developed information, and a printer IQ6 such as a laser printer. As shown in FIG. 2, the duplex printing device used as the printer 106 includes an input stacker 201 that supplies cut sheets for double-sided printing, an output stacker 202 that stores printed cut sheets, and a cut sheet that is printed on only one side. An intermediate stacker 205 that temporarily holds paper, a laser emitter 203, and a photosensitive belt 20 for printing.
4.

The operation of an embodiment of the print control system according to the present invention will be described below. First, the operation of the double-sided printing apparatus and the flow of output pages will be explained with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

In FIG. 2, the cut paper supplied from the input stacker 201 is conveyed to the left along the arrow shown in the figure, and at the position of the photosensitive belt 204, printing is performed on one side, in this case, an even number of pages, on the lower surface of the cut paper, starting from the left end. It is transported upward and temporarily held in the intermediate stacker 205. The cut paper once held on this intermediate stacker 205 is then transferred to the photosensitive belt 20 again.
The paper is transported to position 4, odd-numbered pages are printed on the opposite side from the previous one, and the paper is stored in the output stacker 202. Such double-sided printing on one sheet of cut paper is performed on the cut sheets supplied one after another from the input stacker 201 during the above-mentioned operation, and the cut sheets directly conveyed from the input stacker 201 and The cut sheets conveyed from the intermediate stacker 205 are alternately conveyed on the photosensitive belt and printed. After printing on one side of a sheet of cut paper is finished and before printing starts on the opposite side, several sheets of cut paper with only one side printed are usually moved onto the conveyance path or into the intermediate stacker 205. It is on the way. Therefore, if the number of cut sheets being moved is, for example, four, the order of pages printed by the double-sided printing apparatus shown in FIG. 2 is as shown in FIG. 3.

That is, when the printing device shown in FIG. 2 prints on both sides of multiple sheets of cut paper while updating the pages sequentially from the first page after printing starts, the printing device as shown in FIG. ,
First, 2, 4° 6.8.10 true printing is performed on one side of the cut sheets conveyed from the input stacker 201 in order. When printing is finished, the first cut sheet with the second page printed on one side is conveyed to the photosensitive belt 204.

Then, the illustrated printing device prints the first page on the opposite side of this cut paper. Thereafter, new cut sheets from the input stacker 201 and cut sheets with an even number of pages printed on one side from the intermediate stacker 205 are alternately conveyed to the position of the photosensitive belt 204. Even-numbered pages from page 10 onward are sequentially printed on new cut sheets from the intermediate stacker 205, and odd-numbered pages are sequentially printed on cut sheets with even-numbered pages printed on one side conveyed from the intermediate stacker 205. . Therefore, the page printing order in the subsequent printing operation is as shown in FIG. 1.12.3.1.
4.5・------ Kazuma's order.

In addition, in FIG. 3, the position indicated by the Δ mark is the position where printing should be performed on the cut paper fed from the intermediate stacker 205 immediately after printing starts; Since there are no cut sheets, the printing device either suspends printing during this time or increases the feeding speed of cut sheets from the input stacker 201 to continuously print even-numbered pages from pages 2 to 10. It works like this.

Next, the operation of an embodiment of the print control system according to the present invention for controlling a double-sided printing apparatus that performs the above-described printing operation will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 4.

In FIG. 1, print text provided from an external device such as a host computer (not shown) is temporarily stored in a receiving buffer 101. As shown in FIG. This print text is composed of data such as character codes, format data, figures, and images, and is passed from the reception buffer 101 to the text editing section 102, analyzed and edited, converted into page data for printing, and printed. The data is stored in the page buffer 103 in page order and in correspondence with the pages. At this time, page buffer 10
The starting addresses of each page data stored in 3 are sequentially registered in the page buffer table 107. The contents of this page buffer table 107 include the start address of the page buffer 103 in which characters, 9 graphics, etc. are stored,
This is the start address of the page buffer 103 where format data used for these data is stored.

child.

As a result, page data to be printed is stored in the page buffer 103 at storage locations shown as 1 to 32 of the page buffer 103, as shown in FIG. Further, the page buffer table 107 has 20 storage locations indicated as 1 to 20, and each of these storage locations contains the starting address of the page data stored in the storage locations 1 to 20 of the page buffer 103. Store. This page buffer table 107 is subjected to a wrap-around operation, and the start addresses of the page data stored after storage location 21 of the page buffer 103 are sequentially stored in storage locations 1 to 20 of the page buffer table 107 again.

In this way, when a certain amount of page data is stored in the page buffer 103, the page data in the page buffer 103 is stored in the expansion counter A.

Page buffer table 107 by B108 and 109
The data is read out to the dot expansion processing section 104 via the dot expansion processing section 104. The expansion counter AIO3 is used to read page data of even pages, and the expansion counter B109 is used to read page data of odd pages. Specify wraparound operation. That is, the expansion counter AlO3 becomes 0, 2.4--...-20 repeatedly, and the expansion counter Bl09 becomes 0.
, 1° 3, . . . , 19 are repeated to access the memory location of the page buffer table 107.

・When controlling the printing operation of the printer 106 as a separate device, the expansion counters A and B 108 and 109 are set to '0''.
Initially, a flag for using the expansion counter AlO3 five times in succession is set in a control device (not shown).

At the start of printing the page data in the page buffer 103, the expansion counter AlO3 is set to 2'', and based on this value, the start address of the page data stored in storage location 2 of the page buffer table 107 is read out. Using this address, the page data stored in storage location 2 of the page buffer 103 is read out and given to the dot expansion processing section 104.The dot expansion processing section 104 performs dot expansion on the page data read from the page buffer 103. This image data is stored in the image memory 105 on two sides.
At one time, the surface image memories 105 are controlled so that one side receives image data from the dot development processing section 104 and the other side sends the image data to the printer 106 for printing. Section 104
This image memory 105, which passes image data from the printer 106 to the printer 106, can be controlled even if only one side is used. The expansion counter AIOδ is then 4.6°8 and 1
Control is performed such that the count is sequentially increased to 0, and predetermined page data is read from the page buffer 103 each time and given to the dot expansion processing section.

Thereby, the printer 106 receives and prints the image data of the page data in the above-described order.

When the expansion counter AlO3 indicates 10, the flag indicating that the expansion counter AlO3 is to be used five times in a row is reset, so the next page data is read.
This is done using the expansion counter B109 whose value is initially set to 11'', and the page data stored in storage location 1 of the page buffer 103 is converted to the dot expansion processing unit 104.
The image is applied to the printer 106 via the image memory 105. The subsequent reading of page data is performed while counting up the development counters A, B 108, and 109 alternately by +2, so the true output order of the image data to be printed given to the printer 106 is explained in FIG. It can be done in any order. In the above operation, when the page buffer table 107 is referred to by the expansion counters A, B10B, 109, if nothing is stored, the above operation is performed until the page data is stored in the page buffer 103. do not have.

According to the embodiment described above, it is possible to perform double-sided printing on cut paper by providing at most two image memories.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, regardless of the input order of text from an external device such as a host computer,
Since the output order for printing can be changed, it is possible to significantly reduce the memory capacity required to store the print text after it is dot-developed until it is output for printing.

For example, when performing double-sided printing on A4 size cut paper at a density of 240 dots/inch, the conventional technology required 6 MB of image memory, but according to the present invention,
Printing control can be performed using a 1 Mbyte or 2 Mbyte image memory.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of a double-sided printing device used in the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a diagram explaining the flow of output pages. , 4th
The figure is a diagram showing the relationship between an expansion counter, a page buffer table, and a page buffer for explaining the present invention in detail. 101----Reception buffer, 102----
---Text editing section, 103--Page buffer, 104...--Dot expansion processing section, 105--Image memory, 106--
--- Printer, 107 --- Page buffer table, i o a --- Development power unit y
ri A, 109-- Deployment counter B, 201--
...Input stacker, 202--111 output stacker, 203...--: Laser light emitting body, 204-
-------Photosensitive held, 205----Intermediate stacker. #/II #i2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a print control method for printing print text given from a host device, the print text is stored in a page buffer as page data in the order in which it is input for each page, and the data in the page buffer is A printing control method characterized in that each page data is read out in the order in which a printing device prints the data. 2. Reading of the page buffer is performed using a page buffer table that holds an address in the page buffer for each page data stored in the page buffer, and two expansion counters that specify the read position of the page buffer table. The printing method according to claim 1, characterized in that the printing method is controlled.