JPS63286352A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable designation of colors for a character pattern and shadow part which composes shadow characters through a few number of simple control codes by outputting printing data based on the combination of a character symbol pattern of printing colors designated by a color designation means and a shadow pattern of printing colors selected by a selection means. CONSTITUTION:When shadow characters are to be printed, a shadow flag 7a needs to be turned ON. However, this ON state is only effected after reception of a control code for the start of shadowing from a data source 2. When an OFF state(turning ON a power supply for a printing device or receiving a control code signifying the end of printing shadow characters) is introduced, character printing code transmitted from the data source 2 generates a pattern using a character font ROM 6, and develops the pattern data in one of image buffer memories 8-10 to perform printing according to color information stored in a basic character color flag 7b.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printing device, and particularly to a printing device that prints out in multiple colors.

[Background Art] In recent years, with the development of document processing devices, the types of patterns used in printing devices for printing out documents have also become richer.

For example, in addition to printing documents in Mincho or Gothic fonts, in order to emphasize the characters themselves, the characters are shaded (hereinafter referred to as shadows, and characters with this shadow are referred to as shadow characters). It has become possible to print with .

Normally, this shadow character is printed out by printing a shadow pattern (the same pattern as the basic character pattern) having a different printing color from the basic character pattern by shifting it by a predetermined dot.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Conventionally, when specifying the output color for a basic character pattern and a shadow pattern, control codes for color specification were separately output to the printing apparatus. Therefore, on the document processing device side, it is necessary to control the shadow characters so that the printing colors of the basic character pattern and the shadow pattern are always set to different colors, which is troublesome.

Furthermore, when printing out shadow characters, for example, if you want to change the print color every few characters, each time you change the print color of the basic pattern corresponding to the character symbol code and the control code that specifies the print color of the shadow pattern. A control code specifying the character code must be output together with the character symbol code, resulting in a problem in that the amount of data transferred becomes extremely large compared to the actual amount of character code.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned prior art,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing device that can easily specify the color of a character pattern and a shadow part constituting a shadow character with a small number of control codes.

[Means for solving the problem] In order to solve this problem, the present invention has the following configuration.

That is, in a printing device that prints in at least two colors, an input means for inputting a character symbol code, a pattern generating means for generating a character symbol pattern corresponding to the input character symbol code, and a printing color for the generated pattern are specified. a color specifying means; a shading pattern generating means for generating a shading pattern of the character symbol pattern; a selecting means for selecting one of the print colors other than the print color specified by the color specifying means; and a selection means for selecting by the selecting means. printing means for combining the character symbol pattern of the printing color specified by the color specifying means and the shading pattern of the printing color selected by the selection means and outputting the resultant printout using the selected printing color as the printing color of the shading pattern; Equipped with.

[Operation] In the configuration of the present invention, the pattern generating means generates a character symbol pattern corresponding to the character symbol code inputted by the input means, and the shading pattern generating means generates a shading pattern corresponding to this character symbol pattern. do. Then, the printing color specified by the color specifying means is used as the printing color of the character symbol pattern, and the printing color selected by the selection means is used as the printing color of the shading pattern, and the printing means performs composite printing.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[Explanation of block outline (FIG. 1)] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the structure of the printing apparatus main body 1 and the relationship between the data source (for example, a host computer, etc.) 2 in this embodiment.

In the figure, reference numeral 3 denotes a CPU that controls the entire printing apparatus 1, and operates according to the processing procedure (flow chart in FIG. 6) stored in the program ROM 5. 4 is a reception buffer memory that receives information from the data source 1 and temporarily stores it, and 6 is a character font RoM that stores various character patterns. 7 is RAMt'atte, CP
When used as a work area for U3, or when normal printing or shadow character printing is set, data to that effect (
For example, shadow flag 7 that stores “0” or °1, etc.)
a, a basic character color flag 7b that stores color information of basic characters to be printed, and a shadow color flag 7C that stores print color information of a shadow pattern when printing shadow characters.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a printing unit (for example, a laser beam printer) that prints in three colors (black, red, and blue in the embodiment), and is expanded into a black image buffer memory 8, a red image buffer memory 9, and a blue image buffer memory 10. Compositely print the images in their respective printing colors. 12 is a print color table memory (consisting of ROM), which is a data source 2;
Based on the control and code for specifying the color sent from the CPU 3, the CPU 3 determines the printing colors of the basic character pattern and shadow pattern from the information in the printing color table memory 12, and sets the basic character color flag flag described earlier. b and the information to that effect is stored in the shadow color flag 7C.

[Explanation of print color table (Figure 2)] The contents of the print color table memory 12 will be explained with reference to FIG.

Prior to the following explanation, it is assumed that escape sequences are used for control codes, apart from the character and symbol codes sent from the data source 2. The escape sequence is composed of one byte (or two or more bytes) following "IBH (H means hexadecimal number)". This first code “IBI(”
(referred to as an escape code) does not appear at the beginning of a character/symbol code, so it can be easily identified. Note that this escape sequence itself does not limit the present invention in any way. In short, it is sufficient if it can be distinguished from the character symbol code.

Now, regarding the printing color table in Figure 2, 12a
means a column of control codes from the data source 2, 12b is a column showing the printing color of a basic character pattern (normal character pattern) based on the control code, and 12c is a column showing the printing color of a shadow pattern. For example, when the data source 2 outputs the control code "IB, OIH" for color specification, the basic character color flag 7b contains information regarding "black".
Information related to "blue" is stored in the shadow color flag 7C.

[Overview of shadow character printing] (Figures 3 to 5)] Next, an outline of shadow character printing according to an embodiment will be explained.

When printing shadow characters, use the shadow flag 7a.
must be turned on, but it is turned on only after receiving a control code related to starting shadowing from the data source 2. Note that when it is off (when the printing device is powered on or when a control code indicating the end of shadow character printing is received), the character symbol code sent from the data source 2 generates a pattern from the character font ROM 6. , according to the color information stored in the basic character color flag 7b, the image is developed and printed in one of the image buffer memories 8 to 10.

Now, when the shadow flag 7a is on, the basic character pattern corresponding to the input character code is transferred to the image buffer memory 8-1 according to the color information in the basic character color flag 7b.
The pattern remains the same until it is developed into one of 0, but then that pattern (which becomes a shadow pattern) is developed into one of the image buffer memories 8 to 10 according to the color information in the shadow color flag 7C. However, at this time, the basic character pattern is expanded to a position shifted by several dots (one dot in the embodiment) in the horizontal and downward directions (x and y directions) from the stored position. At this time, since the color information in the basic character color flag 7b and the shadow color flag 7C is stored as the result of referring to the print color table described above, the same color information is never stored. Therefore, these two
Two patterns will no longer be developed in the same image buffer memory.

For example, if a control code prompting shadow character printing is received from data source 2 (shadow flag 7a is on),
Next (or earlier is fine), print color control code “
IB, OOH" (black information is stored in the basic character color flag 7b and red information is stored in the shadow color flag 7C, see Figure 2), then the character "
'A' code (41H, J in case of ASCII code)
If you receive IS code 2341H),
The pattern related to “A” as shown in Figure 3 is the character font R.
It is generated from OM and developed into the black image buffer memory 8. Next, transfer that pattern to the red image buffer memory 9.
+ Expand to a position shifted by one dot in the y direction. As shown in FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b), the storage state at this time is A"
When the pattern is developed, a shadow pattern is developed at the (X+1.y+t) coordinate position in the red image buffer memory 9. When these images in the image buffer memory are printed out, the result will be as shown in FIG. In addition, the blacked part in the figure is the basic character pattern,
The shaded area (printed in red) is the shadow pattern.

[Explanation of Print Processing Procedure (FIG. 6)] Based on the principle of shadow character printing described above, the print processing procedure in the embodiment will be explained according to the flowchart of FIG. 6.

First, when the power to the printer main body 1 is turned on or reset, initial settings are executed in step s1. In this initial setting, each peripheral element is initialized and the shadow flag 7a is turned off. Furthermore, black information is stored as an initial value in the basic character color flag 7b, and red information is stored in the shadow color flag 7c as an initial value (that is, it is processed as if the control code "IB, OOH" had been input). .

Next, in step S2, data is received from the data source 2, and in step S3 it is determined whether the data is a character symbol code or a control code. At this time, if it is determined that it is a control code, the process goes to step s4 and branches depending on the meaning of each control code. If it is a print color designation code, the process moves to step S5, and the input control code is compared with the contents of the print color table memory 12, and the respective color information is stored in the basic character color flag 7b and shadow color flag 7c. do.

If it is determined that it is a start or end designation code for shadow character printing, the process moves to step S6, and it is determined whether or not the start designation is made. If it is determined that it is a shadow printing start designation code, the process proceeds to step S7 and the shadow flag 7a is turned on; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S7.
8 turns off the shadow flag a.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S3 that the input data is a character symbol code, the process moves to step S9. In step S9, a pattern corresponding to the input character code is generated in the character font ROM 6, and the pattern is expanded into one of the image buffer memories 8 to 10 corresponding to the color information in the basic character color flag 7a. Next step SI
At step O, it is determined whether the current state of the shadow flag 7a is on or off.

When the shadow flag is on, that is, when printing shadow characters, the process moves to step Sit, and the pattern generated in step S9 is set to the shadow color flag 7c.
According to the color information stored in the image buffer memory 8
~ Expand into one of ten. At this time, as explained earlier, in step S9, the coordinates (x
, y), the shadow pattern is red (or blue) image buffer memory 9 (
10) is expanded to (X+1.y+1).

Next, in step S12, each image buffer memory 8 to 1
It is determined whether one page's worth of patterns (images) have been developed in any of 0 or not, but if it is still less than one page's worth, the process returns to step S2. When this expansion process reaches one page, the process moves to step S13, where the images in the image buffer memory are combined and printed in their respective print colors.

As described above, according to the embodiment, by manually inputting the print color specification control code once, it becomes possible to specify the color of the basic character pattern and the shadow pattern that constitute the shadow character, and These two patterns are completely prevented from being printed with the same color. Therefore, the amount of information sent from the data source 2 is small, and the user does not have to be aware that the basic character pattern and the shadow pattern have the same printing color.

In the above-described embodiment, a page printer capable of printing in three colors was used as an example, but it is also possible to print in two colors or four or more colors. In that case, all you need to do is change the contents of the print color table.It goes without saying that the printing unit is not limited to the laser beam type, but can also be applied to thermal transfer printers, dot matrix printers, inkjet printers, bubble jet printers, etc. That's a good thing.

Furthermore, if the print color table is stored in the RAM 7 and the contents can be changed by external instructions (input from the panel, commands from the host, etc.), the present invention can be applied to a printing device that can change the print color.

Furthermore, the printing apparatus itself may be provided with an operation panel, and by operating this operation panel, the user can specify the selection of shadow character printing or normal character printing, and also specify the print color.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, the colors of the basic pattern and the shading pattern constituting the shadow character are specified by specifying the color twice, so the amount of data to be transferred can be reduced. This means that you don't have to be aware that these two patterns are the same.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of the printing device of the embodiment and the relationship between the data source, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the contents of the print color table, and Fig. 3 is a diagram for explaining the pattern of the character "A". Figure 4(a) is a diagram showing an example in which a normal character pattern is developed in a black image buffer memory, and FIG. 4(b) is a diagram showing an example in which a shadow pattern is developed in a red image buffer memory. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of shadow printing based on the character patterns shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b), and FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the printing process of the embodiment. In the figure, 1... printing device main body, 2... data source, 3...
...CPU, 4...Reception buffer, 5...Program ROM, 6...Character font ROM, ?・−
RAM, 7a...Shadow flag, 7b...Basic character color flag, 7c...Shadow color flag, 8...Black image buffer memory, 9...Red image buffer memory, 10...Blue image Buffer memory, 11--Printing section, 12--Print color table memory. Patent Applicant Canon Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney Yasunori Otsuka (and 1 other person) Figure 2 Figure 3 Panel 1 ';' -t 'Nail Bi/Toto/F8
Show bar I my〇′ㅅトツ・lτ(a)
(b) Figure 4 Figure 5

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) In a printing device that prints in at least two colors, an input means for inputting a character symbol code, a pattern generation means for generating a character symbol pattern corresponding to the input character symbol code, and a printing color for the generated pattern is specified. a shading pattern generation means for generating a shading pattern of the character symbol pattern; a selection means for selecting one of the print colors other than the print color specified by the color specification means; Printing means for setting the selected printing color as the printing color of the shading pattern, and for combining and printing out the character symbol pattern of the printing color specified by the color specifying means and the shading pattern of the printing color selected by the selection means. A printing device comprising: (2) When there is a table of combinations in which at least the printing color of the character symbol pattern and the printing color of the shading pattern are different according to the type of printing color, and the printing color of the character symbol pattern is specified by the color specifying means. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the selection means selects the printing color of the corresponding shading pattern based on the table. (3) The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the color specifying means specifies the color based on a control code input by the input means.