JPS6328675A - Label printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To detect a shortage of dot in a bar code either visually or with a simple sensor, by a construction wherein all dots are printed in a line in front and/or back of the bar code so as to have a width at least and including that of the bar code. CONSTITUTION:A bar code 3 is composed of a plurality of bars 4 parallel to a paper feed direction together with normal characters 2. Data Da, Db, and Dc displayed with the bar code are continuously arranged in the paper feed direction; a dot line 5 having a W2 length at least and including a width W1 of the bar code 3 is printed on the margin of a label 1 spaced a small distance from the last end of the bar code 3. The dot line consists of all the dots having outputs '1'; if the disconnection of any heating element causes the empty dot, the dot line 5 is broken correspondingly to the empty dot. Therefore, the failure of the heating element can be visually detected without difficulty.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a label printer capable of printing barcodes as well as regular characters such as letters, numbers, and symbols.

(Prior Art) In recent years, label printers that can print barcodes along with letters and numbers using line dot printers have been provided, for example, in Japanese Patent Application No. 1986-298675. This is because, as shown in Figure 3, it is possible to simultaneously print the at character 2, a code, and other patterns on the label 2 along with the barcode 3, and it is also easy to print different barcodes one by one. It can be produced quickly and inexpensively compared to printing.

However, with barcodes printed in this way, there is a risk that the manually-entered data and the barcode data may differ due to disconnection of the heating elements that make up each dot of the print head. Do I need to check the barcode in some way?

(The problem that the invention attempts to solve) As a means of checking the above, there is a method of reading the printed barcode with a barcode league and comparing it with the input data, but this method does not require the barcode league. Therefore, it is difficult to incorporate the expensive L1 barcode into the printer, and if this is installed in a separate device, it becomes difficult to inspect the barcode print results in real time. If real-time inspection is not possible, when printing different barcodes one by one, it becomes very complicated to compare the original barcode data with the data read. Particularly when a barcode is printed using a line dot printer, it is nearly impossible to visually identify the missing dots because the appearance is the same as the barcode even if there are missing dots.

The present invention solves the above problems and provides a label printer that can detect missing dots in barcodes visually or by using a simple sensor.

(Means for Solving the Problems) A label printer according to the present invention is a label printer that uses a line dot printer to print a bar code 3 consisting of bars 4 parallel to the paper feeding direction. Width W including at least barcode 3 before and/or after 3.

All of the dots are printed in a line.

(Function) In the above configuration, if one heating element of the print head is broken, the barcode 3 and/or the dot line 5 printed later will be defective due to missing dots. Since it is continuous, defects can be detected visually.

(Example) Fig. 1 shows the main part of a label 1 printed by a label printer according to the present invention.A barcode 3 is printed along with normal characters 2, and the barcode 3 is parallel to the paper feeding direction. It is composed of a plurality of bars 4. In this embodiment, data Da, Db, and D displayed by barcodes are used.
c, . It is printed. This dot line has rlJ output to all of its dots, and if any of the heating elements breaks and the dots become empty, the dot line 5 will be interrupted at that part, so it is possible to detect a defective heating element. It can be easily detected by visual inspection.

In this embodiment, an additional portion 1a separated by perforations 6 is formed at the end of the label body 1, and the dot line 5 is printed on this additional portion 1a and is later separated from the label body 1. However, it is of course possible to display the dot line 5 on the label l without providing a perforation for separation. Further, the dot line 5 can also be used as a partition line within the label, and the dot line 5 may be as thick as one dot, or may be as thick as several dots for easier viewing.

Next, another embodiment is shown in FIG. In this embodiment, a barcode 3 and a dot line 5 are printed in front of the barcode on the label 1 by a label printer. Further, for example, a photosensor 7 is provided above the label that is fed after printing.

Therefore, the discontinuity of the dot line in the event of a break in the heating element can be detected by the photosensor, and the worker can be immediately notified by an alarm or the like.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, the label printer according to the present invention prints all the dots of the width including at least the barcode in a line before and/or after the barcode, so if the print head If even one defective heating element occurs, the dot line becomes discontinuous and the defect can be detected immediately, and the reliability of barcode data can be improved with an extremely simple configuration. There is an advantage.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 and 2 are front views showing a label printed by a label printer according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a front view showing a conventional example. l...Label, 2...Normal characters, 3...Barcode,
4... Bar, 5... Dot line, 6... Perforation, 7... Photo sensor.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) In a label printer that uses a line dot printer to print barcodes consisting of bars parallel to the paper feeding direction, at least all dots of a width including at least the barcode are printed before and/or after the barcode. A label printer characterized by printing in a single line.