JPS6372575A - Printing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce work required in the definition of a form and to enhance printing capacity such as a printing speed to a large extent by altering only a part of form control information during printing, by dynamically and arbitrarily altering the printing position and size of data on the basis of the form information altering data in the printing data sent to a printing apparatus from a computer. CONSTITUTION:A printing apparatus 10 receives the printing data stored in a printing data storing file 22 from a computer 21 and a data discrimination means 12 discriminates whether said data is a form information altering data. When the form information altering data is discriminated, form information is analyzed by a form information analyzing means 13 and only a part of the form information is renewed by a form information altering means 14 with respect to the form information memory means 15. When data other than the form information altering data is discriminated, a page unit printing means 16 applies printing to a printing medium 30.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printing device, and more particularly to a printing device having print format control R horizontal in an information processing peripheral device.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, in this type of printing device, in a printing method in which print data is mixed and arranged in multiple areas on a print medium, layout information such as the size and position of each data area can be specified only at the start of printing. When changing layout information during continuous printing of a series of data, it has been difficult to improve printing performance due to the time required to transfer the changed information.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

When printing various types of data such as characters, graphs, images, etc., the above-mentioned conventional printing devices do not create areas and define them for each page, but change the layout, such as the size and position of each area, during printing. In this case, all of the format information must be sent to the printing device, which has the drawback that printing performance is greatly reduced due to the transfer time and the like.

[Means for solving problems]

The printing apparatus of the present invention includes a data reading means that receives data in which print format information and print data are mixed from a computer, and distinguishes the data given from the data reading means into print data and print format information data, and processes the data thereafter. a data discrimination means for selecting a format information data; a format information analysis means for analyzing the determined format information data; a format information storage means for storing initial printing format information such as the type of print medium and printed characters at the time of starting printing; The apparatus includes a format information updating section that updates the format information stored in the format information storage section based on the determination result of the data discriminating section, and a page-by-page printing section that prints based on the updated format information.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, one embodiment of the present invention is a printing device connected to a computer 21 and a print data storage file 22, including a data reading means 11 for reading data from the computer 21, and a data reading means 11 for determining the read data. The data discrimination means 12, the format information analysis means 13 that analyzes format information data among the read data, the format information update means 14, the format information storage means 15, the data discrimination means 12, and the page unit printing information 14. and a connected page unit printing means 16.

Next, FIG. 2 shows the contents of the print data storage file 22. Referring to FIG. 2, the print data storage file 22 stores a series of print data, and the data on the first page includes characters, images, and graphs. 3 types of data and format information change data 7 for arbitrarily changing the printing position of each data
1, and the data on the second page is made up of data in which the order of the data on the first page is changed from text->image-graph to text->graph-image, and format information change data 72. The format information change data 72 is data for format information from the third page onward.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a print medium on which the data shown in FIG. 2 is printed. In FIG.
1. Graph area 32. Each data is printed in the image area 33, but on the second page, the character area 36. Graph area 37. The printing position is changed to the image area 38 and printing is performed. The area position movement from the first page to the second page is performed using the format information change data 71.

Next, the overall operation of this embodiment will be specifically explained. Referring again to FIG. 1, the printing device 10 receives print data stored in the print data storage file 22 from the host computer 21. Data reading means 1
1 reads print data from the host, and uses the data discrimination means 12 to discriminate whether or not it is format information change data.0 The discrimination method is performed using an identifier written in the format information change data. Distinguish from other data. If the data read by the data discriminator 12 is format information change data, the format information analyzer 13 analyzes format information such as the attributes of each data and the position and size of the print area. Based on the analyzed data, only part of the format information already stored in the format information storage section 15 is updated by the format information updating section 14. Format information storage means 15 stores format information necessary for printing, and if it is not updated, the same format information is applied to subsequent print data. If the data is determined to be data other than format information change data by the data determining means 12, the page unit printing means 16 prints the data on the print medium 30 using the format stored in the format information storage means 15. It refers to information, determines the layout of the entire page, and prints the sent print data on a print medium.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention reduces the work required for format definition by dynamically changing the print position, size, etc. of data arbitrarily using format information change data in print data sent from a computer to a printing device. In addition, by changing only part of the format control information during printing, printing performance such as printing speed can be significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing print data in one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figures are diagrams showing printing results before and after dynamic format updating in an embodiment of the present invention. 11... Data reading means, 12... Data discrimination means, 13... Format information analysis means, 14... Format information updating means, 15... Format information storage means, 16...
Page unit printing means, 20... Printing device, 21... Host computer, 22... Print data storage file,
30...Print medium, 31...Character area before format update, 32...Graph area before format update, 33...Image area before format update, 36...Character area after format update , 37... Graph area after format update, 38... Image area after format update, 70... Print data, 71
...Format change data used from page 2 onwards, 72...
・3rd me0 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] a data reading unit that receives data in which print format information and print data are mixed from a computer; and a data discrimination unit that distinguishes the data given from the data reading unit into print data and print format information data and selects subsequent processing. means, a format information analysis means for analyzing the determined format information data, a format information storage means for storing initial print format information such as the type of printing medium and printed characters at the time of printing start, and the data discriminating means. As a result, a printing apparatus is characterized in that it includes a format information updating unit that updates the format information stored in the format information storage unit, and a page unit printing unit that performs printing using the updated format information.