KR100212981B1 - Image printing apparatus and method for saving paper and toner - Google Patents

Abstract

1. Field of the invention as claimed in the claims: Output paper and toner saving printing apparatus and method of the image forming apparatus

2. The technical problem to be solved by the invention: To solve the problem that the position of the image could not be freely adjusted when condensing several images on one sheet.

Summary of the Invention A method of saving an image forming apparatus which shortens and prints multiple pages of images input from a computer into one page, the method comprising: a first process of receiving data of one page; A second step of simplifying by converting to corresponding symbol commands, a third step of inputting an image reduction ratio when the saving mode is selected, and determining the number of reduction target pages that can be stored in one page according to the reduction ratio; And converting the symbol commands into bitmap data, and converting the symbol commands into bitmap data by lowering the resolution according to the set image reduction ratio, and determining a position to place the bitmap data on a paper, and A fifth step of positioning the bitmap data, and bitmap data for any page whose position on the sheet is determined; Is at least one, and if the input of the print key is detected or the position of each bitmap data for the page as many as the number of shortened pages that can be stored in one page determined in the third process is completed In this case, the printing is controlled to perform printing, and the sixth process returns to the first process unless the case is one of the two cases.

4. Significant Use of the Invention: Used to place desired originals in the desired position when multiple originals must be printed on one sheet of paper.

Description

Output paper and toner saving printing apparatus and method of an image forming apparatus

1 is a block diagram showing a connection between a printer and a computer to which the present invention is applied.

2 is a flowchart showing a paper and toner saving printing process according to the present invention.

3 is an exemplary diagram of a symbol command.

4 is an exemplary diagram of bitmap data.

5 is a state diagram in which a 1/4 reduced image is printed on one page according to the present invention.

6 (a) and 6 (b) are dot state diagrams of images abbreviated according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

100: Computer 200: Video Controller

300: engine unit 210: panel interface

220: host interface 230: optional font cartridge

240: ROM 250: Engine Interface

260: RAM

The present invention relates to an economizing printing apparatus and method in an image forming apparatus, and in a normal ratio, an economizing printing apparatus in which the contents corresponding to several pages are abbreviated and printed on one page, but the positions of the printed images can be freely arranged. And to a method.

When a document created on a computer is printed on paper using an image forming apparatus such as a page printer, a draft is usually printed before the final output is made. However, if it is only a very high level of confirmation, it is not necessary to print at the same size as the final output and cause waste of paper and toner. In addition, if you need to print several originals that do not need to be printed in the size of the output paper, even if they are not very high, if you print them out as they are, you will waste unnecessary paper and toner. An apparatus for solving this problem is disclosed in Patent Application No. 93-28365, 'Paper Saving Device of Laser Printer', filed by the applicant of the present application. However, this device was not able to arrange the position of the image freely.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an economizing printing apparatus and method for shortening and printing contents corresponding to several pages in a normal ratio and arranging the position of the printed image freely.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of saving an image forming apparatus for printing an image of a plurality of pages input from a computer in one page. A second step of simplifying the converted data into corresponding symbol commands, and a third step of inputting the image reduction ratio when the saving mode is selected and determining the number of reduction target pages that can be stored in one page according to the reduction ratio. And a fourth step of converting the symbol commands into bitmap data, and converting the symbol commands into bitmap data by lowering the resolution according to the set image reduction ratio, and determining a position to place the bitmap data on the paper. A fifth process of positioning the bitmap data at a position, and for any page whose position on the sheet is determined; If at least one of the map data is detected and the input of the print key is detected, or positioning of each bitmap data for pages of the number of pages to be reduced may be stored in one page determined in the third step. When it is completed, the control is performed to perform printing, and if it is not one of the two cases, the process returns to the first process.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, numerous specific details such as specific components of circuits, number of sheets, etc. are shown, which are provided to help a more general understanding of the present invention, and the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. It will be obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art. In the following description of the present invention, if it is determined that a detailed description of a related known function or configuration may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, the detailed description thereof will be omitted.

In order to implement the present invention, the present embodiment adds a saving mode to the control software of the page printer, and this saving mode can be selected by a specific key operation. If the Economic Mode is selected, when the page printer receives and processes a page of images from the computer, it does not set the width of one sheet of paper, but rather the width and height, respectively. To reduce the actual area Create and print the resulting image. In other words, n ² images are printed in a condensed form on one sheet of paper.

1 is a block diagram showing a connection relationship between a printer and a computer to which the present invention is applied, and reference numerals 200 and 300 correspond to printers, and 100 represents a computer. In addition to the known configuration, the printer is provided with the saving mode related information and its storage memory for carrying out the present invention. In operation, the microprocessor 270 which receives data from the computer 100 through the host interface uses the data and the bitmap using the program and font data contained in the ROM 240 and the optional font cartridge 230. The data is converted into image data and stored in the RAM 260. In the conversion process, the microprocessor 270 generates image data corresponding to the various state values, for example, CPI (Character Per Inch). Economy mode is also defined by the state value. This state value can be changed through the input of a panel (not shown) input through the panel interface or through a computer input. The page size of the bitmap thus determined (normal size or The image data created according to the size) is sent to the engine unit 300 through the engine interface, and the engine unit 300 prints an image using the image data.

An example of a method of condensing and printing an image will be described below with the assumption that the image is reduced to 1/2 as shown in FIG.

Data input from the computer 100 to the image forming apparatus has a unique code system for each company. For example, HP's PCL. In FIG. 1, data input from the computer 100 to the microprocessor 270 via the host interface 220 is first converted into a symbolic command. This symbolic order also has its own system. Representative symbol commands include only one pixel or a trapezoidal shape composed of a plurality of pixels as shown in FIG. 4. If we assume that the letter L in Figure 3 is printed, the command from the computer 100 to print the letter L is RET {(x1, y1), (x2, y2), (x3, y3), (x8, y8)}. And RET {(x8, y8), (x4, y4), (x6, y6), (x5, y5)}. The symbol command thus changed must be converted into a bit map image so that it can be applied as exposure data to the exposure apparatus. This bitmap image is stored in RAM 260 according to FIG. At this time, each position has a coordinate value corresponding to one point. Therefore, assuming that the paper to be printed is 8 inches wide, 11 inches long and prints at a resolution of 300 dots per inch (DPI), the paper coordinates will have 2400 x 3300 coordinate values. That is, in FIG. 3, X is 2400 and Y is 3300. The above corresponds to FIG. 2, that is, steps 2a and 2b of the flowchart showing the paper and toner saving printing process according to the present invention.

Thereafter, when the microprocessor 270 detects that the economy mode is selected by the user, the image is reduced (steps 2c and 2d). The saving mode can be selected by entering a corresponding command on the panel or the computer.

On the other hand, there are various methods for reducing the image to 1/2. As described above, the symbol command has a resolution corresponding to the state value when converting it to a bitmap image, and in order to reduce the image to 1/2, the resolution is set to the current 1/2. In other words, in the case of a 300DPI printer as in the present embodiment, the resolution is 150DPI. The resulting bitmap image has half the number of dots of the original image, but when it is actually printed, the bitmap image is printed again at the original resolution of 300 DPI so that the reduction is achieved. In other words, if the distance of X1Y1 to X2Y2 in the letter 'L' of Fig. 3 is 0.1 inch, the image is made of 300 dots, that is, 30 dots in the normal printing state. However, if you create a bitmap data at 150 DPI, you will have 15 dts. However, since the engine 300 performing the actual printing is still printing at 300 DPI, the printing result is only X1Y1-X2Y2 0.05 inches regardless of the operation of the engine 300. Another abbreviation method is to first form bitmap data on one page in the same manner as usual and then to abbreviate it. This can be implemented by a method of forming one dot by logically combining four dot data with each other, as shown in Figs. 6 (a) and 6 (b). The original data is shown in FIG. 6 (a), and the dot data of four dots in FIG. 6 (a) are each other where X is 1-8 and Y is 1-8 in FIG. 6 (b). The result of the OR is ie 1/2.

The next step is to determine where to place the abbreviated image (step 2e). Assume that the image reduction target file is five pages. In the bitmap image of each page, each coordinate value is x, y and one page is X If it is composed of Y bits and the reduction ratio is 1/2, the first page is (x, y), the second page is (X / 2 + x, y), and the third page is (X, Y / 2 + y). The fourth page is (X / 2 + x, Y / 2 + y). As a result, the first to fourth pages are stored in the RAM 260 in the form of bitmap data that can be printed in a shape as shown in FIG. From the fifth page, the above operation is repeated to obtain the ratio shown in FIG. 5 (b).

The operation of determining the position of the reduced image as described above will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 6B. 6 (a) and 6 (b) are 16/300 inch by 16/300 inch sized pages in which a cell size corresponds to a dot of 1/300 inch size. If the same content is recorded on five pages and the reduction ratio is 1/2, the first reduced image is recorded as it is. Also, in the shortened image of the second page, two images are located at the original distance, so only the value of the X coordinate needs to be added to 16/2, that is, 8. For the shortened image on the third page, only the value of the Y coordinate needs to be added with 16/2, that is, 8. The reduced image of the fourth page adds 16/2 and 16/2, respectively, 8 and 8. If you reduce to 1 / N instead of 1/2, you can place it this way. After the reduction and positioning of the four pages is completed, the print key input may be detected, and in response, the contents of the stored first to fourth pages may be printed on one sheet of paper. The fifth page can be repeated from the beginning again (steps 2f-2h).

In the present embodiment, the case where the image is reduced by 2 × 2 has been described. However, the image can be reduced in various ways. In this case, the reduction ratio can be freely adjusted by changing the resolution to 1 / n when converting from a symbol command to a bitmap image as described above, which can be implemented by key input from a panel or a computer.

On the other hand, the position can be determined by adding Y / 2 to the y value when the second page is to be placed below the first page. That is, the abbreviated image can be simply implemented by a method other than the above embodiment depending on what value is added to the coordinate value. That is, since it is possible to arrange the images as shown in FIG. 5, those skilled in the art may easily arrange the images only horizontally in a row or vertically black and diagonally.

The present invention as described above has the advantage of saving the output paper and toner of the image forming apparatus.

Meanwhile, in the detailed description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications are possible without departing from the scope of the present invention. In particular, the embodiment of the present invention has been illustrated in the case of 1/2 abbreviation, it is also applicable to the case of 1 / N abbreviation in the same way. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be defined not only by the scope of the following claims, but also by the equivalents of the claims.

Claims (5)

A saving printing method of an image forming apparatus that shortens and prints multiple pages of images input from a computer into one page, the method comprising: a first process of receiving data of one page, and replacing the received data with corresponding symbol commands; A second step of simplification; a third step of inputting an image reduction ratio when the saving mode is selected, and determining a number of reduction target pages that can be stored in one page according to the reduction ratio; A fourth step of converting the resolution to a lower resolution according to the set image reduction ratio, and determining a position to place the bitmap data on a paper, and positioning the bitmap data at the determined position. And at least one bitmap data for any page whose position on the sheet is determined; When the input of the pre-print key is detected or when the positioning of each bitmap data for the pages corresponding to the number of abbreviated pages that can be stored in one page determined in the third step is completed, the printing is performed. And a sixth process of returning to the first process unless it is one of the two cases. The method of claim 1, further comprising: in the third step, logically combining data of squares of the reciprocal of the image reduction ratio into one data. An image forming apparatus comprising a printing means for bitmapped data received from a computer and printing on paper by page, comprising: a memory for storing various types of information for saving printing, a reduction ratio of an image, or a saving mode setting Or user interface means for inputting a print command, means for converting data of one page received from the computer into corresponding symbol commands, and converting the symbol commands into bitmap data, wherein the preset image reduction ratio Means for converting by lowering the resolution by the image reduction ratio according to the image reduction ratio; means for determining a position to place the bitmap data on a sheet, and storing the bitmap data in an area corresponding to the determined position on the memory. And any page whose position on the sheet is determined When there is at least one bitmap data and the input of the print key is detected or when considering the image reduction ratio, positioning is performed on the bitmap data corresponding to each of the maximum number of pages that can be placed together on the paper. And means for transmitting the data to the printing means, which is stored up to that time so as to perform printing when all are completed. The eco-printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein a user interface means for setting a reduction ratio of the image is a key of an operation panel. 4. The eco-friendly printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein information for setting a reduction ratio of the image is transmitted from the computer.