KR100329150B1 - Print job handling method of printer driver - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for processing a print job on a printer driver, wherein the current document is divided into two print jobs according to a user's manual duplex printing request, and the page contents of the document corresponding to the first print job of the two print jobs. Printing a print job and a second print job command request on a printing paper; and sending a print job end command to the printer when a predetermined period elapses after the print output by the first print job.

Description

How to process print job on printer driver {PRINT JOB HANDLING METHOD OF PRINTER DRIVER}

The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a printing job processing method on a printer driver.

Printers, an example of an image forming apparatus, are widely used as computer peripherals these days. The printer is classified into an impact method and a non-impact method according to the printing method. Impact printers are like dot matrix printers, where the pins on the print head move from side to side, hitting the ribbon, and the ink on the ribbon burying the paper to print the shape of the letters. Unlike the impact printer, the non-impact printer sprays ink (for example, an inkjet printer) or adsorbs toner to print. An ink jet printer is one in which ink in an ink cartridge is ejected through a nozzle, which is attached to paper to print.

In order to drive such a printer, a printer driver is installed in a computer to which the printer is connected, and a related separate program is also installed. In general, as shown in FIG. 1, when a user issues a print command in the computer 2, an application program of the computer 20 transmits the contents of a document to the printer driver 4, and the printer driver 4 sends the command. Through this, the printer 6 converts the contents into something that the printer 6 can understand. The converted data is transferred to the control board of the printer 6 through the interface and then printed. The computer user can change the printer's operation using the printer driver function.

In the prior art, in the case of a printer which does not support the duplex printing function in hardware, the printer driver supports the duplex printing function to perform duplex printing manually. If manual duplex printing of a document consisting of four pages of 1,2,3,4 is performed, the printer driver prints the contents of one or three pages of the document on a printing sheet by a print command. After that, the user waits while displaying a message window on the computer screen informing the wait until the user turns over the two printed sheets previously printed and put them back in the tray. When the user turns over two printed sheets of paper, puts them back in the tray, and issues a print command again, the printer driver prints each of the remaining pages, that is, the contents of pages 2 and 4, corresponding to the printed sheets printed on the entire surface.

However, the manual two-sided printing method as described above has the following problems. If the user does not issue the next print command for a certain period of time after giving a print command by the manual duplex printing function, a timeout error occurs due to the passage of time. After the timeout error occurs, even if the user issues a print command, since the previous print job has already disappeared, the error paper is continuously printed out. This is a problem that occurs even when the printer is used as a network printer. If the user does not issue a print command, the current print job is recognized as being still in use such as printing to the print manager of the network printer. Accordingly, there is a problem that other print jobs waiting on the printer spool do not print and continue to accumulate on the spool.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for improving the handling of manual duplex printing on a printer driver.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of effectively processing a manual duplex printing job to improve the performance of the printer.

According to the above object, the present invention, when printing a document in the case of a print job divided into two, such as manual duplex printing, the current print automatically if the user does not give a print command for a certain period after printing the first print job Send a command to end the job to the printer to avoid printer timeout errors and to prevent other print jobs from stacking on the spool. The second printing job of the manual duplex printing allows the user to process the print job as a separate print job even though the user issues a print command after a certain period of time.

1 is a conceptual block diagram for explaining a printing procedure;

2 is a schematic block diagram of a computer;

3 is a schematic block diagram of a printer;

4 is a flowchart of a print job processing according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that the same elements in the figures are represented by the same numerals wherever possible. In addition, detailed descriptions of well-known functions and configurations that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

Even in the embodiment of the present invention, the computer 2 and the printer 4 have a schematic configuration as shown in FIG. It should be understood that the printer driver 4 in FIG. 1 is installed in the computer 2. The computer 2 of FIG. 1 includes the concrete block structure as shown in FIG. 2, and the printer 6 of FIG. 1 includes the concrete block structure as shown in FIG. 3.

First, a concrete configuration of the computer 2 will be described with reference to FIG. 2. The CPU (Central Processing Unit) 10 executes a control program to perform overall control of a personal computer. In particular, in the present invention, the CPU 10 performs an application program related to printing and an installed printer driver related program. The display controller 12 displays various processing information of the CPU 10 on the monitor 14 under the control of the CPU 10. The memory unit 16 stores the control program of the CPU 10 and temporarily stores the process data of the CPU 10. In the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a program of the printer driver 4 that performs an operation as shown in FIG. 4 is included in the memory unit 16. The memory unit 16 includes a read only memory (ROM) and a random access memory (RAM). The input / output interface 18 interfaces signals input and output between the CPU 10, the input device 20, the auxiliary storage device 22, and the output device 24. The input device 20 is a device for inputting various information or commands to the CPU 10 and may be a keyboard or a mouse. As the auxiliary memory device 22, a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, or the like may be used. The output device 24 is a device for outputting various types of information processed by the CPU 10, and a printer, a plotter, or the like can be used. That is, the printer 6 shown in FIG. 1 may be an example of the output device 24 of FIG. 3.

Next, referring to FIG. 3, the configuration of the computer 6 will be described. The controller 30 is responsible for the overall control of the printer. The host interface 32 interfaces between a host such as the computer 2 and the control unit 30. The memory unit 34 stores the execution program and various information of the control unit 30, and temporarily stores data generated according to the program execution of the control unit 100. Non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) 36 stores various types of information for printer management. The print engine 38 performs printing under the control of the controller 30. The operation panel 40 includes a key input unit for enabling various user inputs and a display window for providing various information to the user.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a print job processing according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The print job processing according to the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 4 is performed as if the printer driver prints two separate documents in a print job for one document when the print job is divided into two, such as manual duplex printing. Process the print job. That is, when a preset period of time has elapsed since the print output by the first print job of one document to be printed by the manual duplex printing function, a print job end command is transmitted to the printer. This action prevents printer timeout errors and prevents other print jobs from accumulating on the spool.

Referring to Figures 1 and 4 will be described in more detail the operation according to an embodiment of the present invention.

If the user requests print output using the manual duplex function as in step 100 of FIG. 4 using the printer driver for the document currently being displayed on the computer monitor 14, the printer driver 4 performs step 110 of FIG. Proceed to In step 110 of FIG. 4, the printer driver 4 divides a print job for one document into two, and prints and outputs the page contents of the document corresponding to the first print job among the two print jobs. Accordingly, the printer 6 prints the page contents corresponding to the first print job of the document on the printing paper and outputs the printing paper. For example, suppose that a manual duplex printing of a four-page document of 1,2,3,4 is performed. The printer driver 4 causes the contents of the first and third pages of the document to be printed on the printing paper in the first printing job. . Thereafter, the printer driver 4 displays a message window on the monitor 14 to issue a print command after reinserting the print paper in step 120 of FIG. 4, and drives a timer for counting a preset period. At this time, the message window is a button used by the user to give a print command after reinserting the printing paper, that is, O.K. Shaped buttons are included.

The printer driver 4 then determines whether there is a print command from the user before the timer times out (i.e., before the preset period elapses) in step 130 of Fig. 4. The user prints the previously printed output. The papers will be flipped over, put back into the paper tray, and the print command will be issued. If the user presses the OK button included in the message window before the timer times out, the printer driver 4 will display the page contents corresponding to the second print job of the document, that is, the contents of the remaining pages of the document. Prints the printed paper and prints the printed paper, as in the above example, with four pages of 1,2,3,4 If the constructed document is to be subjected to manual duplex printing, the printer driver 4 causes the contents of pages 2 and 4 of the document to be printed on the printing paper in the second printing job.

On the other hand, when the timeout occurs without a print command from the user, that is, when the preset period has elapsed, the printer driver 4 transmits a print job end command to the printer 6 in step 150 of FIG. When the printer driver 4 transmits a print job end command to the printer 6, the printer 6 may determine that the current print job is finished and process another print job. This prevents a timeout error of the printer 6 and prevents other print jobs from accumulating on the spool.

Although the print job end command is transmitted to the printer 4 in step 150 of FIG. 4, a message window including an O.K.-shaped button is continuously displayed on the monitor 14 of the computer 2. Thus, the user can issue a second print job command of the document even after the timeout, i. Therefore, even if the preset period has elapsed, when the user reinserts the printed sheets into the paper feeder and issues a print command, that is, when the user presses the OK button included in the message window after the timer has timed out, the printer driver (4) prints the page contents corresponding to the second print job of the document, that is, the contents of the remaining pages of the document, on the printing paper in step 180 of FIG. 4 and outputs the printing paper. As in the above example, if the document consisting of four pages of 1,2,3,4 is to be duplexed manually, the printer driver 4 prints the contents of pages 2 and 4 of the document in the second print job. To be printed on

If it is not the print command for the second print job of the document in step 160 of FIG. 4, the printer driver 4 proceeds to step 170 of FIG. 4 to perform a corresponding function.

In the above description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be defined by the described embodiments, but should be determined by the equivalent of claims and claims.

As described above, in the present invention, the printer driver when the print job is divided into two, such as manual duplex printing process the print job as if two separate documents are printed within the print job for one document, the driver It has the advantage of increasing performance.

Claims (3)

In the print job processing method on the printer driver, According to the user's manual duplex printing request, the current document is divided into two print jobs, and the page contents of the document corresponding to the first of the two print jobs are printed on the print paper and the second print job command request is displayed. Process, And a step of transmitting a print job end command to a printer when a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the printout by the first print job. The method of claim 1, further comprising: printing a page content of a document corresponding to a second print job of the two print jobs on a printing paper when the second print job command is issued by the user after the first print job. Processing of a print job. In the print job processing method on the printer driver, Dividing the current document into two print jobs according to the user's manual duplex printing request, and printing the page contents of the document corresponding to the first of the two print jobs on the print paper; And a step of transmitting a print job end command to a printer when a predetermined period of time has elapsed since the printout by the first print job.