KR20000073159A - Method for saving of font data in printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A font data storing method of a printer is provided to minimize the volume of a printer memory where font data are stored. CONSTITUTION: A controller(21) of a printer converts a printer(20) to a font data reception mode by receiving a font download command from a computer(10) and transmits a report about the mode conversion to the computer. A controller(11) for a computer downloads the font data used in an application program(12) to the printer via an interface(15) for a computer. The printer controller obtains the check sum of the font data temporarily stored in a DRAM(dynamic random access memory)(22b). If the font data are downloaded normally, the font data temporarily stored in the DRAM is stored in a flash memory(22a). Thereby, the font data storage is completed.

Description

Method for saving of font data in printer}

The present invention relates to a method for storing font data of a printer, and more particularly, to download various fonts with a small amount of memory by downloading and storing fonts necessary for a user to print a document created in an application program of a computer. A method of storing font data of a printer that can use data.

In general, a printer refers to a device that receives data from a data transmission medium such as a personal computer (PC), prints an image, and prints the document. In order to improve printing speed in such a printer, a printer interpretable language, that is, a printer-specific language, PCL (Print Control Language) is used instead of simple bitmap data.

That is, when the user selects a print command to print a document created by an application program of the computer to the printer, the data created by the user in the printer driver program of the computer may be interpreted by the printer, that is, a printer-only language (hereinafter referred to as 'PCL'). To be sent to the printer. The printer interprets the PCL received from the computer, and converts the image data to be actually printed into bitmap data, detects fonts according to the font information in memory, and converts the bitmap data into colored dyes such as ink or toner. Output to paper using.

In this case, a program capable of interpreting the PCL received from the computer and font data suitable for the interpreted information should be stored in the memory of the printer. That is, font data corresponding to font information that can be designated by a computer should be stored in the memory of the printer, and a large amount of memory is used to store the font data.

Therefore, in order to store all the font data corresponding to the font information that can be specified by the computer, the size of the memory is greatly increased, so that the price increases, and when the PCL is not used to reduce the memory capacity, printing occurs. The problem of slowing down occurs.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to download font data required by a user from a printer driver program of a computer to a printer before printing a document created by an application program of the computer. The present invention provides a printer font storing method capable of minimizing a memory capacity of a printer storing font data.

1 is a schematic block diagram of a computer and a printer according to the present invention,

2 is an operational flowchart for storing font data in a printer according to the present invention.

<Description of the code | symbol about the principal part of drawing>

11: computer control unit 12: application

13: printer driver program 14: memory for computer

21: control unit for the printer 22a: flash memory

22b: DRAM

A feature of the present invention for achieving the above object is a computer including a printer driver program for converting data written in an application program into a printer language, and can interface with the computer and converts the printer language into bitmap data and receives it from the computer. A method of storing font data of a printer that prints a font in response to the font information, the method comprising: switching a printer to a font data receiving mode when a print command is received from a printer driver program; And transmitting the font data used in the program to the printer, and storing the font data in the printer's memory to print the bitmap data to the received font when the font data is received from the computer.

Preferably, the converting step further includes selecting a preset font download function in the printer driver program to download the font used in the application program to the printer; When the font download function and the print command are received from the printer driver program, the printer is switched to the font data reception mode.

Preferably, the font data storing step includes storing the received font in the printer's temporary memory when the font is received from the computer, checking whether the font is normally downloaded from the printer, and storing the font in the temporary memory if the font is downloaded normally. Updating the data to the storage memory; and requesting the computer to download the font data if the font is not downloaded normally.

Wherein the downloading confirmation step of the font data includes comparing the checksum of the font stored in the temporary memory with the checksum received from the computer; If the comparison result is the same, it is preferable to update the font data to the storage memory, and if the comparison result is not the same, request to download the font data to the computer again.

In this case, the temporary memory is preferably a DRAM.

Here, the storage memory is preferably one of a flash memory or an EEPROM.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. First, in adding reference numerals to the elements of each drawing, it should be noted that the same elements are denoted by the same reference numerals as much as possible even if they are displayed on different drawings. In addition, in the following description there are shown a number of specific details, such as components of the specific circuit, which are provided only to help a more general understanding of the present invention that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. It is self-evident to those of ordinary knowledge in Esau. In describing the present invention, when 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.

1 is a schematic block diagram of a computer and a printer according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart for storing font data in a printer according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, a computer part 10 and a printer part 20 for performing the font data storage method of the present invention may be divided.

First, referring to the computer part 10, the computer control unit 11 controls the system as a whole, and in particular, the font stored in the computer memory 14 in the printer driver program 12 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. When the font download function for downloading data to the printer part 20 is set, a command for notifying the download of the font is transmitted to the printer part 20, and the font data used by the user is transferred to the printer 20 through the interface unit 15. Control to send to.

The application program 12 is a program that a user can create various documents.

The printer driver program 13 converts the print data created by the application program 12 into PCL, which is data that can be interpreted by the printer. In particular, only the font data used by the user among the font data stored in the computer memory 14 is used in the printer part 20 Includes font download setting items for download with).

The computer memory 14 stores various control programs necessary for driving the system, data generated according to the execution of the control program, and various font data used in the application program 12.

The computer interface unit 15 is a port connecting the computer part 10 and the printer part 20, and transfers the PCL converted by the printer driver program 13 and font data used by the user to the printer part 20. .

On the other hand, referring to the printer part 20, the printer control unit 21 controls the system as a whole, and in particular, when a command for notifying download of font data is received from the computer part 10 according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, Convert to the font data receiving mode to control the font data received from the computer 10 to be stored in the printer memory 22, and also convert the PCL transmitted from the computer 10 into bitmap data, which is an image actually printed. .

The printer memory 22 includes a flash memory 22a in which various control programs and font data necessary for driving a system are stored, and a DRAM (DRAM) used as a buffer required for data processing of the system. It consists of 22b. Here, the font data may be stored in a predetermined area allocated for the font among the entire areas of the flash memory 22a, and separately constitute an electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM) and separately configured. It can also be stored in pyrom.

The printer 23 prints the bitmap data converted under the control of the control unit 21 on the recording sheet.

The printer interface unit 24 is a port connecting the computer 10 and the printer 20 to receive font data and print data received from the computer 10.

An operation of the present invention configured as described above will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 2.

The computer control unit 11 checks whether an item for downloading the font data used in the application 12 of the computer to the printer 20 is selected among the items preset in the printer driver program 13 (S201). If an item for downloading the resultant font data to the printer 20 is selected, the computer control unit 11 transmits a font download command to the printer 20 through the computer interface unit 15 (S202).

The control unit 21 of the printer checks whether a font download command is received from the computer 10 through the printer interface unit 24 (S203), and when the font download command is received, switches the printer 20 to the font data reception mode. (S204), and the information indicating that the printer 20 has been switched to the font data reception mode is transmitted to the computer 10 (S205).

The computer control unit 11 checks whether information indicating that the printer 20 has been switched to the font data reception mode has been received (S206), and if the printer 20 has been switched to the font data reception mode, the user may enter the application program 12. The used font data is downloaded to the printer 20 via the computer interface unit 15 (S207).

The printer control unit 21 checks whether the font data is downloaded from the computer 10 through the printer interface unit 25 (S208), and when the font data is downloaded, the downloaded font data of the printer memory unit 22 Temporarily stored in the DRAM 22b (S209).

Thereafter, the printer control unit 21 checks whether the font data has been downloaded normally (S210). The method of checking whether the font data has been normally downloaded is to check a check sum. That is, the computer control unit 11 downloads the font data used by the user in the application program 12 to the printer 20 in step 207 (S207), obtains a checksum of the downloaded font data, and transmits it together. The printer control unit 21 obtains a checksum of font data that is transmitted from the computer 10 and temporarily stored in the DRAM 22b, and then checksum calculated from the computer 10 and stored in the DRAM 22b and the checksum calculated by the printer. Compare for equality. If the comparison result is the same, the font data is downloaded normally. If the comparison result is not the same, the font data is not downloaded normally.

As a result of the check, if the font data is normally downloaded, the font data temporarily stored in the DRAM 22b is stored in the flash memory 22a (S211), and the process ends.

As a result of the check, if the font data is not normally downloaded, the printer control unit 21 requests the computer 10 to download the font data again (S212) and checks whether the font data is downloaded from the computer 10 (step 208). By returning to S208, the font data used in the application program 12 is stored in the flash memory 22a to detect and print the font data stored in the flash memory 22a when performing a print command.

Therefore, since the minimum font data required by the user is stored in the memory of the printer, the capacity of the memory in which the font data is stored can be minimized.

As described above, 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. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be defined by the claims below and equivalents thereof.

As described above, according to the method of storing the font data of the printer according to the present invention, before the document created in the application program of the computer is transmitted to the printer, the user downloads and stores the font data used in the application program to the printer. It is possible to minimize the memory capacity of the printer in which the font data is stored in order to print the data received from the.

Claims (6)

A computer including a printer driver program for converting data created in an application program into a printer language, and capable of interfacing with the computer, and converting the printer language into bitmap data to print fonts corresponding to font information received from the computer. In the printer's font data storage method: Switching a printer to a font data reception mode when a print command is received from the printer driver program; Transmitting the font data used in the application program to the printer when the printer is switched to a font data receiving mode; And storing the font data in a memory of the printer so as to print the bitmap data in the received font when font data is received from the computer. The method of claim 1, wherein the converting step, Selecting a preset font download function in the printer driver program to download font data used in the application program to the printer; And when the font download function and the print command are received from the printer driver program, switch the printer to a font data reception mode. The method of claim 1, wherein the storing of the font data comprises: If font data is received from the computer, storing the received font data in a temporary memory of the printer; Confirming whether the font data has been successfully downloaded in the printer; Updating the font data stored in the temporary memory to a storage memory when the font data is normally downloaded as a result of the checking; And re-requesting the download of the font data to the computer if the font data has not been downloaded normally as a result of the checking. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the temporary memory is a DRAM. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the storage memory is any one of a flash memory and an EEPROM. The method of claim 3, wherein the downloading confirmation step of the font data, Comparing a checksum of font data stored in the temporary memory with a checksum received from the computer; And if the comparison result is the same, performing the update step, and if the comparison result is not the same, performing the re-request step.