KR20040069735A - Printing density control method for printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method of controlling printing density of a printer is provided to control density of printed images through simple software to save a toner. CONSTITUTION: A method of controlling printing density of a printer having a plurality of toner saving modes includes a step(S22) of determining whether a toner saving mode is selected by a user, and a step of rendering video data such that n lines of the video data are rendered and then one line is omitted. The toner saving modes include the first, second and third modes. When the first mode is selected(S23), the video data is rendered such that every other line is skipped and a voltage supplied to a developing roller is reduced in order to decrease the quantity of toner supplied to a photosensitive drum(S24,S25). When the second mode is selected(S26), the video data is rendered such that every other line is skipped(S27). When the third mode is selected(S28), the voltage supplied to the developing roller is reduced in order to decrease the quantity of toner provided to the photosensitive drum.

Description

Printing density control method for printer

The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly, to a method for adjusting the print density of a printer for saving toner.

In general, a printer is an office automation device that is connected to a computer and used to output documents or other data created by an application program of a computer. In recent years, a laser printer has been widely used.

As shown in FIG. 1, the laser printer 100 receives packetized print data from a computer and uses a laser light generated by the exposure apparatus 111 to detect a latent image corresponding to the print data. It is imaged on 112). Then, the latent electrostatic image is developed by the toner supplied from the developing roller 113, and then transferred onto the paper by the transfer roller 114.

Looking at the printing process in terms of software with reference to Figure 3 as follows. When a user issues a print command from an application 201, the printer driver 202 may print a graphic, for example, a print control language (PCL) or a post script, which may recognize a figure, an image, or a character. The conversion is sent to the control unit 120 of the printer 100. The interpreter 121 of the controller 120 converts the printing language into a display list. Here, the display list is composed of a combination of instructions, and each instruction is called a display list entry. The renderer 122 performs a rendering operation of converting the display list into bitmap data. The bitmap data is then sent to a print engine 110, which prints an image on paper.

In recent years, bidirectional communication with the printer 100 is enabled through software on the computer 200, thereby reducing the display window and various function keys provided in the printer 100. This software is the Remote Control Panel (RCP), which is incorporated into the printer driver 202 to allow various print modes to be set on the computer 200. Therefore, the toner can be saved by reducing the density of the printed image in printing conditions where high quality print quality is not required.

3 is a flowchart illustrating a printing density adjusting method of a conventional printer.

When the document to be printed is selected, the user executes the RCP or the printer driver 202 to select the print mode (S11). The selection of the print mode may be omitted in some cases. Before the printing is executed, the controller 120 of the printer 100 checks whether the toner saving mode is selected (S12). At this time, if the toner saving mode is selected, the control unit 120 of the printer 100 supplies a voltage lower than the initial value to the developing roller 113 (S13). As a result, the amount of toner supplied by the developing roller 113 to the photosensitive drum 112 is reduced, and an image having a low density is printed on the paper (S14).

On the other hand, if the toner saving mode is not selected, a voltage having an initial value is applied to the developing roller 113 so that an image having a high density is transferred onto the paper.

However, the printing density control method of the conventional printer as described above has a problem that the control of the supply voltage to the developing roller is complicated and difficult by adjusting the density of the image by a hardware method.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide a printing density adjusting method of a printer which can perform density adjustment of a print image for saving toner through simple software.

1 is a configuration diagram schematically showing a main configuration of a conventional printer;

2 is a schematic view showing a printing system of a conventional printer;

3 is a flowchart illustrating a printing density adjusting method of a conventional printer;

4 is a configuration diagram schematically showing a printing system of a printer employing a method for adjusting a print density of a printer according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a flowchart showing a printing density adjusting method of a printer according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and

6 is a configuration diagram schematically showing a printing system of another printer employing the method for adjusting the print density of the printer shown in FIG. 5.

<Description of Symbols for Major Parts of Drawings>

300,500; Printer 400,600; Computer

310,510; print engine 320, 520; control unit

530; renderer S21; print mode selection step

S22; toner saving mode determining step S23; first mode determining step

S24, S27; rendering step S25; supply voltage adjusting step of the developing roller

S26; second mode determination step S28; third mode selection step

The method for adjusting the print density of a printer according to the present invention for achieving the above object comprises the steps of: determining whether a toner saving mode is selected by a user in a method for adjusting the print density of a printer having a plurality of subdivided toner saving modes; ; And when the selection of the toner saving mode is made, rendering the image data in n-line and then rendering the image data in a pattern of missing one line.

According to this, the density adjustment of the print image for toner saving can be performed simply by software.

In the method for adjusting the print density of the printer according to the present invention, n is preferably 1.

The toner saving mode may be selected through an RCP on a computer, a printer driver, or a setting panel installed in the printer.

In addition, the toner saving mode may be subdivided into first to third modes corresponding to upper, middle, and lower levels respectively according to the amount of toner saving.

In the present invention, the step of rendering the image data line by line when the first mode is selected; And reducing the voltage supplied to the developing roller in order to reduce the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum. The second mode selection may include rendering the image data by one line. When the third mode is selected, the method may include reducing the voltage supplied to the developing roller to reduce the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum.

Hereinafter, a printing density adjusting method of a printer according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The printer employing the method for adjusting the print density according to the present invention has a configuration similar to that of the conventional one. The image is converted into a printing language such as a PCL or a post script that the printer 300 can recognize. Then, the image data converted in the printing language is sent to the control unit 320 of the printer 300. The interpreter 321 of the control unit 320 converts the printing language into a display list, and the renderer 322 converts the display list into bitmap data and sends it to the print engine 310.

In the above print job, the user may select the print mode of the printer by executing the RCP or printer driver 202 on the computer 400 before the print job is started (S21). The print mode may be variously set according to the quality of the image to be printed, that is, the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum 113 (see FIG. 1), and the toner may be saved in a printing condition in which print quality is not greatly required It includes a toner saving mode for. The toner saving mode includes first to third modes respectively corresponding to upper, middle, and lower levels according to the amount of toner saving.

When the print job command is transmitted, the control unit 320 of the printer 300 determines whether the print mode selected by the user is the toner saving mode (S22). At this time, if the toner saving mode is selected, the control unit 320 determines whether the first mode (S23), if the first mode, the bitmap in the process of rendering the printing language generated by the printer driver 402 as bitmap data The data is generated by one line (S24). Thus, the number of bitmap data lines constituting the two-dimensional image is reduced by half compared to that in the normal printing process, and the amount of toner for making the image is also reduced by about half compared to the normal case. At the same time, the developing roller 113 (see Fig. 1) is supplied with a voltage smaller than the initial value in the environment of the first mode (S25). As a result, printing is performed while the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum 112 through the developing roller 113 is reduced (S29).

If the toner saving mode selected by the user is not the first mode, the controller 320 determines whether it is the second mode (S26). In this case, if the selected mode is the second mode, the control unit 320 renders the print data by crossing each line (S27). Therefore, an image having a higher density than the image printed in the first mode environment is printed on the paper (S29).

In addition, if the selected toner saving mode is not the second mode, the controller 320 determines whether the selected mode is the third mode (S28). At this time, if the selected mode is the third mode, there is no manipulation for the rendering operation to save toner, and only the voltage supplied to the developing roller 113 is adjusted (S25). At this time, the voltage supplied to the developing roller 113 has a smaller value than the initial value, whereby the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum 112 is reduced and the density is higher than the image printed on the paper in the second mode environment. A high image is printed (S29).

On the other hand, in the above, the printing operation of the printer 300 has been described as being performed in any one of three toner saving modes, the present invention is not limited thereto. That is, the toner saving mode with various print densities is secured by controlling the rendering process in which bitmap data is generated by a pattern skipping one line after two lines rendering or a paddon skipping one line after three lines rendering. You can do it. Then, by selecting one of the various toner saving modes by the user, a print job in which two conditions of quality and toner saving are compromised can be performed.

In addition, in the above, the selection of the toner saving mode is made through the RCP or the printer driver 402 on the computer 400, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and is provided in the printer 500 as shown in FIG. The toner saving mode may be selected through the setting panel 530. In this case, the computer 600 does not have an RCP function, and the setting panel 530 provided in the printer 500 replaces the function.

The operation of the printer 500 having the above configuration is similar to that of the printer 300. That is, when the user issues a print command for the selected document through the application 601 on the computer 600, the printer driver 602 converts the print data for the document into a printing language and controls the control unit 520 of the printer 500. ), And the control unit 520 controls the print engine 510 based on this print data.

Here, the selection for the toner saving mode is made through the setting panel 530, which is different from the printer 300. The printer 500 having such a configuration also has various modes classified according to the quality of the image to be printed. After the user selects a print mode by operating selection means such as a button provided in the setting panel 530 (S21), when a print job command is transmitted, the control unit 520 of the printer 500 selects the print mode selected by the user. It is determined whether is the toner saving mode (S22). The density of the printed image can be varied by changing the rendering pattern according to the selected printing mode or by adjusting the voltage supplied to the developing roller 113. In particular, when the generation of bitmap data is crossed line by line in the rendering process, it is possible to effectively reduce the amount of toner used in printing conditions in which print quality is not required.

According to the present invention as described above, the density of the printed image can be easily adjusted in software by controlling the rendering process of converting the image data into bitmap data during the printing process.

In addition, according to the present invention, since the generated bitmap data is rendered so as to be missing one line after one line or several lines, there is an effect that the amount of toner used can be significantly reduced in printing conditions where print quality is not required. .

While the invention has been shown and described with respect to preferred embodiments for illustrating the principles of the invention, the invention is not limited to the construction and operation as shown and described. Rather, those skilled in the art will appreciate that many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Accordingly, all such suitable changes and modifications and equivalents should be considered to be within the scope of the present invention.

Claims (8)

In the printing density adjustment method of a printer having a plurality of finely divided toner saving modes, Determining whether the toner saving mode has been selected by the user; And And when the toner saving mode is selected, rendering the image data n-line and then rendering the image data in a pattern missing one line. The method of claim 1, N is 1, the printing density control method of the printer, characterized in that. The method of claim 1, And selecting the toner saving mode through a RCP or a printer driver on a computer. The method of claim 1, The selection method of the toner saving mode is made through a setting panel installed in the printer. The method of claim 1, And the toner saving mode is subdivided into first to third modes corresponding to upper, middle and lower levels according to the amount of toner saving. The method of claim 5, wherein when the first mode is selected, Rendering image data by one line; And Reducing the voltage supplied to the developing roller to reduce the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum; Print density control method of a printer comprising a. The method of claim 5, wherein when the second mode is selected, And printing the image data in a line-by-line fashion. The method of claim 5, wherein when selecting the third mode, Reducing the voltage supplied to the developing roller to reduce the amount of toner supplied to the photosensitive drum.