KR900006060B1 - Font kerning method of laser beam printer - Google Patents

Abstract

The height of character is divided by 3 and each corner data is stored in each bit of 1 byte font memory as the kerning data. In typing the left 4 bits are allocated to the after buffer placed at certain address of the system memory and ANDing with the right 4 bits kerning data stored at the before buffer of which data is for former printed character. If the output of ANDing is "0", it is determined for kerning, but no kerning if it is "1". After that, the right 4 bits of the kerning data are allocated to the before buffer for discriminating the kerning state of next character.

Description

Font Kerning Method of Laser Beam Printer

1 is a diagram of a conventional font memory structure and font structure.

2 is a view illustrating a conventional character printing.

3 is an explanatory diagram of a font memory structure of the present invention.

4 is a font explanatory diagram of font divisions and respective parts of the present invention.

5 is an exemplary drawing of kerning information in accordance with the present invention.

6 is a kerning information processing flowchart of the present invention.

7 is a perspective view of the character printing form according to the present invention.

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to kerning of fonts, and more particularly, to a font kerning method of a laser beam printer in which constant information is stored in a bit image of a font so as to determine whether kerning is performed according to each character during printing. will be.

The conventional font memory structure has a font height, a Y-offset, a font width, an X-offset, and a bitmap, as shown in FIG. maps are stored sequentially. Therefore, when the font is printed, the start position of the font is determined based on the height and width information of the font, and then bitmaps are sequentially received and printed.

Here, the X-offset represents the distance between the first letter and the letter to be printed as shown in (b) of FIG. 1, and the Y-offset represents the degree of descending from the base line. Is the minimum number of dots the character occupies when printed.

A case where "Type" is printed using the conventional font memory as described above will be described with reference to FIG. 2 as an example.

First, the current position of the raster memory is placed at the position where the character is to be written (P1), and then the corresponding font is found by receiving the American Information Exchange Standard Code (ASCII) of the character to be written, and the address is obtained from the font start address of the font. The value of the height and the Y-offset is read while increasing the value, and the current position of the raster memory is placed at the starting point P2 of the "T" character from the height and the Y-offset value. Then, the raster information of the font is accessed and stored in the raster memory, and the current position is placed on the reference line P3 for the next character to be written. Thereafter, even when the letter "Y" is written, the process is repeated in the same manner as when the letter "T" is written.

However, in the case of printing by such a conventional method, as shown in FIG. 2, the spacing of the "T" and the "T" appears wider than the spacing of the "Y" and the "P", resulting in unbalanced overall. You can also use the X-Offset to overwrite the "Y" character with the "T" character, but do not overwrite the "Y" character with the "M" or "N" character. There was a flaw that you must write or uniformly overwrite all the letters.

In order to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, the present invention has been devised to store kerning information for each character in a font memory so as to automatically determine the presence or absence of kerning according to each character during printing. Detailed description with reference to the following.

3 is an explanatory diagram of a font memory structure according to the present invention. As shown in this figure, kerning information is added and stored on top of a font memory in which the height, Y-offset, width, and X-offset of a font are sequentially stored. .

On the other hand, as shown in (a) of FIG. 4, the kerning information is divided into three parts by the height occupied by him to determine each position (ah), and information about the angular position is shown in (b) of FIG. As described above, recording is made corresponding to each bit of one byte. That is, "1" is stored in the bit of the corresponding position where the letter is filled in each position (a-h), and "0" is stored in the bit of the corresponding position where the character is not filled.

For example, the kerning information for the letter "Y" becomes "01010100" as shown in (a) of FIG. 5, and the kerning information for the letter "T" and "M" is similar to that of FIG. And "10001000" and "11101110" as shown in (c).

In this way, kerning information for each character is determined, and the kerning information is stored in the font memory, and the case of printing "Type" will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the current position of the raster memory is placed at the position (P1) to be written as a letter, and the corresponding font is found by receiving the ASCII code of the letter "T" to be written. Thereafter, the kerning information of the "T" is stored in the font memory, and the raster information of the font memory is accessed and stored in the raster memory with the current position of the raster memory at the start point P2 of the "T" character.

Then, it is determined whether the kerning information of the next letter "Y" and the kerning information of "T" are to be kerned or not by the flowchart of Fig. 6. That is, the kerning information stored in the font memory as described above is determined. Read and allocate the left 4 bits of the kerning information to the buffer after the fixed address of the system memory, and the 4 bits allocated to the back buffer to the buffer before the constant address of the system memory. If it is " 0 " by AND with 4 bits, it is determined to be kerned, and if it is " 1 "

For example, the right 4 bit kerning information "1000" of the letter "T" is already assigned to the front buffer, and the left 4 bit "0101" of the letter "Y" is assigned to the back buffer and the amount of kerning information. If " 1000 " and " 0101 "

Therefore, at this time, it is determined to be kerned and the "Y" letter is overwritten by "T" and X-offset. Thereafter, the right 4 bits of "Y" character kerning information "0100" is allocated to the front buffer to determine whether the next character is kerning.

By repeating this method, when "Type" is printed, "T" and "Y" are printed by overlapping X-offset as shown in FIG.

As described in detail above, the present invention determines whether a character is kerning in a laser beam printer that prints a character using a font, and in the case of kerning, the character can be printed by overlapping an X-offset. The effect will look more harmonious.

Claims (1)

In a laser beam printer that prints characters using fonts, the characters are divided into three parts by their height, and information about each corner position (ah) is stored as kerning information in the font memory corresponding to each bit of 1 byte. Reads the kerning information of the font memory when the character is printed, allocates the left 4 bits of the kerning information to a buffer after it is allocated to a fixed address in the system memory, and then assigns a buffer to the constant address of the system memory. If it is "0", it is determined to be kerned. If it is "1", it is determined that it is not kerning. Then, it is determined that it is not to be kerned. And a bit is assigned to the front buffer to determine whether the bit is kerning with the next print character.

Images