JP2001344079A - Printing control method and printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing control method and a printing system capable of realizing an additional printing function in an image processing system, and facilitating countermeasures to the addition of a new additional printing function without changing the processing of the image processing system. SOLUTION: A plot information spool part 130 spools plot information reproduced according to a plot instruction from a printing application 110 as plot spool information 140, and the spooled plot spool information 140 is developed to a bit map image by a page image generating part 170, and a print command to plot the developed bit map image is generated by a plot printer driver 180, and a print command to plot information to be reproduced for performing an addition printing function designated by a user is generated by a plot printer driver 180 based on setting information from a UI information processing part 150, and the generated printing command is transmitted to a printer 200.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a printing control method and a printing system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a print utility capable of performing additional printing such as header / footer printing on drawing information (original image) issued by an application, drawing information (original image) other than that issued by the application is used. Before or after processing the drawing information (original image) issued by the application, the drawing information (header / footer information) other than that issued by the application is stored. It is realized by processing.

In addition, with the recent demand for higher quality of printed materials, very complicated print objects have to be generated due to higher functions of print applications and higher functions of printers.

For this reason, a so-called page description language (PD)
L), etc., when processing extremely complicated data, the data size of the PDL command becomes enormous data size, and it takes a long time if the printer processes the data very sequentially. In some cases, it is necessary to do so.

[0005] Further, when printing is performed using the PDL, illegal drawing may occur depending on the drawing capability of the target printer.

In order to solve these problems, a printer driver or a print utility having a built-in image developing function for generating a print bitmap on a host computer and transferring the print bitmap to a printer is increasing.

In general, the data size of image data depends on effects such as compression, but the maximum data size required to draw one page is determined. In some cases, image processing can be performed at higher speed by a printer. In some cases, by improving the drawing capability of the image expansion processing unit that generates image data, it is possible to support logical drawing (ROP) that cannot be handled by a printer. The print quality may be better than when printing.

In some cases, taking advantage of these advantages, the printing time is reduced by switching between a conventional processing system and an image processing system on a print page basis or the like.

[0009]

However, when an image processing system for generating a print bitmap is added to a print utility for performing additional printing, drawing of an additional print portion not issued by an application is performed by the image processing system. In addition, the code to reproduce the image of the additional print part must be incorporated into the image generation unit, which increases the development man-hours and adds a new additional print function to the image generation unit when a new additional print function is added. It was necessary to rewrite the code corresponding to the printing function.

In addition, in anticipation of an increase in the number of development steps, when there is a possibility that the image processing system may functionally perform the processing, the additional printing function is disabled, or when the additional printing function is selected, Workarounds have been taken to prevent processing in the image processing system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problem, and makes it possible to realize an additional printing function in an image processing system, and changes the processing of the image processing system even when a new additional printing function is added. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing control method and a printing system that can respond without any problems.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a printing control method for a host computer connected to a printing apparatus, wherein the printing information is reproduced in accordance with a drawing command from a printing application. A spooling step for spooling, a developing step for developing the spooled drawing information into a bitmap image, and a print command for drawing the expanded bitmap image and drawing information reproduced to execute an additional print function specified by the user And a transfer step of transferring the generated print command to the printing apparatus.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing system comprising a printing apparatus and a host computer connected to the printing apparatus, wherein the printing system is reproduced in accordance with a drawing command from a printing application. Spooling means for spooling the drawing information, developing means for developing the spooled drawing information into a bitmap image, a print command for drawing the expanded bitmap image, and an additional print function designated by the user for execution. And a transfer unit for transferring the generated print command to the printing apparatus.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the configuration of a printing system according to the present embodiment. As shown, the printing system comprises a host computer shown at 100 and a host computer 20.
0, and the host computer 100 and the printer 200 are connected by a predetermined communication medium.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the host computer 100 and the printer 200 are directly connected locally, but may be connected via a network such as a LAN.

The host computer 100 includes a CPU (not shown) and a storage device (not shown) such as a magnetic disk or a memory, and operates an operating system (hereinafter, referred to as an “OS”). And

In FIG. 1, applications 110,
The OS drawing interface 120, the drawing information spooling unit 130, the UI information processing unit 150, the drawing information despooling unit 160, the page image generating unit 170, and the drawing printer driver 180 are all programs, and are stored in a storage device in the host computer 100. And executed by the CPU. The drawing spool information 140 is information stored in a storage device in the host computer 100.

On the other hand, the printer 200 includes a printer controller and a printer engine (not shown). The printer controller has a print information controller, page memory,
The host computer 100 includes an output control unit and the like.
Analyzes the page description language (PDL) sent from
Output the video signal to the printer engine. The printer engine includes, for example, a recording medium transport mechanism, a semiconductor laser unit, a photosensitive drum, a developing unit, a fixing unit,
It is composed of a drum cloning unit, a separation unit and the like, and performs printing by a known electrophotographic process.

Next, the additional printing function in the present embodiment will be described. In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, the additional printing function will be briefly described by taking watermark printing, header / footer printing, and frame line printing as examples.

First, in watermark printing, a text character string specified by a user is converted to a specified position, size, font, character modification, color, rotation direction, drawing logic (R
OP) and so on on the original image.
Generally, drawing is performed on a base original image using drawing logic (ROP) that is (semi-) transparent, so that the recognizability of the base original image is not lost.

Next, in the header / footer printing, a character string or a drawing object designated by a user is arranged at the upper end, the lower end of the sheet, or other places. In general, various short character strings such as the number of pages, date, time, and print user name are printed.

When the above header / footer printing is performed by a print utility, it is common to reduce the size of the original image because it is easier to recognize the header / footer if it is arranged so as not to overlap the original image. is there.
However, there are cases where the print application itself provides an option to perform header / footer printing, and the header / footer printing by such a print application is recognized only as a drawing request of a normal application by the print utility targeted for this embodiment. Needless to say, you can't.

Finally, in the frame line printing, drawing is performed around the original image or a part of the original image with the attribute of the line specified by the user. As in the case of the header / footer printing described above, it is easier to recognize the border line printing by arranging the original image so that it does not overlap with the original image by reducing the size of the original image. is there.

As in the header / footer printing described above,
The print application itself may be provided as a function. In such a case, it goes without saying that the print utility according to the present embodiment can recognize only a drawing request of a normal application.

Further, the additional printing of watermark printing, header / footer printing, and border line printing shown in FIG. 2 is merely an example, and additional printing of various other functions and specifications actually exists. There are various print utilities for realizing.

As described above, the additional printing in the present embodiment is an object that the user prints through the printer driver or the UI of the print utility, and is always specified by the user without depending on the type or option of the printing application. The object is placed at a designated position in accordance with a designated rule, is printed by a print application, and is printed on the same sheet as a drawing object issued by the print application when instructed by a user.

Further, processing such as reduction to an original image caused by turning on the additional printing function is not included in the additional printing in the present embodiment.

Next, the operation at the time of additional printing in the present embodiment will be described.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation at the time of additional printing in this embodiment. First, when there is a print request from the user, the application 100 calls the drawing interface 120 of the OS and issues a drawing command. Thus, the OS drawing interface 12
0 converts the drawing command of the application 100 into the drawing information form, and calls the drawing information spool unit 130 (step S101).

That is, the drawing information spool unit 130
Must be in the form of a printer driver.

As a drawing interface of the OS, for example, Graphic of Windows series which is an OS of Microsoft Corporation
Device Interface (GDI) or O from Apple Computer
S is a well-known OS drawing interface such as Mac OS series Quick Draw.

Of course, when the user enters the printer driver UI
When the additional print option is selected from the part, the UI
As part of the setting information, the additional print information is also passed to the drawing information spool unit 130. Also, the printer driver U
For example, when the print utility has settings related to additional printing independently of the I portion, the drawing information despool 1
60 obtains such information.

In the present embodiment, the user can select an additional print option from the UI portion of the printer driver. The additional print information is provided as a part of the UI setting information through the drawing information spooling unit 130 and the drawing information despooling unit. It is to be passed to the unit 160.

Next, the called drawing information spool unit 1
30 converts the drawing information passed from the drawing interface 120 of the OS into a format that can be interpreted by the drawing information despooling unit 160, and stores it as a drawing spool information 140 in a storage device such as a disk (step S102).

In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the operation is performed in a Windows environment.
It is desirable that the API be of a format that can call the API of I, but it may be a format that inherits the format of GDI's DDI (Device Driver Interface). That is, the information only needs to be in a form on the premise that the drawing information despooling unit 160 calls it from the drawing interface of the OS. Of course, the UI setting information is also stored as a part of the drawing spool information 140. Further, this UI setting information is used when a later actual print job is generated.

In addition, statistical information on a drawing object which is used as a judgment material for determining a processing system of a later page is collected, and the end of the page or the like is used as a trigger to generate a part of the drawing spool information 140 or a separate file. It is stored in a storage device such as a disk.

When the drawing spool information 140 for one page has been stored (Yes in step S103), the drawing information spool unit 130 activates the drawing information despool unit 160. The drawing information despooling unit 160 reads the drawing spool information 140, and first determines a processing system (step S104).

In the following description, a processing system for performing reproduction by calling the OS drawing interface 120 will be referred to as a PDL processing system, and a processing system for performing reproduction using the page image generation unit 170 will be referred to as an image processing system. I do.

Here, the total print time when the PDL processing system is selected, the total print time when the image processing system is selected, and the statistical information on the previously spooled drawing object are determined. Select a processing system that can process, or select an image processing system if it is considered to cause drawing irregularity based on the drawing capability of the target printer, or perform processing that matches the purpose of each system Perform system selection.

It should be noted that the contents of the statistical information on the drawing object, which is used as a determination material for determining the processing system of the page by the drawing information spooling unit 130, and the criteria for determining the processing system in the drawing information despooling unit 160 are described in this embodiment. It should be noted that this is not the scope of the embodiment.

Further, the determination of the processing system is irrelevant to this embodiment, and it may be assumed that the image processing system is always operating.

Next, the drawing information despooling unit 160 generates a new print job for the OS from the UI information included in the drawing spool information 140, regardless of which processing system is determined (step S105).

That is, the job previously issued by the application 110 is a job that disappears when all pages have been spooled, and is not a job for performing direct printing. Therefore, the print utility according to the present embodiment generates a new print job that inherits the job generated by the application 110, and performs printing with the generated new print job.

Next, the drawing information despooling unit 160 acquires the UI setting information included in the drawing spool information 140 via the UI processing unit 150. Although it is possible to directly refer to the UI setting information included in the drawing spool information 140 by omitting this processing, the provision of the UI information processing unit 150 enables It is possible to develop in a form that does not depend on.

However, when the format itself relating to the specific drawing of the drawing spool information 140 is added or changed, the drawing information despooling unit 160 also needs to operate in synchronization.

Based on the acquired UI setting information, the drawing information despooling unit 160 determines whether an additional printing option is specified (step S106). If additional printing is specified, detailed information on the additional printing is set. Know the contents.

An additional printing option that requires drawing before drawing performed by the application, for example, an additional printing option that requires placing some drawing object on the background of an original image issued by the application has been specified. In this case, after appropriately initializing the printing environment, a routine corresponding to the additional printing is called, and a series of drawing interfaces 120 of the OS is called to cause the drawing printer driver 180 to generate a print command corresponding to the additional printing. (Step S10
7).

If there is no additional print to be processed before performing the drawing issued by the application, reproduction of the drawing issued by the application is performed in the processing system determined previously (step S108).

Here, if the PDL processing system has been selected, the drawing spool information 140 is reproduced by calling the drawing interface 120 of the OS to reproduce the spooled drawing information in the drawing information despooling unit 160. To play. Of course, by using this reproducing means, the drawing printer driver 180 receives drawing information via the drawing interface 120 of the OS and sequentially converts the drawing information into a print command.

When the image processing system has been selected, the drawing control information necessary for developing the image is sent to the page image generating section 170, and the page image generating section 170 refers to the drawing spool information 140. While
Image development to a separately prepared page memory. Of course, the page image generation unit 170 may use a technique such as banding as necessary.

It is desirable that the format of the drawing image generated by the page image generation unit 170 be the minimum necessary format based on UI setting information and the like. For example, in a color laser beam printer or the like, the color space finally used for printing inside the printer is represented by Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan), and K (black). On the other hand, the host computer expresses colors using the R (red), G (green), and B (blue) color spaces. Of course, it is not a problem to send a drawing image in RGB color to a printer that supports RGB color input.
A total of 24 bits of data are requested for one dot.

However, in general, the number of gradations used in a printer is about 1, 2, or 4 bits for each color of YMCK even in a color printer, and overwhelmingly RBG is converted to YMCK up to YMCK color. Convert, 8 bits to 1/2
When the gradation processing is performed to / 4 bits and the number of gradations is reduced, the transfer data amount can be reduced.

However, since the YMCK colorized image signal is in a format that can be directly loaded on the video signal of the printer engine, the image may be messed up when the enlargement or reduction processing is performed.

Therefore, whenever it is necessary to reduce the size of the original image due to the additional printing specifications, the page image generation unit 170 receives these reduction parameters, and before passing the drawing spool information to the expansion means in the page image generation unit 170. Should be processed with the size and coordinates subjected to the reduction processing.

The drawing image generated by the page image generation unit 170 is passed to the drawing printer driver 180 by using a path such as an extended escape path prepared by the drawing interface 120 of the OS, and an appropriate print command The data is sent to the printer 200 in a format.

When the reproduction of the relevant page is completed in this way, the drawing information despooling unit 160 determines whether additional printing to be processed after performing drawing performed by the application is specified (step S109).
If additional printing needs to be performed here, a routine corresponding to the additional printing is called, and a series of OS drawing interfaces 120 is called, as in the above-described case. A command is generated (step S110).

Then, the drawing printer driver 180
Regardless of the drawing information generated by the DL processing system or the additional printing, or the drawing image created by the image generating unit 170, the received information to be used as a print command is sequentially converted into a print command. (Step S111).

The printing is completed by performing the above processing for all pages (Yes in step S112).

In this embodiment, the drawing information spool unit 130 and the drawing printer driver 180 have been described as being separate components for the sake of simplicity. Since the printer driver for the printer and the OS need to be recognized, they should be the same module on the system.

In this case, a part for dispatching whether the same module operates as the drawing information spool unit 130 or the drawing printer driver 180 is required. For example, by rewriting a part of the UI information which is set when the drawing information despooling unit 160 generates a new print job, a mechanism for operating the drawing printer driver 180 is provided, and conversely, additional printing is performed. Only in this case, the UI of the printer driver is set to operate as the drawing information spooling unit 130 for the printer driver, and this setting is changed to the drawing information despooling unit 160.
, And a mechanism for generating a new print job is required.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, even when the image processing system is selected in the printing system, the additional printing is performed by the drawing interface 12 of the OS.
It becomes possible by calling 0.

When the drawing information despooler 160 has the same configuration and supports the N-UP printing function, the processing system for reproduction is selected for each logical page. The system can be selected. Even in such a case, it is possible to easily provide the additional printing function described above.

Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine, a facsimile machine) comprising one device Device).

An object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus, and to provide a computer (CPU or MP) of the system or apparatus.
It goes without saying that U) can also be achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy (registered trademark) disk,
Hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-
A ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, and the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) May perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing may realize the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

[0070]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The image processing system can realize the additional printing function, and can cope with the addition of a new additional printing function without changing the processing of the image processing system.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an additional printing function according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation at the time of additional printing in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 100 host computer 110 application 120 OS drawing interface 130 drawing information spool unit 140 drawing spool information 150 UI information processing unit 160 drawing information despooling unit 170 page image generation unit 180 drawing printer driver 200 printer

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A printing control method for a host computer connected to a printing apparatus, comprising: a spooling step of spooling drawing information reproduced according to a drawing command from a printing application; and converting the spooled drawing information into a bitmap image. A generating step of generating a print command for drawing the expanded bitmap image and a print command for drawing drawing information reproduced to execute the additional print function specified by the user; Transferring a print command to the printing apparatus. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the generation of the print command is performed on a page basis, and the generation step generates a print command of the bitmap image and a print command of the additional print function within the same page. The print control method according to claim 1. 3. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the drawing command is converted into drawing information by a drawing interface of an operating system. 4. A printing system comprising a printing apparatus and a host computer connected to the printing apparatus, wherein the spooling means spools drawing information reproduced in accordance with a drawing command from a printing application. Generating a rendering command for rendering the rendered drawing information into a bitmap image, a print command for rendering the rendered bitmap image, and a print command for rendering the rendering information reproduced to execute an additional print function specified by the user. And a transfer unit for transferring the generated print command to the printing apparatus. 5. The print command is generated for each page, and the generation unit generates a print command for the bitmap image and a print command for the additional print function within the same page. The printing system according to claim 4. 6. The printing system according to claim 4, wherein the drawing command is converted into drawing information by a drawing interface of an operating system. 7. A computer-readable storage medium in which a program code of a printing control method in a host computer connected to a printing apparatus is recorded, wherein a spool for spooling drawing information reproduced in accordance with a drawing command from a printing application is provided. Process code, code of the expansion process to expand the spooled drawing information into a bitmap image, print command to draw the expanded bitmap image, and drawing reproduced to execute the additional print function specified by the user A storage medium, comprising: a code of a generation step of generating a print command for drawing information; and a code of a transfer step of transferring the generated print command to the printing apparatus. 8. A print control method for a host computer connected to a printing apparatus, comprising: a spooling step of spooling drawing information reproduced in accordance with a drawing command from a printing application; PDL
A conversion step of converting the data into data, a generation step of generating a print command to execute an additional print function designated by a user, and transferring the converted image data or PDL data and the generated print command to the printing apparatus. A print control method comprising: