JPH11134120A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent increase of the processing time covering up to the interruption of the printing by specializing a function only when the printing is interrupted. SOLUTION: A printer is provided with a job cancel command adding function 6 which adds a job cancel command to the end of the print data whose genertion is interrupted, and a job cancel check mechanism 8 which outputs a form ejection signal if the end of the printing data has the job cancel command when a fixed time elapsed after the print data received from a host computer are interrupted. In such a constitution, the output of the print data is started after the printing is over if the printing is being executed when the form ejection signal is received. Meanwhile, the output of the printing data is instantaneously started if the printing is interrupted.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing system for immediately interrupting a printing process by a printer according to an instruction from a host computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a printing system for interrupting printing by a printer, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 9-114608
There is a technique described in Japanese Patent Publication No. In this method, a 1-byte control channel start identification signal and a control channel end identification signal are prepared in the host computer, and a logical channel related to control is transmitted after transmission of the control channel start identification signal and before transmission of the control channel end identification signal. By transmitting a signal from the host computer to the printer, the interruption of printing is controlled. In the print interruption control, if the same value as the control channel start identification signal is present in the print data, a dummy bit is inserted when the print data is created to distinguish the control data from the control channel start signal. Has been given.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional printing system, both the host computer side and the printer side once analyze the data created or received for transmission, and generate a control channel start identification signal. Since it is necessary to confirm whether or not the print data exists, the larger the print data becomes, the more the processing load increases, and it is necessary to perform the process both at the time of data creation and at the time of data reception. There is a problem that the processing time required until printing is interrupted becomes extremely long.

In the method of inserting a dummy bit to distinguish the control channel start identification signal from image data or the like, whether the data is created by inserting the dummy bit or whether such data is generated by accident There is no method for distinguishing such data, and there is a problem that such data cannot be distinguished particularly when outputting bitmap data.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention solves the above-described problems. By specializing functions only for interruption of printing, it is possible to prevent the processing time until interruption of printing from being lengthened. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing system which can provide print data to a printer after the interruption of printing and can prevent the next print data after printing from being adversely affected.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a printing system according to the present invention is provided in a host computer, and when the creation of print data is interrupted, a job is added to the end of the interrupted print data. A job cancel command adding mechanism for adding a cancel command, and a printer for receiving and printing the print data from the host computer, wherein when the print data is interrupted and a certain time has elapsed, the end data of the print data is A job cancel check mechanism for outputting a paper discharge signal when the command is a job cancel command is provided. When a print processing is executed when a paper discharge signal is received from the job cancel check mechanism, If the print process is interrupted after the print process is completed, the print data It is obtained so as to start the output of print data to the management unit.

Further, the printing system according to the second aspect of the present invention, when receiving a sheet discharge signal from the job cancel check mechanism, if the printing process is being executed, after the printing process is completed, When the printing process is interrupted, the print data processing unit is made to immediately discard the remaining print data.

In a printing system according to a third aspect of the present invention, when the job cancel check mechanism confirms that a job cancel command has been added, it sets a cancel confirmation flag having a job cancel command, When the print data processing unit completes the processing of the print data or confirms unidentifiable data, the print data processing unit outputs a request signal of a paper discharge signal in response to the job cancel command, and the cancel confirmation flag becomes active. If so, the job cancel check mechanism outputs a paper ejection signal to the print data processing unit, the print data processing unit outputs the processed print data, and discards the print data that could not be processed. It was made.

In a printing system according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, when the job cancel check mechanism receives a paper discharge signal, the print data is discarded.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of a printing system according to the present invention, which comprises a host computer 1 and a printer 2 as a printing device connected by a cable 3. This host computer 1
From a general computer such as a personal computer, a workstation, or a general-purpose computer, a point-of-sale information management system (PO
S) and those specialized for business use such as an automatic cash withdrawal machine (ATM).

The host computer 1 further includes a print data generation unit 4 for generating print data, a job cancellation determination unit 5 for determining an action of requesting an external job cancellation, and a job cancellation command addition mechanism 6.
And an output port 7 for outputting data to the printer 2. It should be noted that a circuit configuration for processing a process related to business processing also coexists outside the figure.

The printer 2 may be of any type as long as printing is possible. The printer 2 includes a job cancellation check mechanism 8 for determining a port to which print data is input, determining whether the end of the data input from the port is a job cancel command, and outputting a paper ejection signal. A print data processing unit 9 for discharging data from the frame buffer 10 and discarding unprocessed data when receiving a processing and paper discharge signal; a frame buffer 10 for temporarily storing image data; an output engine 11; The input / output port group 12 receives data sent from the computer 1.

Further, the job cancel check mechanism 8 includes an input / output port monitoring mechanism 13 for specifying an input / output port through which data is currently input / output, and a print for actually checking the last end of the print data. And a data monitoring mechanism 14. The cable 3 may be any cable that can physically and logically connect the host computer 1 and the printer 2. However, when the cable 3 is connected by a LAN or the like, a connection such as a gateway, a router, or a hub is used. Includes ancillary equipment. The print data processing unit 9
Also has a function of discarding data in the frame buffer when receiving a paper discharge signal.

Next, the operation will be described with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS. First, processing performed by the host computer 1 will be described. The operator uses an application on the host computer 1 to
After creating the application data you want to print,
Printing is started (step S101). The method of creating the application data is not related to the essence of the present invention, and therefore, the description is omitted here. As described above, when printing is started, the host computer 1 sequentially converts application data into print data that can be understood by the print data processing unit 9 of the printer 2 (step S102). Here, it is determined whether or not the conversion of all the application data has been completed (step S103). If there is no job cancellation request until the conversion processing is completed, the transmission of the print data to the printer 2 is completed. Then, the printing process ends normally (step S110).

On the other hand, before the conversion of all the application data is completed, it is checked whether or not the job has been canceled (step S104). If the job has been canceled, the conversion of the print data is immediately interrupted. To
The job cancel determination unit 5 instructs the print data generation unit 4 (Step S105), and transmits all print data (Step S106). After the output of all the print data is completed, the job cancel command adding mechanism 6 outputs the job cancel command to the printer 2 using the same output port 7 as the output of the print data (step S107). ), The printing is interrupted (step S108).

Next, processing performed in the printer 2 will be described. The print data sent from the host computer 1 is transmitted to one of the input / output ports 12
(Step S201). Upon receiving the print data, the port # 1 notifies the input / output port monitoring mechanism 13 of the fact (step S202). Here, it is determined whether or not another port is active (step S203). If the port is active, it is written into a table (storage table) for recording the print waiting order (step S20)
4) Wait until the processing of the other port ends (step S205). On the other hand, when the processing of another print port is completed, the print data processing unit 9 notifies the input / output port monitoring mechanism 13 of that fact, and in response, deactivates the port that is currently executing printing. Then, the highest port in the print waiting order is changed to active (step S20).
6).

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S203 that the other port is not active, the input / output port monitoring mechanism 13 deactivates the other port (step S207), and thereafter, the input port # 1 performs printing. Send the print data to the data monitoring mechanism 14 (step S2
08). The print data monitoring mechanism 14 sends the received data to the print data processing unit 9 (step S210), and updates the data in its own data buffer according to the first-in first-out (first-in first-out) rule (step S209). . The print data monitoring mechanism 1
The data buffer of No. 4 has a length sufficient to identify the job cancel command.

If the print data has been sent continuously (step S211), the print data monitoring mechanism 14 continues writing to the data buffer and sending it to the print data processing unit 9, but prints from the port. If it is determined that the data has been interrupted (step S211), the process waits for a predetermined time to elapse (step S212), checks the data in the data buffer, and checks whether the data matches the job cancel command. After checking whether or not there is a match (step S213), if they match, a sheet discharge signal is immediately output to the print data processing unit 9 (step S21).
4). This paper discharge signal activates a print interruption register in the print data processing unit 9.

Further, the print data processing unit 9 processes the print data sent from the print data monitoring mechanism 14, but the print data processing unit 9 may not be able to decode the print data for a certain period of time, If there is no input of the cancel command (step S215), the cancel check flag of the job cancel command is checked. If the cancel confirmation flag is active, the image data in the frame buffer 10 is immediately discharged, the print data that has not been processed is discarded, and the print end processing is performed (step S216).

As described above, depending on whether print data that can be developed at present is printed out or all data is discarded, incomplete data is stored in the memory in the printer 2 by the interruption processing from the host computer 1 side. Will not remain. Therefore, when executing the next print job, there is no need to perform another process or procedure such as clearing the memory.
Printing can be performed continuously.

If the host computer 1 has a job cancel command adding mechanism 6 at the end of the print data, and if the printer 2 has a job cancel command check mechanism 8 and a print data processing section 9, the intermediate section is provided. Since data transmission methods are not limited, not only one-to-one connection such as Centronics cable connection and serial communication, but also one-to-n (many) such as infrared communication and LAN environment
Job cancellation can be performed even in an environment.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, the print processing of the printer can be immediately interrupted by executing the job cancellation on the host computer when the print data processing is interrupted. It is not necessary to perform printing, thereby making it possible to avoid wasteful use and consumption of paper and toner. In addition, as long as data can be exchanged, the connection method between the host computer and the printer is not limited, so that there is an advantage that various connection methods can be used. Further, by performing the above-described interruption processing on the host computer and the printer, it is possible to minimize an increase in processing load even if the print data becomes large. The reason is,
This is because analysis of print data and the need for an encode / decoder when using dummy data are not required.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of print data by a host computer of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of print data by the printer of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Host computer 2 Printer 6 Job cancel command addition mechanism 8 Job cancellation check mechanism 9 Print data processing section

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A job cancel command adding mechanism provided in a host computer for adding a job cancel command to the end of the interrupted print data when the creation of print data is interrupted, and receiving print data from the host computer. A job cancel check mechanism that is provided in a printer that prints out a print job, and outputs a paper discharge signal when the print data is interrupted and a predetermined time has elapsed, and when the end data of the print data is the job cancel command, Upon receiving the paper discharge signal from the job cancel check mechanism, the print data is output immediately after the print processing is completed if the print processing is being executed, or immediately if the print processing is interrupted. A print data processing unit for starting. 2. A job cancel command adding mechanism provided in a host computer for adding a job cancel command to the end of the interrupted print data when the creation of print data is interrupted, and receiving print data from the host computer. A job cancel check mechanism that is provided in a printer that prints out a print job, and outputs a paper discharge signal when the print data is interrupted and a predetermined time has elapsed, and when the end data of the print data is the job cancel command, When receiving the paper discharge signal from the job cancel check mechanism, if the print processing is being executed, the print processing is terminated. If the print processing is interrupted, the remaining print data is immediately output. A print system comprising: a print data processing unit for performing discarding. 3. The job cancellation check mechanism according to claim 1,
When it is confirmed that the job cancel command is added, a cancel confirmation flag having the job cancel command is set, and when the print data processing unit finishes the processing of the print data or confirms unidentifiable data. Outputs a request signal of a paper discharge signal in response to the job cancel command, and when the cancel confirmation flag is active, the job cancel check mechanism outputs a paper discharge signal to the print data processing unit. 2. The printing system according to claim 1, wherein the print data processing unit outputs the processed print data and discards the print data that could not be processed. 4. The printing system according to claim 3, wherein the print data is discarded when the job cancel check mechanism receives a paper discharge signal.