JP2001100954A - Device and method for print control - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To speed up a printing process using a spooler. SOLUTION: When print data are passed from an application 11 to a spooler 21, a despooler 23 is informed that one page has been spooled at the end of the spooling on condition that the print data are printed forward. The despooler 23 informed of the end of the spooling of one page despools the page and sends a print command to a printer 40. When the print data are printed backward, the spooler informs the despooler that the previous page has been spooled at its end.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a printing control apparatus and method, such as a printer driver for providing a printing command to a printing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when printing is performed using a printer driver by an application on a computer, the following processing has been performed. The printer driver has a designation of a printing order. With respect to the order of pages passed by the application software to the printer driver, there are two types of printing, the normal order printing in the same order and the reverse order printing in the opposite order. Can be specified.

When a user executes printing from a menu of an application, the application sends a print message to a device driver designated in advance through a system API. The printer driver extracts necessary information from a print message from the application, writes the information in a file, and spools the print message of all pages to the file.

When the application finishes the printing process, the printer driver despools the spool file. First, print settings such as a print order are taken out and initialized. Then, the printing order is determined according to the setting of the printing order, the stored print messages are obtained one by one from the spool file, and they are sequentially processed to create bitmap data, and the bitmap data is subjected to halftone processing. To generate a command to be passed to the printing device, and transmit the command to the printing device.

[0005] Upon receiving the above command, the printing apparatus analyzes the received command, and if the command is a command for printing, prepares for printing and performs actual printing.

[0006]

However, the conventional method has the following problems.

Conventionally, printing is performed after spooling print messages of all pages, so that the printing apparatus cannot be operated until spooling is completed. Therefore, in order for the user to view the first page of the print data, there is a problem in that the issuance of the print message of all pages has to be completed, and the user has to wait until the printing of the first page started thereafter is completed.

Further, since the printing speed of the printing apparatus is slower than the processing of the application or the driver, it is necessary to send print data to the printing apparatus as soon as possible in order to obtain a printing result of all pages as soon as possible. However, conventionally, since printing is performed after spooling a print message of all pages, there has been a problem that the printing apparatus cannot be operated until spooling is completed.

[0009] Some types of application software can change printer driver settings for some pages of one document. With such application software, it is possible to change the designation of the page order in one document, but there is a problem that the printer driver cannot print in the order set by the user.

Further, when two sequentially executed processes are executed in parallel, there is a problem in that the end time of the process executed first in the sequential execution is delayed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problem. By performing writing and reading of print data in parallel and asynchronously, the timing at which printing is started and the timing until printing is completed are described. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print control apparatus and method capable of shortening the time.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a print control apparatus and method capable of performing printing in the order according to the setting even if the printing order is changed in the middle of a document.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a print control apparatus and method capable of performing printing without delay by preventing printing data writing processing from being delayed by asynchronously performing writing and reading of printing data.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above object, a print control apparatus according to the present invention has the following arrangement.

Storage means for storing print data, writing means for writing the print data to the storage means in the order in which the print data has been generated, and print data for a desired page which can be read from the storage means; Reading means for sending to the printing apparatus, wherein the writing means issues a notification indicating a readable page to the reading means, and the reading means, upon receiving the notification, prints the notified page. Data is read from the storage means.

Preferably, in the case of normal printing in which the order in which the print data is generated and the order in which the print data is printed, the writing means writes the print data for one page every time the print data is written. The number of pages is notified to the reading unit, and in the case of reverse printing in which the order in which print data is generated and the order in which print data is printed are reversed, after writing of print data for all pages is completed, all pages are printed. The reading means is notified that the writing has been completed.

Preferably, when the printing order is changed from the reverse order to the normal order, the writing unit notifies the reading unit of the number of pages written after the change.

Preferably, the reading means stops the processing for a predetermined time after sending the print data to the printing apparatus.

Preferably, the time during which the reading means stops processing is longer as the amount of print data to be written to the storage means by the writing means is longer.

[0020]

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a printing system according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 10 is a host computer, and 40 is a printing device.

In the host 10, 13 is a printing device 40
Interface for transmitting image data to the printer 4
0 is connected to the interface. The printing apparatus according to the present embodiment receives bitmap data. Further, the host 10 stores application software 11 and a spooler 21 which is a printer driver of this embodiment, which performs spool processing, and a despooler 23 which performs despool processing and creates print data, in its main storage or auxiliary storage device. Is done.

The printer driver of this embodiment is composed of two processes: a spooler 21 for performing a spool process and a despooler 23 for performing a despool process to create print data. The two processes exchange information via the spool file 22 and inter-process communication.
The spool file 22 is spooled by the spooler 21 and despooled by the despooler 23.

In the spooler 21, reference numeral 31 denotes a message analyzing unit for analyzing a print message from the application 11, and reference numeral 32 denotes a message spooling unit for spooling a result analyzed by the message analyzing unit 21 to a spool file 22.

In the despooler 23, reference numeral 34 denotes a message reproducing unit for despooling a message from the spool file 22, 35 a message analyzing unit for analyzing the message despooled by the message reproducing unit 34, and 36 a page obtained by analyzing the result analyzed by the message analyzing unit 35. An image developing unit for developing the image in the memory 39, a binarizing unit 37 for performing binarization by a method such as pattern dithering or error diffusion, and a data analyzing unit 35 for binarizing data by the binarizing unit
And a command memory 39 for generating a command for transmitting a command to the printing apparatus 40 based on information from the printer.

FIG. 7 shows a configuration for realizing the functional blocks of FIG. 1 by executing a program by a processor.
Shown in In FIG. 7, the host computer 10
A CPU 1 that executes document processing in which graphics, images, characters, tables (including spreadsheets, etc.) are mixed based on a document processing program or the like stored in a program ROM of the OM 3 is connected to the system bus 4. CPU for each device
1 performs overall control. The RAM 2 functions as a main memory, a work area, and the like for the CPU 1. A keyboard controller (KBC) 5 controls a key input from a keyboard 9 or a pointing device (not shown). The CRT controller (CRTC) 6 includes a CRT display 71
Control the display of. Disk controller (DKC) 7
Controls access to an external memory 72 such as a hard disk (HD) storing a boot program, various applications, font data, user files, and editing files, and a floppy (registered trademark) disk (FD). The spool file 22 is secured in the external memory 72 or the RAM 2. Printer controller (PRT)
C) 8 is a predetermined bidirectional interface (bidirectional I /
F) It is connected to the printer 40 via 21 and executes communication control processing with the printer 40. Note that the CPU 1
For example, a process of developing (rasterizing) an outline font to the display information RAM set on the RAM 2 is executed, and WYSIWYG (a function of matching display contents and print contents) on the CRT 71 is enabled. Also, C
The PU 1 opens various registered windows based on commands specified by a mouse cursor or the like (not shown) on the CRT 21 and executes various data processing.

The functional blocks of FIG. 1 and the procedure of the flowchart described later are described in the RAM 2 or the program ROM 3.
Is executed by the CPU 1 executing the program stored in the.

In the printer 40, the printer CPU 1
2 controls access to various devices connected to the system bus 15 based on a control program or the like stored in a control program or the like stored in a program ROM of the ROM 73, and controls a printing unit I / F 16 An image signal as output information is output to a printing unit (printer engine) 17 connected via the. CPU 12 is a bidirectional I / F
The communication processing with the host computer can be performed via the communication device 21, and information and the like in the printer can be notified to the host computer 10. RAM 19 is CPU
RAM functioning as 21 main memory, work area, etc.
It is. The input unit 18 is configured to control communication of status information such as print status information and the like via the bidirectional interface 21 with the host computer 10 and to notify the host computer 10 of information and the like in the printer.
The memory controller (MC) 20 controls access to the external memory 14 such as a hard disk (HD) or a floppy disk (FD) for storing a boot program, various applications, font data, user files, edit files, and the like. The operation unit 1012 includes a display panel and a keyboard, and provides information to an operator and inputs an instruction from the operator.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of a print information processing procedure in the spooler 21 shown in this embodiment.

When printing is started, the spooler 21 first performs an initialization process (S101), and receives a print start message from the application software 11 (S101).
102).

Then, the application software 1
1 receives the top message of the page (S10
3) The message analysis unit 31 analyzes the print message to obtain initialization information including information such as the print order, and the message spool unit 32 spools the initialization information to the spool file 22 (S104). It is checked whether it is the first page (S105), and if it is the first page, the start of printing is notified to the despooler 23 (S106).

The print message is spooled by the message spool unit 32 (S107), the next print message is acquired from the application software 11, and analyzed by the message analysis unit 31 (S108). Is repeated until the process is completed (S109).

When the spooling of the print message for one page is completed, it is checked whether the page processed immediately before is designated for reverse printing (S110).
That is, in the case of normal printing, the number of spooled pages is notified to the despooler (S111). Upon receiving this notification, the despooler starts reading the print message from the spool file.

It is confirmed whether or not to change the setting of the printing order on the next page (S112). If the printing order is to be changed, the setting of the page is changed (S113), and the number of spooled pages is sent to the despooler 23. Notify (S21
4). This is repeated until the spooling of the print message for all pages is completed (S115). When the spooling is completed, the spooler is notified of the spooling end (S1).
16). At this time, if the printing is in the reverse order, the number of spooled pages is not notified to the despooler, and thus the number of previous pages is notified when spooling ends.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of a print information processing procedure in the despooler 23 shown in this embodiment. When printing is started, the despooler 23 first performs an initialization process (S201), and receives a print start notification from the spooler 21 (S202).

Then, the process waits until the spooling of the page to be next despooled is completed (S203), and the message reproducing unit 34 retrieves the page initialization information from the spool file 22 (S204). In consideration of the above, the number of the page to be despooled is acquired (S205), and the page is rendered (S2).
06). The spool end of the page to be despooled is shown in FIG.
In step S111, step S114, or step S116, the notification is made from the spooler.

When a print end message is received (S20)
7) The last page number is stored (S208), the last page number is compared with the current page number to check whether all pages have been completed (S209), and these processes are repeated until the end.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of a page drawing process performed by the despooler 23 of this embodiment in step S206 of FIG. First, the print message is read from the spool file 22 by the message reproducing unit 34 (S301), and the read message is analyzed by the message analyzing unit 35 (S302).
The image developing unit 36 creates bitmap data in the page memory 39 (S303). This is repeated until all the print messages for one page are completed (S304). When all the print messages for one page are completed, the data in the page memory 39 is binarized by the binarizing section 37 (S305), and a print command is created by the command creating section 38 and transmitted to the printing apparatus 40 (S306).

According to the above processing, the spooler 21 and the despooler 23 are independent processes, and the spooler 21 can spool a print message passed from the application software 11 irrespective of the degree of progress of the processing of the despooler 23.

According to the above processing, the despooler 23
Can know whether or not the spooling of the page to be despooled has been completed by the notification from the spooler 21.
Wait for the page to finish spooling before starting despooling. Here, the spooler 21 notifies the despooler 23 of the number of pages that have been spooled for each page in the normal order of the pages, thereby notifying the spooler of the page.
On the other hand, for pages in reverse order, the spooler 21 notifies that spooling of pages to be despooled has ended immediately after the page order has been changed to normal order, or after spooling of all pages has ended. The despooler 23 does not immediately start printing because there is no notification of the page to be despooled even if the spooling is started for the pages set in reverse order, and should print the last page set in reverse order, that is, first. After the page has been spooled, a notification to that effect is received, and then despooling is performed in reverse order from the last spooled page to the first spooled page. Therefore, in the reverse order, printing can be performed in the set order. Also, in the normal order, each time one page is spooled, the spooled pages are despooled,
The time required to start printing the first page and the time required to complete printing the previous page can be reduced.

Even when the printing order is set to be changed within one document, printing can be performed in the order according to the setting.

In this embodiment, the entire page of the despooled message is drawn at once, but the page may be divided into a plurality of areas and drawn sequentially.

As described above, according to the printer driver of the present embodiment, for the page on which the spool of the print message has been completed, the spool file of the spool end page is started to be despooled while the spool process of another page is being executed. By sending a command to the printing device,
By hastening the printing start of the printing apparatus, there is an effect that the printing end time of the first page can be obtained earlier.

Also, for the page for which the spool of the print message has been completed, the spool file of the spool end page is started to be despooled and the command is transmitted to the printer while the spool processing of the other page is being executed. Has the effect that the printing end time for all pages can be obtained earlier.

In a printer driver which starts despooling of a spool file of the spool end page and transmits a command to a printing apparatus while a spool process of another page is being executed for a page for which spooling of a print message has been completed, According to the change of the printing order in the middle, there is an effect that the printing result can be obtained in the printing order as set by the user.

[Second Embodiment] The configuration of a printing system according to a second embodiment of the present invention is also shown in FIG. The processing of the spooler 21 in the present embodiment is also shown in FIG. 2, and the processing of the despooler 23 is also shown in FIG. However, the procedure of the page drawing process by the despooler 23 in step S206 of FIG. 3 is different from that of the first embodiment. In the procedure of FIG. 5, a print command is issued in units of a band obtained by dividing one page in the scanning line direction, and the despooler is put to sleep as necessary during that time.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an example of a page drawing processing procedure by the despooler 23 shown in this embodiment. First, the print message is read from the spool file 22 by the message reproducing unit 34 (S401), and the read message is analyzed by the message analyzing unit 35 (S402). As a result of the analysis, if the data is within the band of interest, the image expanding unit At 36, bitmap data is created in the page memory 39 (S403).
This is repeated until all the print messages for one page are completed (S404). When all the print messages for one page are completed, the binarizing unit 37 binarizes the data of the band of interest in the page memory 39 (S405), and the command creating unit 3
In step 8, a print command is created and transmitted to the printing device 40 (S406). Thereafter, a sleep process is performed (S40).
7). The above process is performed on all the bands in the page (S408), thereby drawing the entire page.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of the sleep processing procedure by the despooler 23 in step S407 of FIG. First, it is determined whether or not the spool is being spooled (S501). If the spool is being spooled, it is determined whether or not there is a drawing object in the processed band, that is, the band transmitted to the printing apparatus in step S406 (S5).
02) If there is a drawing object, it is determined whether or not there is print data in the processed band (S503). If there is print data, it is determined whether it is the print data at the top of the page (S504). If it is at the top of the page, sleep for 8 seconds (S505), otherwise sleep for 4 seconds (S506). If it is determined in step S502 that there is no print data, it is determined whether there is print data already transmitted in the page being processed (S507), and if so, sleeps for 2 seconds (S508).

The conditions under which the despooler sleeps in the above procedure are as follows. (1) Do not sleep unless spooling. (2) During spooling, the sleep time is determined under the following conditions.

(2-1) When the first data of the page is sent to the printer, the printer takes a long time to complete the printing of the received data because the printer performs paper feeding and cleaning processing prior to the printing processing. In that case, the despooler sleeps for 8 seconds.

(2-2) Even if the print data is sent to the printer, if it is not the top of the page, the printer only needs to perform the print processing, and the processing prior thereto is unnecessary. In this case, the despooler sleeps for 4 seconds.

(2-3) If print data has already been sent to the printer within the same page, the printer may be printing those data. In this case, the despooler is 2
Sleep for a second.

(2-4) In other cases, the printer does not receive the print data, and the despooler does not sleep to send the print data to the printer immediately.

By spooling / despooling the print data while putting the despooler to sleep in the above-described procedure, if the print data cannot be processed even if the print data is received due to the large amount of processing to be performed by the printer, the despooler is put to sleep. The time allotted to the processing can be reduced, and the time allotted to the spooler processing can be increased. Therefore, when the printing speed of the printing device 40 or the processing speed of the printer driver is slow, the time required for spooling the data from the application software 11 can be reduced without affecting the entire printing time.

According to the present embodiment, the sleep processing is performed for an appropriate time depending on the presence / absence of drawing data and the presence / absence of print data between bands, thereby changing the distribution of the processing time of the spooler 21 and the despooler 23. In addition, the despooling process can be interrupted in accordance with the operation time of the printing apparatus based on the transmitted print data, and the print processing time of the application software 11 can be reduced without affecting the entire printing time.

[0055]

[Other Embodiments] 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) Machine, facsimile machine, etc.).

Further, an object of the present invention is to realize a storage medium (or a recording medium) that records the program codes of the procedures shown in FIGS. 3 to 6 for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiment.
Is supplied to a system or apparatus, and the computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus reads out and executes the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. By executing the program code read by the computer, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also an operating system (OS) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. This also includes a case where some or all of the actual processing is performed and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in the memory provided in the function expansion card inserted into the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. This also includes the case where the CPU provided in the function expansion card or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0058]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By performing the writing and reading of the print data in parallel and asynchronously, the timing at which printing is started and the time until printing is completed can be shortened.

Even if the printing order is set to be changed in the middle of a document, printing can be performed in the order according to the setting.

Further, by asynchronously performing the writing and reading of the print data, it is possible to prevent the writing process of the print data from being delayed and to perform printing without delay.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system according to a first embodiment and a second embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a flowchart of a spooler 21 in the first embodiment and the second embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a flowchart of a despooler 23 in the first embodiment and the second embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a flowchart of a page drawing process of the despooler 23 in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a flowchart of a page drawing process of a despooler 23 in the second embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a flowchart of a sleep process of a despooler 23 in the second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Host computer 11 Application software 13 Byteronics interface 21 Spooler 22 Spool file 23 Despooler 31 Message analysis part 32 Message spool part 34 Message reproduction part 35 Message analysis part 36 Image development part 37 Binarization part 38 Command preparation part 39 Band memory 40 Printer

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. A storage unit for storing print data, a writing unit for writing print data to the storage unit in the order in which the print data has been generated, and a print unit for reading print data of a desired page from the storage unit. Reading means for sending data to a printing apparatus, wherein the writing means issues a notification indicating a readable page to the reading means, and the reading means, upon receiving the notification, A print control device for reading out the print data from the storage means. 2. The printing device according to claim 1, wherein in the case of normal printing in which the order in which the print data is generated and the order in which the print data is printed match, each time one page of print data is written, In the case of reverse printing, in which the order in which print data is generated and the order in which print data is printed are reversed, after the writing of print data for all pages is completed, writing of all pages is performed. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printing control unit notifies the reading unit that the printing is completed. 3. The print control according to claim 1, wherein the writing unit notifies the reading unit of the number of pages written after the change when the printing order is changed from the reverse order to the normal order. apparatus. 4. The printing control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the reading unit stops the processing for a predetermined time after sending the printing data to the printing apparatus. 5. The print control apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the time during which the reading unit stops processing is longer as the amount of processing by the printing apparatus is larger. 6. A writing step of writing print data in a storage unit in the order in which the print data has been generated, and a reading step of reading print data of a desired page from the storage unit and sending the read print data to a printing apparatus. Wherein the writing step issues a notification indicating a readable page, and the reading step reads out print data of the page notified by the notification from the storage unit. 7. In the writing step, in the case of normal order printing in which the order in which print data is generated and the order in which print data is printed, each time one page of print data is written, the number of written pages In the case of reverse printing, in which the order in which print data is generated and the order in which print data is printed are reversed, after the writing of print data for all pages is completed, writing of all pages is performed. 7. The print control method according to claim 6, wherein the completion of the process is notified to the reading unit. 8. The print control method according to claim 6, wherein, in the writing step, when the printing order is changed from a reverse order to a normal order, a notification of the number of pages written after the change is issued. 9. The print control method according to claim 6, wherein in the reading step, processing is stopped for a predetermined time after sending the print data to the printing apparatus. 10. The print control method according to claim 9, wherein the time during which the reading step stops processing is longer as the amount of processing by the printing apparatus is larger. 11. A writing unit for writing print data to a storage unit in the order in which the print data has been generated by a computer, and print data of a desired page can be read from the storage unit, and the read print data is sent to a printing apparatus. And a reading unit that sends the data.The writing unit issues a notification indicating a readable page to the reading unit, and the reading unit, upon receiving the notification, prints the print data of the notified page. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program for realizing reading from a storage unit. 12. A printer driver for controlling a printer, comprising: a spooling file for storing print data; a spooler for writing print data to the storage unit in the order in which the print data is generated; and a desired page from the spooler. A despooler that can read the print data of the printer, and sends the read print data to a printing apparatus.The spooler issues a notification indicating a readable page to the despooler, and the despooler transmits the notification. Upon receiving the print data, the printer driver reads the print data of the notified page from the spool file.