JP2745546B2 - Printer device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device for simultaneously printing a character and a bit image.

[Conventional technology]

In general, the form of data sent from the host device to the printer includes a form in which characters to be printed are transmitted by a character code, such as document data, and a form in which an image is transmitted as bitmap data as it is, such as image data.
Since the data forms are different, printing is performed in different sequences.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In other words, in such a conventional printer, when characters and bit images are mixed in one line,
One line had to be printed several times. Also, in a word processor and the like that are often used recently,
In many cases, white space between characters is sent as bit image data and adjusted to realize functions such as left-right alignment. For this reason, when printing a document with a word processor or the like, character data and bit image data are sent alternately, so that printing processing must be performed twice for each character.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and a purpose thereof is to simultaneously perform printing when character data and bit image data are mixed and printed on the same line. It is to improve the throughput of a printer.

[Means for solving the problem]

The printer device of the present invention receives character code data sent from a host device, reads a character pattern corresponding to the character code data from a built-in character pattern storage means of a designated typeface, and prints the character pattern on recording paper. And a printer device capable of printing bit image data such as image data, in the same line as an image buffer for storing a character pattern of the specified typeface read from the character pattern storage means to be output on the recording paper. Comparing the print density of the character pattern of the designated typeface to be printed with the print density of the bit image data, and determining whether printing can be performed by one scan; and the determining means can perform printing simultaneously. If the bit image data is determined to be a character pattern of the designated typeface, Conversion means for converting the print density into a print density and storing the same in the image buffer together with the character pattern of the designated typeface, so that a line in which characters and bit image data are mixed can be printed by a single scan. .

[Action]

Determines whether printing is possible at the same time based on the printing pitch of printing characters and the printing pit of bit image data sent from the host device, and if possible, interpolates data so that the printing pitch is substantially the same And perform simultaneous printing.

〔Example〕

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, (20) is a CPU, (21) is a read-only memory (ROM) storing a program, (22) is a RAM1 in which a line buffer is formed, (23) is a RAM2 in which an image buffer is formed, ( 24) is a CGROM in which character print patterns are stored.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of the line buffer.
Each item consists of 4 bytes.

In the case of character data, various flags are stored in the first and second bytes as shown in FIG. 4. In this embodiment, the IMAGE flag, the draft flag, the NLQ
Flag, elite flag, pica flag, reduction flag,
Emphasis flag, double hit flag, script flag, underline flag, overline flag, enlargement flag,
The vertical expansion flag, the proportional flag, the italic flag, the download flag, and the above 16 flags are stored. Then, in the third and fourth bytes (D2, D3), CGRO
The head address where the bit pattern of the print target character on M (24) is stored is stored.

On the other hand, in the case of bit image data, as shown in FIG. 5, the first byte (attribute) is used to determine whether the most significant bit is a character or a bit image.
This is an IMAGE flag, and the number of dots of a space inserted between data is stored in 0 to 3 bits. In the second and third bytes (D1, D2), the number of bit image data in the 2-byte format is further added to the fourth byte (D3).
Stores pattern data.

Next, a procedure until data is stored in the line buffer will be described with reference to FIG.

When data is input from the host device, it is determined whether the data is a character or a bit image. If the data is a character, the attribute IMAGE flag is cleared,
Set the draft flag, NLQ flag, and various flags from the current specifications, and set the storage destination address of the bit pattern of the print target character to D2, D3.

If the input from the host device is a bit image,
In order to determine whether printing is possible at the same time as the character, it is first checked whether the printing pitch of the character and the bit image match. When the character and the bit image as shown in FIG. 7 are to be printed at the same time, the printing pitches of the two coincide with each other. In the case shown in FIG. 8, although the pitches of the two do not match, the printing pitch of the bit image data is twice the printing pitch of the character data. If one piece of data is inserted, the printing pitch can be made substantially the same. The number of spaces at this time is stored in the 0th to 3rd bits of the attribute.

Next, it is examined whether data patterns can be printed simultaneously. In the case of this embodiment, the bit image data is compressed to 1 byte and stored in D3, so that simultaneous printing is possible only when the same pattern is continuous.

Considering the above two points, if simultaneous printing is possible, the IMAGE flag of the attribute is set, the number of data is stored in D1 and D2, and the pattern is stored in D3.

In this way, after the data from the host device is intermediate-coded and stored in the line buffer, the image data is generated in the image buffer. FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a process of generating the image data.

First, one item consisting of 4 bytes is extracted from the line buffer, and the IMAGE flag of the attribute is checked.

If the IMAGE flag has been cleared, it is character data, so the character pattern is read from the CGROM (24) using the address data stored in D2 and D3, and modified according to the attributes. Stores image data. If the IMAGE flag is set, it is bit image data, so the count data stored in D1 and D2 is stored in register C.
X is the value of lower 4 bits of the attribute in the register DX
Then, the pattern data stored in D3 is set in the register A, and the processing according to the flowchart is performed to store the image data of the print pitch substantially equal to the print pitch of the character in the image buffer.

By performing the above processing, the image buffer contains
A print pattern in which characters and bit images are mixed is generated, and simultaneous printing is possible.

In the above embodiment, input of character and bit image data from the host device is assumed. However, for data such as horizontal tabs and print position designation, NULL data is sent from the current position to the designated position. By converting to a bit image, a similar operation can be performed. In this case, as shown in FIG. 10, if the user is currently at point A and the next print position is advanced to point B by a tab, (B-
A) / (Bit Image Pitch) Null data bit images may be treated as being input.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the present invention, character and bit image data can be printed at the same time, so that the throughput of the printer can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of an embodiment, FIGS. 3, 4, and 5 are explanatory diagrams of a line buffer, and FIGS. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a pattern capable of simultaneous printing, and FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of the embodiment.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] And receiving character code data sent from a host device, reading a character pattern corresponding to the character code data from a built-in character pattern storage means of a designated typeface, and printing the character pattern on recording paper. A printer capable of printing bit image data such as image data, a line buffer for storing a character pattern storage location of the character code data and an attribute of a font as an intermediate code, and the designated font for printing on the same line. First determining means for determining whether the bit image data can be converted to the print density of the character pattern, and second determining means for determining whether the bit image data is a continuous pattern that can be compressed into an intermediate code. The first determining means determines that the print density of the character pattern of the designated typeface can be converted. If the second determining means determines that the pattern is a continuous pattern that can be compressed into an intermediate code, the bit image data is converted into an intermediate code with an attribute of bit image data, and is converted into the line buffer. Conversion means for storing, and an image buffer for storing, in response to a print command, a print image to be printed on recording paper based on the intermediate code stored in the line buffer in a bitmap format, wherein the printing of the image buffer is performed. A printer device wherein an image is output to a printing means so that a line in which characters and bit image data are mixed can be printed by one scanning.