JP3399182B2 - Image forming device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of additionally synthesizing and outputting an additional image such as an advertisement image in a blank area generated when a read original image is output, and more particularly, to double-sided copying and N. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of additionally synthesizing and outputting an additional image such as an advertisement image in a blank area of a document image unit generated at the time of copying such as up copying.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the spread of copiers, an advertisement image is additionally combined with a document image as an additional image to be copied and output.
Attention has been paid to a copying machine, which can make the copying fee when an advertising image is added and the copying fee when an advertising image is not added different from each other for the convenience of both the copying machine user and the advertising image provider. There is.

Conventionally, as a copying machine capable of synthesizing and outputting such an advertisement image on an original image, an advertisement image arranged at a physical position is combined with the read original image and output. There are things you can do.

For example, there is a copying apparatus in which a rotatable advertisement manuscript is arranged under the platen glass according to the customer's selection, and at the time of manuscript scanning, the manuscript on the platen and the manuscript under the platen are simultaneously read to generate a composite image ( JP-A-6
2-118362).

There is also an image forming system that reads an advertisement image from an advertisement management server via a network and synthesizes and outputs the advertisement image in the detected blank area (see Japanese Patent Application No. 7-57769).

This image forming system holds various advertisement images and advertisement images of various sizes in advance, selects an advertisement image suitable for the detected margin area, synthesizes it with the original image, and outputs it. is there.

[0007]

However, since the blank area detected by the above-described image forming system is the blank area in the original image, the detected blank area is a limited and very narrow area. , The advertisement effect cannot be sufficiently enhanced, and the information in the original image and the information of the advertisement image are copied and output in a mixed state. Therefore, the original original image, especially the original image of a document is extremely valuable. However, there is a problem in that it may decrease.

On the other hand, when a print attribute such as double-sided printing or N-up printing such as 2-up printing or 4-up printing is designated, a blank area corresponding to the entire surface of the original image may occur depending on the number of original images. For example, if the number of original images is three in double-sided printing, the number of original images is odd, so 2
A blank area corresponding to one original image is formed on the back surface of the first output sheet.

Therefore, according to the present invention, such a problem is removed, and the original document image 1 generated according to the designation of the output attribute is generated.
An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of efficiently synthesizing and outputting an additional image such as an advertisement image on the entire surface having a large advertising effect in a blank area corresponding to one sheet.

[0010]

An image forming apparatus according to the present invention includes an image input unit for inputting an image, an output attribute receiving unit for receiving an output attribute when printing an image input by the image input unit, and When the output attribute accepted by the output attribute accepting means is N-up printing, a determining means for determining whether or not a blank area for each page in the image occurs, and a blank area for each page by the determining means If it is determined that the image is generated, a control means for synthesizing the additional image in the blank area and a printout means for synthesizing the additional image by the control means and printing out the synthesized image are provided. Further, the image forming apparatus of the present invention receives the image input means for inputting the image, the output attribute receiving means for receiving the output attribute when printing the image input by the image input means, and the output attribute receiving means. When the output attribute is double-sided printing, a determining unit that determines whether a blank area is generated in page units in the image, and if the determining unit determines that a blank area is generated in page units, It is characterized by further comprising: control means for synthesizing the additional image in the blank area, and printout means for synthesizing the additional image by the control means to print out the synthesized image.

[0011]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a copying machine according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the copying machine C includes a selection instruction section CP including an image input section 1, a page memory 2, an advertisement function selection section 3 and a print attribute setting section 4, an advertisement image holding section 5, a full margin position calculating section 6, a margin. It has a region detection unit 7, an image synthesis unit 8, an image output unit 9, a normal copy counter 10, an advertisement copy counter 11, and a control unit CT that controls the entire copying machine C.

The image input unit 1 reads the image information of the copy original placed on the platen as electronic data.

The page memory 2 holds the image information read from the image input section 1 in page units. in this case,
When there is a print attribute setting such as enlargement / reduction or N-up print designation, the data for which the print processing has been performed is held in final page units. The N-up print designation is a print attribute designation such as 2-up or 4-up. For example, when an A4 copy original is processed by 2-up on A4 printing paper, each of the two A4 copy originals is reduced to A5 size. Two of these reduced A5 size images are worth one
It is printed out on a sheet of A4 size printing paper.

The selection instructing section CP issues various selection instructions, and is composed of a liquid crystal display or the like. The selection instructing section CP has an advertising function selecting section 3, and the advertising function selecting section 3 includes: With the image information read by the image input section,
This is to select whether to composite and output the advertisement image as an additional image (select the advertisement function). Further, the selection instructing section CP has a print attribute setting section 4, and in the print attribute setting section 4, designation of print attributes such as double-sided copying and N-up copying is set.

The advertisement image holding unit 5 holds the advertisement image and also holds size information of the advertisement image.

The full-page margin position calculating section 6 calculates the number and positions of full-page margin areas corresponding to the document image based on the print attributes set by the print attribute setting section 4.

The margin area detecting section 7 detects the position and size of the margin area in the image information read by the image input section 1.

The image synthesizing unit 8 places the image information read by the image input unit 1 and the advertisement image held in the advertisement image holding unit 5 in the blank area detected by the full-blank space position calculating unit 6 and the blank area detecting unit 7. It synthesizes based on.

The image output section 9 reads the image information for each page held in the page memory 2 or the image information combined by the image combining section 8 and prints out on a selected output sheet.

The normal copy counter 10 counts the number of all output images.

The advertisement copy counter 11 counts the number of copies output by the image output unit 9 when the advertisement function is selected and the advertisement image is additionally combined.

Next, the control procedure when the print attribute designation is set in the copying machine C will be described.

First, referring to the flow chart of FIG.
A control procedure when the N-up printing designation is set will be described.

In FIG. 2, when the user specifies N-up printing from the print attribute setting section 4 of the selection instructing section CP (step 101), the control section CT reads an original image for N-up copying processing, and N Reduction processing corresponding to the up is performed, and the reduced image information is stored in the page memory 2 in page units corresponding to output units (step 10).
2). For example, when processing an A4 size original onto an A4 size output sheet by 2 up, the image information of the original image is A
The image information is reduced to 5 sizes, and image information in page units, which is a set of two pieces of A5 size image information, is stored in the page memory 2. At this time, it is assumed that the advertisement function selection unit 3 has selected and designated the advertisement function.

After that, the control unit CT determines whether or not it is the printing process of the last page (step 103), and if it is not the printing process of the last page, the position and size of the margin area detected by the margin area detecting unit 7. Based on, select an advertisement image corresponding to the position and size from the advertisement image holding unit 5,
The image compositing unit 8 composes the selected advertisement image (step 104), and the composited composite image is output by the image output unit 9
Prints out (step 105) and moves to step 102.

On the other hand, in the case of the printing process of the last page in step 103, the full-space margin position calculation unit 6 sets the variable R to the number of remaining documents, and sets the variable N to N for N-up printing designation. (N-R) / N is calculated using N, and the value of this remainder is set to the variable Q (step 10).
6). When the value of the variable Q is 0, it means that the original image corresponding to the N-up process is just matched.
For example, when the print designation of the 4-up process is performed, the number of documents is a multiple of 4. If the value of the variable Q is not 0, it means that there is a blank space for the number of originals corresponding to the variable Q.
When printing is designated for the up processing, the value of the variable Q becomes 2, and a blank space corresponding to two originals is generated.

After that, the control unit CT judges whether or not the variable Q is 0 (step 107). If the variable Q is 0, there is no blank space in the whole area, and therefore, as in step 104, the normal operation is performed. The advertisement image is synthesized (step 1
08), and then proceeds to step 111.

On the other hand, when the value of the variable Q is not 0, there is a blank space on the entire surface, and therefore the advertisement image for the value of the variable Q is acquired from the advertisement image holding unit 6 (step 109), and the acquired full-page advertisement is acquired. The image is combined with the position of the overall margin calculated by the overall margin position calculation unit 6 (step 110).

After that, the composite image composited in step 108 or step 110 is output from the image output section 9, and this processing ends.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific example in the case where a blank area is generated in such N-up print attribute designation. FIG. 3 shows a case where one blank area is generated when the 4-up print attribute is designated. That is, the case where the value of the variable Q is 1 is shown.

On the final page of the output in FIG. 3, a full-blank area E1 is generated, and the full-blank area E1 is filled with the full-blank advertisement image and combined with the original image that has been increased by 4 to be output. Therefore, a very large advertising effect can be achieved. Further, in the example of FIG. 3, since the normal advertisement image combining process is not performed, the advertisement image does not exist in the image information of the document image. Therefore, the advertisement image can be added without damaging the content of the original document information. Note that the normal advertisement image composition process can be specified by the advertisement function selection unit 3. That is, when there is a print attribute designation setting such as N-up, the advertisement function selection unit 3 can selectively designate whether or not to perform a normal advertisement image composition process.

Next, referring to the flowchart of FIG.
A control procedure when double-sided printing is set will be described.

In FIG. 4, when the user specifies double-sided printing from the print-attribute setting unit 4 of the selection instructing unit CP (step 201), the control unit CT reads the original image for the double-sided printing process and reads it. Original image is page memory 2
(Step 202). At this time, it is assumed that the advertisement function selection unit 3 has selected and designated the advertisement function.

After that, the control unit CT determines whether or not it is the printing process of the final page (step 203). If it is not the printing process of the final page, the advertising image holding unit 5 advertises the advertising image corresponding to the position and size. The image compositing unit 8 composites the selected advertisement image (step 204), and the image output unit 9 prints out the composited composite image (step 205). Then, the process proceeds to step 202.

On the other hand, if it is the printing process of the final page in step 203, the full-space margin position calculation unit 6 sets the number of remaining documents as a variable R (step 20).
6). Here, the variable R has a value of 1 or 2. When the variable R is 1, it means that the number of originals is odd, and when the variable R is 2, it means that the number of originals is even. Therefore, when the variable R is 1, a blank space is generated.

Therefore, the control unit CT sets the variable R to 1 or 2.
If it is determined that the variable R is 2, there is no blank space in the entire area. Therefore, as in the case of step 204, a normal advertisement image composition process is performed (step 20).
8) and shifts to step 211.

On the other hand, when the variable R is 1, a blank area is generated, and therefore, the advertisement image is acquired from the advertisement image holding section 6 (step 209), and the acquired full-scale advertisement position calculation section 6 acquires the full-page margin image. It is combined with the calculated position of the entire margin (step 210).

After that, the composite image composited in step 208 or step 210 is output from the image output unit 9, and the present processing ends.

In this way, when the print attribute of double-sided printing is designated and the number of originals is an odd number, a blank space is generated on the back surface of the final page as an output, and this blank space has a large advertising effect. An advertisement image is added. Moreover, when the advertisement function selection unit 3 does not perform the usual combining process of the advertisement images other than the addition of the full-scale advertisement image, the advertisement image does not exist in the image information of the document image, and thus the information of the document image is lost. It will not be

In the above-described embodiment of the present invention, when the N-up print designation or the double-sided print designation causes a blank space on the final page of the output paper, a full-scale advertisement image is added to the blank space. However, the full-page margin position calculation unit 6 previously counts the number of documents to be copied, obtains a value indicating whether the full-page margin exists based on this count value and the print attribute designation, and from this value. When there is a blank space on the entire surface, a full-page advertisement image may be added to the beginning of the first page. As a result, the advertising effect can be further increased.

[0042]

As described above in detail, in the present invention, the holding means holds the additional image such as the advertisement image, and the setting means sets the output attribute for the original image such as N-up printing or double-sided printing. Then, the calculating unit calculates a blank area for each document image based on the set output attribute, and based on the calculation result, the output unit combines the additional image with the original image and outputs the additional image in the blank area. Therefore, there is an advantage that the value of the additional image is utilized and the information of the original document image is not affected. In particular, when the additional image is an advertising image, full-page advertising is possible, which has the advantage of increasing the advertising effect.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a copying machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a control procedure when N-up printing attribute designation is set.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific example of output when a blank area is generated due to N-up print attribute designation.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a control procedure when double-sided printing attribute designation is set.

[Explanation of symbols]

C ... Copier CT ... Control unit CP ... Selection instruction unit 1 ... Image input unit 2 ... Page memory 3 ... Advertisement function selection unit 4 ... Print attribute setting unit 5 ... Advertisement image holding unit 6 ... Full margin position calculation unit 7 ... Margin Area detection unit 8 Image synthesis unit 9 Image output unit 10 Normal copy counter 11 Advertisement copy counter

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G03G 15/36 G03G 21/00 370-540 H04N 1/387 B41J 21/00

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image input unit for inputting an image, an output attribute receiving unit for receiving an output attribute when the image input by the image input unit is printed, and an output attribute for the output attribute receiving unit being N-up. In the case of printing, a determining unit that determines whether or not a blank area is generated in page units in the image, and if the determining unit determines that a blank area is generated in page units, the blank area is determined. An image forming apparatus comprising: a control unit configured to combine the additional image with the print unit; and a print output unit configured to combine the additional image by the control unit to print out the combined image. 2. An image inputting means for inputting an image, an output attribute accepting means for accepting an output attribute when the image inputted by the image inputting means is printed, and an output attribute accepted by the output attribute accepting means for double-sided printing. In the case of, it is determined whether or not a blank area in page units in the image is generated, and if it is determined in the determination unit that a blank area in page units is generated, the blank area An image forming apparatus comprising: a control unit for synthesizing an additional image; and a print output unit for synthesizing the additional image by the control unit to print out the synthetic image.