JPH0691979A - Method of processing form data in image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a desired form to be used irrespective of a host to be connected by effecting drawing by automatically calling emulation corresponding to form data in drawing the form data. CONSTITUTION:In an image formation apparatus capable of printing form data when form data is drawn, in a state of storing the present emulation, emulation recognition data registered with form data designated NVRAM 10 is read in, the emulation represented by the recognition data is automatically called and actuated by an emulation changing process, and the designated form data is read in from the NVRAM 10 and developed to the bit map memory of RAM 9. Thereafter, the emulation being actuated at first is called again and then actuated, and after the input data received from the host device 5 is superposed on the form data and video data at first paper is completed, it is transfer-printed on an engine 2.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a form data processing system in an image forming apparatus capable of printing form data such as a page printer such as a laser printer, a digital copying machine and a facsimile machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer,
A function that allows you to register data such as a block to be printed and print the input data transferred from a host such as a computer or word processor in an overlapping manner (this is called "form overlay function"). ) Are available. For example, when creating a slip, that function is effective. That is, the framework of the slip is registered as a form, and when the slip is created, the contents are printed together with the registered form.

The data of the block copy is the same as the print data that is normally printed, and the creation thereof can be performed using a host such as a word processor as in the case of the creation of normal printing. The form is registered by sending the data of this artwork to the image forming apparatus together with the "form overlay registration command". After that, the actual data such as the contents of the slip is sent to the image forming apparatus, and further, the "form overlay print command" is sent to the image forming apparatus to print the block copy and the actual data at the same time. In this case, since the block copy data such as ruled lines need only be transmitted to the image forming apparatus once, it can be effectively used for printing a large amount of slips.

By the way, recent image forming apparatuses have a function called a multi-emulation function, in which a plurality of emulations can be built in or connected, and the emulations can be freely switched within a page to be printed now. On the other hand, such an image forming apparatus receives input data from the host, converts the input data into an internal intermediate language called “descriptor” based on the input data, and actually expands a page by the intermediate language. Therefore, the descriptor is common regardless of each emulation.

[0005]

However, the conventional form overlay function can be used only for the emulation in which it is registered, and in other emulations, it is necessary to newly register the form for that emulation. Therefore, the form that can be used was decided for each host. Further, since the print data from the host is registered as a form as it is, there is a problem that setting information input from the operation panel such as reduction and font selection is not reflected at the time of form overlay execution.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and makes it possible to use a desired form regardless of the host to be connected, and various settings from the operation panel even when the form overlay function is executed. The purpose is to reflect the information.

[0007]

To achieve the above object, the present invention automatically calls an emulation corresponding to form data when drawing the form data in an image forming apparatus capable of printing the form data. Provide a form data processing method to draw by drawing.

A form data processing method is also provided in which, when registering form data, various setting information of the device at the time of registration is also registered at the same time. When drawing the form data, it is preferable to select whether or not to use the various setting information registered with the form data.

Further, when registering form data,
A form data processing method is also provided in which the form data is converted into the descriptor data format and then the descriptor data is registered as the form data. When registering the descriptor data, it is preferable to register the descriptor data after compressing the descriptor data.

[0010]

According to the form data processing method of claim 1,
When drawing the form data, the emulation corresponding to the form data is automatically called and drawn, so that the desired form can be used regardless of the connected host.

According to the form data processing method of claims 2 and 3, when the form data is registered, various setting information of the device at the time of registration is also registered at the same time. Therefore, even when the form overlay function is executed, the operation panel is used. Various settings of are reflected. When drawing the form data, if it is possible to select whether or not to use the various setting information registered with the form data, the degree of freedom in using the form is increased.

According to the form data processing method of claim 4, when registering form data, after converting the form data into descriptor data format, the descriptor data is registered as form data. In addition to the same effect, one emulation can obtain various form data. When registering the descriptor data, if the descriptor data is registered after being compressed, the amount of form data is reduced, so that the memory capacity can be reduced.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a laser printer showing a first embodiment of the present invention, which comprises a printer controller 1, an engine 2, a panel device (operation panel) 3, and a disk device 4. Host device 5
Is a host device of this printer.

The printer controller 1 includes a CPU 6, a program ROM 7, a font ROM 8, a RAM 9, and an NV.
RAM 10, IC card 11, engine interface (hereinafter interface is abbreviated as I / F) 12, panel I / F 13, disk I / F 14, host I / F 1
It is composed of 5 I / Fs.

The CPU 6 is a central processing unit that controls the printer controller 1 as a whole according to a program from the program ROM 7, a mode instruction from the panel device 3, and a command from the host device 5. Program ROM7
Is a read-only memory that stores a program (hereinafter referred to as “emulation”) that controls the printer controller 1, and the font ROM 8 is a read-only memory that stores a plurality of font data.

The RAM 9 is a work memory for the CPU 6,
Input buffer for storing input data, page buffer for storing page data created by the input data, bitmap memory for storing video data created by the page data, download font This is a random access memory used for font files and so on.
The NVRAM 10 is a non-volatile memory that stores form data from the panel device 3 or the host device 5, various setting information of the printer, and the like, and the IC card 11 is used when externally supplying font data and emulation. It is a removable memory card.

The engine I / F 12 is an interface for communicating commands, statuses and print data with the engine 2 that actually prints, and a panel I / F 13 is provided.
Is an interface that communicates commands and status with the panel device 3 that informs the user of the current printer status and gives a mode instruction. The disk I / F 14 is an interface for communicating with the disk device 4.

The host I / F 15 is an interface for communicating with the host device 5, and is usually a Centro I / F.
And RS232C. The disk device 4 is an external storage device that stores various data such as font data, emulation, and print data, and is a floppy disk device (FDD) or hard disk device (HDD).

Next, the processing according to the present invention by the CPU 6 of FIG. 2 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
It is assumed that the IC card 11 stores a plurality of different emulations.

When registering the form data sent from the host device 5 into the NVRAM 10, as shown in FIG. 3, emulation recognition data (code etc.) for recognizing the emulation for registering the form data before the form data is registered. ) Is inserted. For example, emulation 1
If so, 1 byte of data such as "1" is inserted, and if emulation 2, "1" is inserted.

When drawing the form data, as shown in FIG. 1, N is stored with the current emulation stored.
The emulation recognition data registered with the specified form data in the VRAM 10 is read, the emulation indicated by the recognition data is automatically called by the emulation switching process and activated, and the specified form data is read from the NVRAM 10 and the bit of the RAM 9 is read. Expand to map memory.

After that, the emulation that was activated first is recalled and activated by the emulation switching process, the input data received from the host device 5 is overwritten on the form data in the bit map memory, and one page of video data is written. Is completed, the video data is transferred to the engine 2 and printed.

According to this embodiment, form data created by a certain emulation and normal video data created by another emulation can be superimposed and printed. For example, when creating a slip, a word processor called "A-WP", which is easy to make a table, is called "A-CO".
A slip form is created by using it on a computer called "M", and a word processor called "B-WP" to which a calculation function is added is created on a computer called "B-COM" by calculating the numerical value of the slip.

In this case, the form data is registered by the emulation A of "A-COM" and "BC
OM ”emulation B is used to develop form data and print numerical values. Of course, the emulation B cannot expand the form data created by the emulation A, so the emulation is automatically switched in the printer. In this way, the form data created on another computer can be used.

The second to fifth embodiments of the present invention will be sequentially described below. The hardware configuration of each embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment shown in FIG. 2 and will be described with reference to FIG. First, in the second embodiment of the present invention, various setting data (various setting information) of the printer is registered in the NVRAM 10, and this data is processed by the same processing as that of the first embodiment as shown in FIG. Register with the form data.

When drawing the form data, the various setting data of the printer registered with the form data in the NVRAM 10 are read in the state where the various setting data of the current printer are stored as shown in FIG. After setting the data, the form data is read from the NVRAM 10 and expanded in the bitmap memory of the RAM 9.

After that, the setting data of the printer which was initially set is reset, and the input data received from the host device 5 is overwritten on the form data in the bit map memory to complete one page of video data. After letting
The video data is transferred to the engine 2 and printed.

According to this embodiment, various setting data of the printer at the time of registering the form data and at the time of overlay can be set with different values. For example, when the form data is reduced to 75% by the corresponding setting data and registered, and the numerical value of the slip is created in the same size as the corresponding setting data, the characters and the form can be superimposed. It is possible to eliminate the size deviation. In addition, it is possible to eliminate a mistake that the form data at the time of expansion is different from the form data at the time of registration due to the difference between various setting data at the time of registering the form data and at the time of expanding the form data.

The third embodiment of the present invention differs from the second embodiment in that when drawing form data, N
A command for selecting whether or not to use various setting data of the printer registered in the VRAM 10 together with the form data is prepared, and as shown in FIG. 6, before reading the form data, this command is used to print the printer in the form data. If the printer setting data no-read mode is set to prevent the setting data of the printer from being used, the setting data of the printer registered with the form data in the NVRAM 10 is not used (without changing the settings of the printer. 2) Form data is being expanded.

According to this embodiment, the form data is fixed as in the second embodiment, or the form data is changed by changing the reduction rate when registering the form data. Since you can select, you have more freedom to use the form.

In the fourth embodiment of the present invention, when registering the form data from the host device 5, the form data is converted into an internal intermediate language called "descriptor" and stored in the RAM 9 as shown in FIG. After that, the descriptor data is used as the form data in the NVR.
After registering in AM10 and deleting the descriptor data in RAM9, it returns to normal processing.

When drawing the form data, as shown in FIG. 8, the descriptor data registered as the form data in the NVRAM 10 is read and expanded in the bit map memory of the RAM 9, and the normal input data received from the host device 5 is read. After one page of video data is completed by overwriting on the form data in the bitmap memory, the video data is transferred to the engine 2 and printed.

According to this embodiment, form data of another emulation can be used as in the first embodiment, and the form data can be expanded even when the emulation that created the form data is not installed. Therefore, when the form data is registered in the nonvolatile memory, it is not necessary to switch the emulation, and all pages can be processed by one emulation. Further, since this form data does not depend on emulation at the time of developing the form, it is possible to supply a form common to each emulation by ROM or the like.

In the fifth embodiment of the present invention, when registering the form data from the host device 5, the form data is converted into descriptor data and stored in the RAM 9 as shown in FIG. 9, and the descriptor data is stored. NVRAM1 after compressed using a data compression algorithm (for example, MH compression used in FAX communication)
After registering with 0 and deleting the descriptor data in the RAM 9, it returns to the normal processing.

When drawing the form data, as shown in FIG. 10, the compressed data registered in the NVRAM 10 is read and expanded into a descriptor, which is expanded in the bitmap memory of the RAM 9 and received from the host device 5. Input data is overwritten on the form data in the bitmap memory to complete one page of video data, and then the video data is transferred to the engine 2 for printing.

According to this embodiment, in addition to the same effect as the fourth embodiment, the amount of form data is reduced, so that the memory capacity can be saved. The embodiments in which the present invention is applied to a laser printer have been described above. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other optical printers such as LED printers and liquid crystal shutter printers, as well as digital copying machines,
The present invention can be applied to an image forming apparatus such as a facsimile machine that can print form data.

[0037]

As described above, according to the form data processing method of the present invention, a desired form can be used regardless of the connected host. Also, various setting information from the operation panel is reflected when the form overlay function is executed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a form data drawing process according to the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a laser printer showing the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the operation of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the operation of the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a form data drawing process according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing form data drawing processing according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a form data registration process according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a form data drawing process according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a form data registration process according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a form data drawing process according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Printer Controller 2 Engine 3 Panel Device 4 Disk Device 5 Host Device 6 Central Processing Unit (CPU) 7 Program ROM 8 Font RO
M 9 RAM 10 NVRAM

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A form data processing method, wherein in an image forming apparatus capable of printing form data, when drawing the form data, an emulation corresponding to the form data is automatically called and drawn. 2. A form data processing method, wherein in an image forming apparatus capable of printing form data, when registering the form data, various setting information of the apparatus at the time of registration is also registered at the same time. 3. The form data processing method according to claim 2, wherein when drawing the form data, it is selected whether or not to use the setting information registered with the form data. Data processing method. 4. An image forming apparatus capable of printing form data, wherein when the form data is registered, the form data is converted into a descriptor data format and then the descriptor data is registered as form data. Form data processing method. 5. The form data processing method according to claim 4, wherein when the descriptor data is registered, the descriptor data is compressed and then registered.