KR100597249B1 - Printing system and its printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

A printing system and a printing method thereof are disclosed. The host apparatus of the printing system according to the present invention includes an input unit for inputting a setting command of an overlay function, a storage unit for storing page mapping information, which is information on each page of an overlay application document to be applied to each page of a document to be printed; When the setting command of the overlay function is input, the page mapping information is read, and the printing data of each page of the document to be printed and the printing data of one page of the overlay application document to be applied for each page are processed based on the page mapping information. And a printer driver unit for processing to combine to generate combined printing data. As a result, the user does not need to designate overlay pages for each page and perform printing for each page, thereby providing convenience to the user.

Overlays, mappings, pages

Description

Printing system and method of printing

1 is a flowchart illustrating a process of printing a document to be printed by applying an overlay function in the related art;

2 is a block diagram of a printing system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a block diagram of a printer driver of FIG. 2;

4 is a view showing one-dimensional tables used in the mapping process of the document to be printed and the overlay application according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of printing a document to be printed by applying an overlay function according to the present invention.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

160: printer driver unit 164: overlay file processing unit

166: page mapping unit 168: printer driver control unit

The present invention relates to a printing system and a printing method thereof, and more particularly, to a printing system and a printing method thereof for overlay printing a predetermined document when printing a document to be printed.

In general, the overlay function is a document that is intended to be printed by the printing apparatus by loading a document (hereinafter referred to as an 'overlay application') selected for printing the overlay among previously created or saved overlay documents in an application program. Overlay printing) when printing a document). An overlay document is a document about a specific pattern or image which is pre-stored by default or created and stored in an application program. When an overlay function is selected and an overlay application document is selected, the overlay document is loaded when printing the document to be printed and applied in the background. do.

1 is a flowchart illustrating a process of printing a document to be printed by applying an overlay function in the related art.

First, a user performs a document operation on an application program of a host device such as a computer, and then inputs a print command for a document to be printed on the application program to print to a printing device such as a printer (S10). When a print command is input, the application program processing unit transfers the file for the print command and the document to be printed (hereinafter referred to as a 'print target file') to the print device driver unit through a graphic device interface (hereinafter referred to as 'GDI'). send. The printing device driver converts the print command and the print target file received through the GDI into a form of a command recognizable by the printing device (S11). The printing apparatus driver determines whether the overlay function is set by the user (S12).

As a result of the determination, when the overlay function is not set, the command of the print target document is transmitted to the printing apparatus, rendered and printed on the paper (S14, S15).

On the other hand, when it is determined that the overlay function is set, the printing device driver loads the command of the selected overlay application document among the pre-stored overlay documents and combines with the command of the print target document to generate a combined command (S13). The combining command is then sent to the printing apparatus, rendered and printed on the paper (S14, S15).

In the case of printing by applying the overlay function as described above, conventionally, the number of pages of the overlay application document (hereinafter referred to as an "overlay page") is plural, If there are multiple numbers, the overlay function could not be applied as requested by the user. That is, when the overlay function is applied in such a situation, there is a problem in that the images of the overlay pages are overlapped and printed on each print target page.

Therefore, when a user wants to apply a multi-page overlay application document to a multi-page print target document, the user has to repeat the method of designating one overlay page for each print target page. However, in this case, there is a problem that the user is very troublesome.

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the case of printing by overlaying a multi-page print target document with a multi-page overlay application document, even if each overlay page is applied to each print target page. The present invention provides a printing system that can be locked and a printing method thereof.

In a printing system according to the present invention for solving the above technical problem, a printing apparatus including a host apparatus and a printing apparatus for printing a print target document created in the host apparatus, the host apparatus is the printing; An input unit for inputting a setting command of an overlay function for overlay printing an overlay application document on a target document, and storing page mapping information which is information on each page of the overlay application document to be applied to each page of the print target document; And, when the setting command of the overlay function is input, process to read the page mapping information, and to apply printing data of each page of the document to be printed and each page based on the read page mapping information. Printing data of one page of the overlay application document The combined unit includes a printer driver for processing print data to produce a bond.

The printer driver unit may be configured to map one page of the print target document and one page of the overlay application document based on the page mapping information, and the page mapping unit may be mapped according to a mapping result of the page mapping unit. And a printer driver control unit for generating the combined printing data by combining the printing data of one page of the document to be printed and one page of the overlay document.

On the other hand, to solve the above technical problem, the printing method according to the present invention, when the print command of the print target document is input, converting the print target document into printing data recognizable by the printing apparatus, and If an overlay function for overlay printing an overlay application document is set for a document to be printed, reading page mapping information which is information on each page of the overlay application document to be applied to each page of the document to be printed; Generating combined printing data by combining printing data of each page of the document to be printed and printing data of one page of the overlay application document to be applied to each page, based on page mapping information; and generating the combined printing data. Printing on paper based on the data.

The generating of the combined printing data may include (a) determining whether one page of the print target document and one page of the overlay application document are mapped based on the page mapping information, and (b) the determination result; When mapped, it is preferable to include the step of combining the printing data of one page of the print target document and the printing data of one page of the overlay application document to generate the combined printing data for each page.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, in describing the present invention, when it is determined that a detailed description of a related known function or configuration may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

In the following description, however, it is assumed that the number of pages to be printed is plural and the number of overlay pages is plural in order to clearly present the features of the present invention. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.

2 is a block diagram of a printing system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. In the following description, a computer is used as a host device and a printer is used as a printing device. However, the present invention is not limited thereto.

Referring to FIG. 2, the printing system according to the present invention includes a computer 100 and a printer 200.

The document to be printed generated by the computer 100 is converted into a command interpretable by the printer 200 by a print command and transmitted to the printer 200. The transmitted command is converted into bitmap data through a rendering process in the printer 200 and then printed on paper. However, in the detailed description of the present invention, the rendering process is described as being performed in the printing apparatus, but according to the exemplary embodiment, the rendering process may be configured to be performed in the host apparatus.

The computer 100 according to the present invention includes an input unit 110, a display unit 120, a computer interface unit 130, a storage unit 140, an application program processing unit 150, a printer driver unit 160, and a computer control unit 170. ).

A user command for setting or selecting various functions supported by the computer 100 is input to the input unit 110, and the user command includes a print command of a document to be printed, an overlay function setting command, an overlay application document selection command, and an overlay page designation command. This includes. As the input unit 110, a keyboard, a mouse, or the like may be applied. Here, the overlay page designation command means a command for designating one overlay page among overlay application documents applied to each print target page.

The designation method may vary according to the needs of the user. As an example, a method in which one page of the overlay page is applied to the first page of the print target document and another page of the overlay page is applied to the remaining pages of the print target document may be considered. As another example, the formula 'number of pages to be printed% overlay pages' may be applied. In other words, if the number of pages to be printed is 8 pages and the number of overlay pages is 4 pages, when the above formula is applied, the first overlay page is applied to the first and fifth pages of the document to be printed, and the second and sixth pages of the document to be printed. The second overlay page is applied to the page, the third overlay page is applied to the third and seventh pages of the printable document, and the fourth overlay page is applied to the fourth and eighth pages of the printable document.

When various commands are input through the input unit 110, the computer controller 170 controls the internal components based on the various commands.

The display unit 120 displays various application program user interfaces, a printer driver user interface, and the like under the control of the computer controller 170. According to the present invention, the display unit 120 displays a printer driver user interface for setting an overlay function, and a user may set an overlay function by inputting an overlay function setting command based on the display driver 120. In addition, the printer driver user interface displays a list of one or more files for selecting an overlay application document, and a user may select an overlay application document by inputting an overlay application document selection command. In addition, the printer driver user interface displays each page number of the document to be printed and each page number of the overlay application document, and the user can input an overlay page designation command based on the page number. A monitor or the like may be applied to the display unit 120.

The computer interface unit 130 is provided to allow the computer 100 to be connected to an external device, and a parallel port, a USB port, a wireless module, and the like may be applied. According to the present invention, the computer interface unit 130 is connected to the printer 200 and plays a role of a passage for exchanging data information related to printing, through which print related data is transmitted and received. According to the present invention, a combination command combining a command of a print target document and a command of an overlay application document is transmitted to the printer 200 through the computer interface unit 130.

The storage unit 140 includes an operating system, various application programs, and a nonvolatile memory for storing various data, and a volatile memory for temporarily storing data generated during a control process and a printing process. .

One or more overlay documents are stored in an instruction form in a predetermined region of the nonvolatile memory according to the present invention. Also, page mapping information based on an overlay page designation command is stored in a predetermined region of the volatile memory according to the present invention. Here, the page mapping information means information on each overlay page to be applied to each print target page, that is, to be mapped.

The application program processor 150 controls the driving of various application programs stored in the nonvolatile device under a control command of the computer controller 170 by a user's driving command. That is, the application program processing unit 150 processes various application program user interfaces to be displayed on the display unit 120 so that an overlay document or a print target document can be created.

The printer driver 160 converts a print target document created by an application program into a command that can be interpreted by the printer 200 under the control of the computer controller 170. In addition, when an overlay function setting command is input by the user, the printer driver 160 processes the overlay function to be applied to the document to be printed under the control of the computer controller 170.

Referring to FIG. 3, the printer driver 160 according to the present invention includes a printer driver user interface (hereinafter referred to as a “UI”) processor 162, an overlay file processor 164, and a page mapping unit 166. And a printer driver control unit 168.

When the printer driver user interface display command is input through the input unit 110, the UI processor 162 processes the printer driver user interface to be displayed on the display unit 120 under the control of the printer driver controller 168. In this case, when various printing related function setting commands are input on the printer driver user interface, the user settings are applied in the printing process by the control of the printer driver controller 168.

The overlay file processor 164 is responsible for processing each file when a document created by various applications is stored in the nonvolatile memory as an overlay file.

According to the present invention, the overlay file processing unit 164, together with the application program processing unit 150, processes each overlay document so that the number of overlay pages as well as instructions for each overlay document is stored in the data structure of the overlay file. . According to the present invention, when the overlay document has a plurality of pages, the overlay file stores each overlay page in units of pages in the form of instructions.

That is, in the conventional overlay file, only the instructions of the overlay document are stored, but in the overlay file according to the present invention, not only the instructions of the overlay document but also the overlay document may be stored with the page.

The page mapping unit 166 maps each print target page and each overlay page according to an overlay page designation command input through the input unit 110. That is, the page mapping unit 166 maps an overlay page to be applied to each print target page under the control of the printer driver control unit 168.

In the detailed description of the present invention, the mapping method uses the mapping of the one-dimensional table as shown in FIG. 4. However, the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto.

The mapping method using this is as follows. First, the first print target page is searched from the first overlay page to the Mth overlay page to search for an overlay page to be applied to the first print target page, and when the search is performed, the first print target page and the corresponding overlay page are mapped. The searching process is based on the overlay page designation command input to the user. This process is repeated for the N th print target page.

The printer driver control unit 168 converts the print target document into a command when the user sets the overlay function and inputs a print command of the print target document. In addition, the printer driver control unit 168 according to the present invention includes an overlay flag (OVERLAYPLUG) therein to distinguish whether a command to be parsed is a command of a print target document or a command of an overlay application document. Initially, the overlay flag is set to zero. When the printer driver controller 168 parses the STARTOVERLAY string, the overlay flag is reset to one. In addition, when the printer driver controller 168 parses the ENDOVERLAY string, the overlay flag is reset to 0 again. Therefore, when the overlay flag is 1, the printer driver controller 168 may recognize the parsed command as a command of the overlay application document.

In addition, when an overlay page designation command is input through the input unit 110, the printer driver control unit 168 processes page mapping information based on this to be stored in the volatile memory.

When the print target page and the overlay page are mapped by the page mapping unit 166, the printer driver control unit 168 combines the commands of each page to generate a combining command for each page. The printer driver controller 168 combines all the combining commands for each page of the print target document to generate a combine command for the print target document.

The computer controller 170 controls the overall operation of the computer 100 by an operating system stored in the nonvolatile memory.

The printer 200 may include a printer interface 210, a renderer 220, a print engine 230, and a printer controller 240.

The printer interface unit 210 may be provided so that the printer 200 may be connected to an external device, and a parallel port, a USB port, a wireless module, and the like may be applied. According to the present invention, the printer interface unit 210 is connected to the computer 100 and serves as a path for exchanging mutual data information, and is used when transmitting and receiving print-related data between the computer 100 and the printer 200. . According to the present invention, a combination command of a command of a print target document and a command of an overlay application document is transmitted from the computer 100 through the printer interface unit 210.

The renderer 220 renders a command transmitted through the printer interface unit 210 under the control of the printer controller 240 and converts the command into bitmap data. According to the present invention, the combining command transmitted through the printer interface unit 210 is rendered by the rendering unit 220 and converted into bitmap data.

The print engine 230 performs a print job based on the bitmap data converted by the renderer 220 under the control of the printer controller 240.

The printer controller 240 controls the overall operation of the printer 200 according to a control program stored in a nonvolatile memory (not shown) of the printer 200.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of printing by applying an overlay function according to the present invention.

2 to 5, first, a user performs a work on a print target document through an application program user interface displayed on the display unit 120 of the computer 100. The user inputs a print command for the print target document through the input unit 110 (S400). Then, under the control of the computer controller 170, the printer driver 160 receives the print command and the print target document through the graphic device interface, and converts the transmitted print command and the print target document into a command recognizable by the printer 200. (S405). On the other hand, the printer driver 160 determines whether the overlay function is set for the print target document based on the transmitted print command and the print target document (S410).

If the overlay function is not set, the printer driver 160 processes the converted command to be transmitted to the printer 200. The transmitted command is rendered by the rendering unit 220 of the printer 200, is converted into bitmap data, and then printed on paper (S440 and S445).

However, if the overlay function is set, the printer driver 160 reads the page mapping information based on the overlay page designation command input through the input unit 110 from the storage 140 (S415).

The printer driver 160 determines whether the first print target page and the first overlay page are mapped to each other based on the read page mapping information (S420). As a result of the determination, when mapped, the printer driver 160 generates a combination command for each page by combining the command of the print target page and the command of the overlay page (S425). On the other hand, if not determined, the printer driver 160 selects the second page that is the next page of the first overlay page (S430).

The printer driver 160 determines whether the selected second overlay page and the first print target page are mapped to each other (S420). In operation S430 or S425 according to the determination result.

Steps S420, S425, and S430 are performed to the final print target page of the print target document (S435). That is, when the print target page and the overlay page are mapped, the printer driver 160 generates the combined command for each page, and then determines whether the current print target page is the last print target page of the print target document (S435).

As a result of the determination, in the case of the final print target page, the printer driver 160 combines the combined commands for each page combined so far into one combined command, and transmits the combined command to the printer 200.

Then, the transmitted command is rendered by the printer control unit 240 is converted into bitmap data and then printed on the printing paper (S440, S445).

However, as a result of the determination, if it is not the final print target page, the printer driver 160 performs steps S420, S425, S430, and S435.

As described so far, when the overlay function is applied to each page for a multi-page print target document and a multi-page overlay document, the user designates an overlay page for each print target page and then performs a print job. Only when the user can output the document required by the user, but the printing system and the printing method thereof according to the present invention do not require the user to specify the overlay page for each page and perform the print job for each page. Provide convenience to the user.

Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to exemplary embodiments above, those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains can make various modifications to the above-described embodiments without departing from the scope of the present invention. I will understand. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be defined by the claims below and equivalents thereof.

Claims (5)

A printing system including a host apparatus and a printing apparatus for printing a print target document created in the host apparatus, The host device, An input unit for inputting a setting command of an overlay function for overlay printing an overlay application document on the print target document; A storage unit for storing page mapping information which is information on each page of the overlay application document to be applied to each page of the print target document; And When the setting command of the overlay function is input, the page mapping information is processed to be read, and the printing data of each page of the document to be printed and the overlay to be applied to each page are applied based on the read page mapping information. And a printer driver unit for combining the printing data of one page of the document and processing to generate the combined printing data. The method of claim 1, The printer driver unit, A page mapping unit for mapping one page of the print target document and one page of the overlay application document based on the page mapping information; And And a printer driver controller configured to generate the combined printing data by combining the printing data of one page of the print target document and one page of the overlay document mapped according to the mapping process result of the page mapping unit. Printing system. Converting the print target document into printing data recognizable by a printing apparatus when a print command of a print target document is input; Reading page mapping information which is information on each page of the overlay applied document to be applied to each page of the print target document when an overlay function for overlay printing an overlay applied document is set for the print target document; Generating combined printing data by combining printing data of each page of the print target document and printing data of one page of the overlay application document to be applied to each page based on the page mapping information; And And printing on a sheet of paper based on the generated combined printing data. The method of claim 3, Generating the combined printing data, (a) determining whether one page of the print target document and one page of the overlay application document are mapped based on the page mapping information; and (b) when the result of the determination, combines the printing data of one page of the print target document and the printing data of one page of the overlay application document to generate combined printing data for each page; How to print. The method of claim 4, wherein Generating the combined printing data, (c) determining that the next page of one page of the overlay application document is mapped if it is not mapped; And (d) repeating the steps (a), (b), and (c) to the last page of the document to be printed to generate combined printing data for each page corresponding to each page of the document to be printed; Generating the combined printing data by synthesizing the combined printing data for each page.

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