JPH0321468A - Printer controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform a high speed processing with a small memory capacity by a method wherein an outline font having a high frequency of use that is predetermined per printing mode is previously expanded and stored on a memory. CONSTITUTION:A print engine 4 incorporates a bit map system data processor 3. The bit map-system data processor 3 consists of a hit map control part 30, a bit map RAM 32, a bit map writing part 31 drawing images on said BM-RAM 32, a font part 33 storing therein a compressed font, such as an outline font, and a font RAM 34 storing therein an expanded font. The compressed font stored in the font part 33 is expanded by the bit map control part 30 and stored in the font RAM 34. At the time of printing, whether a previously expanded and stored outline font is selected is judged. When it is selected, printing is conducted immediately.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer control device capable of printing in a plurality of print modes, and particularly relates to a printer control device that is involved in processing of developing characters to be printed in each print mode. It is something.

[Prior Art] Multifunctional printers have become popular in recent years. Therefore, various formats can be selected as the printout format. Normally, this format specification is often set based on a control command sent with the data to be transmitted. Alternatively, when a control command is not transmitted, the printing format is specified by a default value of a control command stored on the printer side, or the format is specified manually by the user.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Generally, a printer control device includes a plurality of fonts, and printing is performed by specifying one of the fonts. Among these fonts, there are fonts called bitmap fonts that are faithfully converted into dots (Fig. IA), and outline fonts (vector fonts) that express only the outline of the font (Fig. IB). In outline fonts, the outline of the font is expressed by a numerical value or mathematical formula, and when printing, the outline is first drawn,
The inside of the outline is then filled in. enlarge font,
It has the advantage that reduction can be carried out freely.

In the conventional printer control device as described above, for example, when an outline font is compressed and stored, time is required to decompress the data, resulting in a decrease in printing performance. Furthermore, the required memory capacity is too large to decompress all fonts in advance and store the decompressed data in memory.

According to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 62-264377, character patterns are compressed and stored in units of point lit or character 111, and data of a specific size or specific character is transferred from the compressed font data memory to the original character. Expansion processing is being performed.

However, according to the above method, although the memory capacity becomes smaller,
There is a problem in that it is necessary to expand the data each time printing is performed, and therefore the processing speed cannot be increased.

In particular, DTP (Desk) has become rapidly popular in recent years.
In Top Publishing, processing speed is a big issue, and expensive hardware is required to increase the speed.

The present invention was made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a printer control device that has a small memory capacity and can perform high-speed processing.

[Means for Solving the Problems] A printer control device for a printer capable of printing in a specified character pattern and a plurality of print modes that can be specified and switched h1 according to the present invention prints a plurality of character patterns in a predetermined manner. a first storage means for storing the compressed character pattern data; a decompressing means for decompressing the compressed character pattern data into the original pattern before compression; and a character pattern that is carefully modified from the original pattern. a second storage means for storing characters, a printing means for printing characters expanded into the original pattern, and a first storage means for storing characters according to a predetermined printing mode when switching the printing mode. means for decompressing and storing the specified character pattern in the second storage means; and means for determining whether the specified character pattern is a character pattern stored in the second storage means. and the specified character pattern is the second fc! If the specified character pattern is stored in the storage means, it is printed, and if the specified character pattern is not stored in the second storage means, the compressed data stored in the first storage means is decompressed, and the specified character pattern is printed. and a control means for controlling printing after storing the information in the second storage means.

Furthermore, in another aspect of the invention, a printer control device for a printer capable of printing in a specified character pattern and a plurality of print modes that can be specified and switched includes:
a first storage means for storing sentence γ pattern data obtained by compressing a plurality of character patterns in a predetermined manner; a decompression means for decompressing the compressed character pattern data into the original pattern before compression; a second storage means for storing the character pattern expanded into the original pattern; a printing means for printing the character pattern expanded into the original pattern; a character pattern to be expanded in advance according to the printing mode; A specific character among them is determined, and when switching the print mode, the character pattern of the predetermined specific character stored in the first storage means is intermediated according to the predetermined print mode, and the first means for storing in the second storage means, determination means for determining whether the character pattern of the designated specific character is the character pattern of the characters stored in the second storage means; If the specified character pattern is stored in the second storage means, it is printed, and if the specified character pattern is not stored in the second storage means, it is printed. and control means for controlling the compressed data stored in the storage means to be expanded, stored in the second storage means, and then printed.

[Operations] In the present invention, frequently used outline fonts predetermined for each print mode are expanded and stored in the memory in advance. When the printer prints, it is determined whether an outline font that has been expanded and stored in advance has been selected, and when it is selected, printing is performed immediately without expanding the selected characters in memory again. It is done.

In another aspect of the invention, an outline font of a specific frequently used character predetermined for each printing mode is expanded and stored in the memory in advance. Then, when the printer prints, it is determined whether the outline font of a specific character that has been expanded and stored in advance has been selected, and when it is selected, the selected character is expanded onto the memory again. Printing will be performed immediately.

[Embodiments] (1) First Embodiment FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processing system using a printer system capable of drawing graphics, which is an embodiment of the present invention. In order to improve the throughput of the data processing apparatus 1, data from the general-purpose data processing apparatus 1 is temporarily stored in an external file buffer 2 via the bus B1, and then output to the printer system 10.

The printer system 10 includes a bitmap data processing device 3, a print engine 4 using an electrophotographic process and a laser, and accessory devices such as an external paper feed unit 5 and a sorter 6.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the appearance of the printer system 10 shown in FIG. 2.

In the figure, a print engine 4 incorporates the bitmap data processing device 3 described above, and is equipped with an external paper feed unit 5 and a sorter 6 as accessories. Further, an operation panel 44 is attached to the upper front surface of the print engine 4, on which a display indicating the status of the system and manual keys for performing simple operations are arranged.

FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of the bitmap data processing device 3 and print engine 4 in the printer system shown in FIG.

The configuration will be explained below with reference to the drawings.

The bitmap data processing device 3 includes a bitmap control unit (BMC) 30, a bitmap RAM (BM-RAM) for bitmaps, and a bitmap writing unit (BMW) 31 that performs drawing on this BM-RAM 32. It consists of a font section 33 in which compressed fonts such as outline fonts are stored, and a font RAM 34 in which decompressed fonts are stored. In addition, the font section 33
The compressed font stored in the bitmap control unit 30
, and stored in the font RAM 34. Connection with the print engine 4 is made through a bus B3 for control data (number of prints, accessory control, etc.) and a bus B4 for image data. Furthermore, connection with an external data processing device is made via bus B2.

The print engine 4 is mainly composed of three control sections. First, the interface control section (IFC) 40 processes control data from the bitmap control section 30, controls the operation panel, and controls the overall timing of the print engine 4 via the internal bus B5. The electrophotographic control section 41 controls the electrophotographic processing section 45 in accordance with data sent from the interface control section 40 through the internal bus B5.

The print head control unit (PHC) 42 has an internal bus B.
In order to write the image data sent from the bitmap writing section 31 through the internal bus B5, the semiconductor laser of the print head section 43 emit light and the polygon motor control the rotation of

In addition, the external paper feed unit 5 and the sorter 6 are also connected to the internal bus B5.
It is controlled by the interface control unit 40 through.

The printer system 10 described above is a bitmap type laser printer. Print data sent from a data processing device (mostly expressed as a code)
is expanded on the BM-RAM 32 of the bitmap processing device 3 as a printed image of the length edge, and outputted to the print engine 4. The print engine 4 modulates the laser beam according to the data from the Vizutomap type data processing device 3, records the data on the photoreceptor, and transfers the data onto recording paper fed from the external paper feeding unit 5.

The data sent from the data processing device 1 includes not only print data but also codes for format control and print engine mode settings.

The bitmap data processing device 3 analyzes these protocols in addition to the print data, controls the format, and issues instructions to the print engine 4 to feed paper, change optional modes, etc. as necessary. In addition to the recording control described above, the print engine 4 performs associated electrophotographic control, recording paper timing control, and processing synchronized with paper feeding to other options. Control of the print engine 4 is similar to that of a general electrophotographic copying machine except for the operation system.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the bitmap control section 30 shown in FIG. 4.

The configuration will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The bitmap control unit 30 is composed of several blocks connected by an internal bus B301.

The BM-CPU 301 is a central control unit of the bitmap data processing device 3 and communicates with the data processing device 1 and the external file buffer 2 through the data processing device interface 308. It also converts the print data and uses the bitmap writing section interface 3.
The bitmap writing unit 31 is controlled through the print engine interface 307, and the print engine 4 is also controlled through the print engine interface 307. SYS-ROM302 is B
Stores the program of M-CPU 301. SYS-R
AM303 is a working storage area of the BM-CPU 301, and is used for storing stacks and bookmark flags.

The R-buffer 304 is a buffer for communication with the outside (data processing device 1 and file buffer 2).
The purpose is to enable communication between the processing program of the PU 301 and the data processing device 1 to be processed even asynchronously.

Bucket buffer (hereinafter abbreviated as P-buffer 7) 305
stores the data from the data processing device 1 as an intermediate code (hereinafter referred to as a packet) that is easy to draw in the BM-RAM 32 and is converted from the font attributes.

The actual drawing of the font is performed by the bitmap writing section 31, but the information to the bitmap writing section 31 is as follows.
Font pattern built-in address and BM-RAM32
It is necessary to calculate parameters such as the drawing address for the image, but this takes a certain amount of time. Therefore, BM-RA
By pre-processing the data of the next page while the data of M32 is being printed, processing speed is increased. Therefore, the movement of data within the P-buffer 305 is FIFO (first in, first out).

The F-buffer 309 stores specification contents regarding control data specification according to the present invention. fc! This memory is made up of non-volatile RAM. That is, the contents of the F-buffer are not lost when power is turned off. In addition, other control data other than the specified content is stored in SYS-RAM3.
03.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the storage contents of this F-buffer 309.

The F-buffer 7 includes a FORM area that is predefined as a standard format, and the user uses control commands to
It consists of a USER area that stores the specified format. Each area can store font name, orientation, and margin specifications. Here, the font name is a variable name indicating the font of various types of printing, and the font name, character thickness, character size, etc. are determined by the variable. What is orientation?
Indicates the printing direction on paper, and includes landscape and portrait printing. The margin indicates the width of the margin excluding the image area from the bar, and includes left, right, top, and bottom margins. In addition, the name of a compressed font typeface with a high probability of being printed in the specified format is stored in the F-OFONT as a variable.

FIG. 7A shows the contents of the font section 33. The font section stores compressed data and a table indicating the storage location of compressed data for each font attribute and character code.

FIG. 7B shows the contents of the font RAM 34.

The font RAM 34 stores the font attributes of the stored typefaces, the number of bytes of decompressed data for one character, and decompressed data. Here, since the decompressed data of the same font has the same amount of data for every character (character code x number of bytes of data for one character), the storage position of the decompressed data can be known. Further, in order to manage the font RAM 34, an outline font RAM table is provided at the beginning of the font RAM to store which font's expanded data is stored at which position.

Here, the font attribute indicates the font, thickness, etc. of the font, and includes, for example, the one shown in FIG. 7C. A specific example of a font corresponding to Figure 7C is Figure 7D.
As shown in the figure. Here, italic font is chosen as the font.

FIGS. 8A and 8B are diagrams for explaining the above image area, and show the cases of landscape printing and portrait printing, respectively.

In the figure, the portion indicated by the total area (A1) corresponds to the size of the paper. The margin area (A2) is
In the margin area when actually printing on the bar, the print data is drawn in the remaining image area (A3). Printing starts from the top left of the image area, and characters are printed in the printing direction (A 1 0).
are printed in sequence according to the following. If the line feed code is entered manually, the line feed width (A 1 2) is added in the line feed direction (All).
The next print position will move by the same amount. Furthermore, when the return code is input, the next printing position moves to the left return position (Al3) of the image area. Note that the margin area (A2) consisting of the left, right, top, and bottom margins around the image area can be changed on a page-by-page basis as specified by the host.

FIG. 9 shows the operation panel 4 shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.
FIG. 4 is a plan view showing details of FIG.

As shown in the figure, input keys 901 to 906 and display element 9
11 to 921 are arranged. The PAUSE key 901 is
This is for temporarily stopping the printing operation. By pressing the shift key 903 at the same time as the key 902,
This is the CANCEL key to interrupt printing. key 90
The reason why the interruption function is activated by pressing 2 and the shift key 903 at the same time is to prevent interruptions due to careless operations. By pressing the FORM key 904, a specified mode is enabled in which data is printed in a predetermined format for a specific purpose, specifically, in the format of the contents stored in the FORM area of the F-buffer 309. Furthermore, by pressing the USER key 905, a specification mode is enabled in which data is printed in a format specified by the user, specifically, in the format of the contents stored in the USER area of the F-buffer 309.

Display elements 919 and 920 display that one of the above formats is specified. The N O RMA L key 906 is a means for specifying a mode in which data is printed in a normal format.
It serves to cancel the mode specified by keys 904 and 905. Furthermore, when the power is turned on, this mode is set as the initial setting.

Figures 10A and 10B show the FORM key and U
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of an image area according to each manual specification mode of the SER key.

In the figure, in the FORM mode, the font is a standard format in which the font is Mincho, 9 points (MIN9), and the left, right, top, and bottom margins are all 10 mm. On the other hand, in the USER mode, the font is a 7-point Mincho typeface (MIN7), the left margin is 10mm, the right margin is 20mm, the top margin is 3Qmm, and the bottom margin is 10mm.

Control of a printer system according to an embodiment of the present invention will be explained below using the flows shown in FIGS. 11 to 18.

A. Figure 11 shows the flow of the interface control section.
This is a schematic processing flow of the main routine of the interface control unit 40.

After the interface control unit 40 performs internal initialization (#2) by turning on the power (#1), the command,
Initialize each parameter such as a flag (#3). After initializing the parameters, enable two interrupt processing (#
4) Furthermore, after outputting a start signal (#5) to the sorter 6, external paper feed unit 5, electrophotographic $il control unit 41, and printer head control unit 42 through the bus B5, various processing loops (#6) are output. ). Note that the interrupts include a bitmap control section interrupt for receiving commands and the like from the bitmap control section 30, and a system timer interrupt for controlling the operation panel 44 and performing timer processing.

In the bitmap control unit interrupt, bitmap control unit 3
Performs reception processing of commands sent from 0. In the case of a bitmap controller interrupt, the received command is not directly executed, but only a flag in the interface controller is set, and actual processing is performed when this flag is detected in the processing loop. This is to make the communication between the processing loop and the bitmap control unit 30 non-uniform and to simplify the configuration of the processing loop.

Next, system timer interrupt (#10-20 in Figure 12)
I will explain about it.

In the system timer interrupt, input/output processing of the operation panel 44 (#11, #12), counting processing of the timer set in the processing loop (#1B), and processing according to the state of the input key are performed.

When the FORM key 904 is turned on (YES in #14)
, outputs a FORM ON signal to the bitmap control unit 30 via bus B3 (9 1 5).

Also, when the USER key 905 is turned on (YES in #16), the USER key 905 is sent to the bitmap control unit 30.
Output a signal (#1 7). NORMAL key 90
6 is turned on (YES in #18), a NORMAL ON signal is output to the bitmap control unit 30 (#
19). The above output signal is processed in IFC command processing in the flow of the bitmap control unit 30 shown later. For keys below that, other key operations such as PAUSE key and CANCEL key (# 2 0
) and return.

88 Flow of Bitmap Control Unit FIG. 13 is a processing flow of the main routine of the bitmap control unit 30.

First, when the power is turned on (#30), internal initialization is performed (#31) and each buffer except the F-buffer 309 (non-volatile RAM) is cleared (#3).
2). Next, parameters of various commands and flags are initialized (#33, #34). Each flag is
This flag indicates that changing the orientation and margin control commands is prohibited. log-pa
The ge-start flag is a flag indicating that each page is being processed. That is, when data is retrieved from the R-buffer for each page, this flag is turned on and the PAGE
When the EJECT code is encountered, it is turned off (see FIG. 15, which will be described later).

Next, after enabling interrupts (#35) and reading font attributes (#36), format control information is initialized (#37).

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram showing the specific contents of initializing this format control information.

In this flow, the initial paper orientation is portrait (portrait...see Figure 8B) (#
50), each margin value is all set to 0, and the font is selected to the first registered font. In other words, the flag F-ORI indicating orientation is set to 0.
(#50) (vertical: F-ORI-0, horizontal: F-OR
I-1), variable F-LMAR that holds each margin value
(Left Margin), F-RMAR (Right Margin), F-TMAR (Top Margin) and F-
O for each BMAR (bottom margin) (#51)
and set the image area (#52).

A font is initially selected (#53) from the read font attributes (#36 in Figure 13), and the selected font name is stored in a variable F-F that holds the font name of the selected font.
Assign to ONT (#54).

Here, select a font other than compressed fonts. After that, processing of received data from the data processing device 1, processing of received data for converting into packets, and IFC command processing for processing data from the print engine 4,
Enters the main loop consisting of packet processing, which performs drawing processing to the BM-RAM 32 according to the packet, and the print controller 1 roll, which processes the print sequence with the interface control unit 40 (#38 to #41). .

By the way, the data sent from the data processing device 1 is once stored in the R-buffer 7304, which is a reception buffer, in order to increase the effectiveness of communication.

The received character data is extracted from the R-buffer 304, converted into a packet, and stored once in the P-buffer 305 in reception data processing (#38). Thereafter, the font is extracted by packet processing (#40), and the corresponding font is drawn in the BM-RAM 30 by the bitmap writing section 31. The print request code (PAG) is included in the packet.
E. EJECT), the print control (#4 1) starts actual printing.

In addition to this, processing such as temporary stopping of printing and interruption of processing is performed as appropriate.

Received Data Processing (#38)> FIG. 15 is a flow diagram showing the basic contents of received data processing.

As mentioned above, the received data is written in bitmap 3 in advance.
1 is converted into an easy packet and stored in the P-buffer 305. This also applies to BM-RA during printing.
This is to improve throughput by converting received data to M32 in parallel.

First, confirm that there is free space in the P-buffer 305 (
#60: YES), and the data is R-Huffer 30
4 (YES in #61), the received data is extracted from the R-buffer 304 (#62). Then, assuming that page processing has started since data was taken out from the R-buffer, Log-page-st
The flag of art is set to 1 (#63). P-buffer 3
If there is no space in 05, or if there is no data in the R-buffer, this means that there is no data to be taken out, or even if there is data to be taken out, it cannot be stored in the P-buffer 305, so return in this state. do.

If the received data is a character code that should be printed (#
No for 64, #66, #69, #74, #77, #80
) converts it into a packet according to the font attributes read when the power is turned on (#83 to #86). As a concrete conversion procedure, first, the font address of the pattern corresponding to the character code is output to the P-buffer 305 (
983), the write address to the BM-RAM 32 is sequentially output to the P-buffer 305 (#84), and the write mode to the bitmap writing section 31 is output (#85).

Finally, update the write address of the next font to the BM-RAM 32 according to the current font size, etc. (#86).

Next, if it is an interface control unit related code that sets the number of prints, option operation, etc. (YES in #64), in order to synchronize the processing in the character packet processing (#40) mentioned above, A different type of packet is output to the P-buffer 305 (#65).

PAGE. The EJECT code (#66) is a code that actually starts printing, and starts printing when the previous characters are written to the BM-RAM 32. This code also synchronizes processing with the preceding and following characters, so P
- Output to buffer 305 (#67). At this time,
log-page-s assuming page processing has finished
The tart flag is set to 0 (#68).

Next, if the received data is a USER setting command (#
6 (YES), specified font name, orientation, margin and outline font name F
-Regard OFONT as a new USER mode setting value and write it to the USER area of the F-buffer (#70)
. Then, if the USER ON signal is not received, the process returns. USER oN (If you receive No. 3 (
YES in #71), perform the USER setting process (#71).
7 2). This USER setting process will be described later.

If the received data is a font designation command (YES in #74), font setting processing is performed (#76).

If the received data is a margin designation command (YES in #77), then the margin change prohibition flag C-MAR is determined, and if it is 0 (YES in #78), margin setting processing is performed. If C-MAR is 1, margin change is prohibited, and the process returns. If the received data is an orientation specification command (YES in #80),
Next, the orientation change prohibition flag C-ORI is determined, and if it is O (YES in #81), orientation setting processing is performed. If C-ORI is 1, return.

Here, the contents of the font setting process, orientation setting process, and margin setting process will be explained.

FIG. 16A is a flow diagram showing specific contents of the font setting processing routine.

The font name is updated, that is, the variable F-FONT set in #54 in FIG. 14 is updated (#90),
Next, a font is selected based on the font name according to the updated F-FONT (#91). If the selected font is a compressed font (Y in #92), it is checked whether the font has already been decompressed and stored in the font RAM 34. This check is performed by searching the outline font RAM table for the typeface name. If decompression has already been performed (Y in #93), return is made; if decompression has not been performed (N in #93), font expansion processing 2 (#95) is performed and the F-FONT is A bitmap development process of the specified font, that is, a process of decompressing the font data is performed. Also, if the selected font is not a compressed font (N in #92),
If the compressed font indicated by F-OFONT in the F buffer has already been decompressed (Y in #96), the process returns as is. On the other hand, if F-OFONT has not been expanded yet (N in #96), font expansion processing 1 (
#87) is performed, and F-OFONT bitmap development processing is performed.

By this process, when a format is selected by the FORM key 904 or USER key 905 (FIGS. 19 and 20), the compressed font indicated by F-OFONT can be expanded.

Next, the flow shown in FIG. 16B will be explained.

FIG. 16B is a flowchart showing the specific contents of the font development process 1. In this process, first the F-OFO
The compressed data of the typeface indicated by NT is decompressed (#140
, #141) is stored in the font RAM 34 (#
1 4 2). When expansion of all characters of the font indicated by F-OFONT is completed, information on the expanded font is written to the outline font RAM table (#144).

Next, FIG. 16C will be explained. FIG. 16C is a flowchart showing the specific contents of the font development process 2.

The processing content of this routine is exactly the same as the font expansion processing 1 routine, but the font to be processed is F-FONT, that is, the specified compressed font is expanded, that is, decompressed (#150, # 151)
. This point differs from FIG. 15B.

Next, the specific contents of the font setting process will be explained.

The flow of the font setting process shown in FIG. 16A is as follows:
It is assumed that an outline font will not be set as an initial value in the ONT. Therefore, when the process is started and the process flow first proceeds to FIG. 16A, the selected font may not be a compressed font (#92). Therefore, the process proceeds to #96. Here, it is determined whether the F-OFONT has already been expanded. In the first routine, since F-OFONT is not expanded, the flow advances to #97, and the outline font set in F-OFONT is expanded. Therefore, if settings are made using user keys or form keys, the F-OFO set in each mode
Outline font set to NT is font RA
3 times are remembered in M34. Here, one F- is placed in each mode.
Since frequently used fonts are preset in OFONT, in the next process, if the selected font is a compressed font (Y in #92), check whether the selected font has already been decompressed or not. A decision is made as to whether it is possible (#93). If the font selected at this time is an outline font developed in advance in #97, the process returns without performing font development again. Therefore, high-speed printing is possible with a correspondingly smaller memory capacity.

Note that in #93, if the selected font has not been expanded yet (N in #93), font expansion processing 2 is newly performed.

Here, a specific example of use of the printer control device according to the present invention will be described. A letter printing mode will be explained as an example of the USER setting mode. Now assume that the letterhead of the letter is printed in an italic bold font, and the text is printed in an italic light font, and that the italic bold font is not a compressed font and the italic light font is a compressed font. The user specifies the format of the user mode in advance using a control command. That is, input a variable corresponding to the italic bold font as the F-FONT name, for example 10, and enter the F-FONT name.
- As OFONT, a variable corresponding to the italic light font often used in the letter printing mode, for example 20, is input manually. The user presses key 905 (see FIG. 9) when creating a letter using the printer. Then, the 16th
The following processing is performed in the flow shown in Figure A. F-FO
NT is updated to 10 (#9 0). Since the selected font is not a compressed font (#92), F-
It is determined whether OFONT is expanded (#9
・6). F-OFONT is not pre-expanded, so
Font development processing (#97) is performed, and the italic light font is developed on the font RAM 34. Printing of the letter begins in this state. Since the italic bold font used for the letterhead is not a compressed font, it is determined to be N in #92, and since the F-OFONT has already been expanded, it is determined to be Y in #96 and the process returns. The next time the text is printed, F-FONT is updated to F-OFONT. Next, it is determined whether the selected font is a compressed font (#92).

Since F-OFONT is a compressed font, it is determined to be Y. Next, it is determined whether the selected font has already been brokered (#93). Since the selected font is F-OFONT and has already been expanded, it is determined to be Y and is immediately printed.

Therefore, in the print control device according to the present invention, frequently used outline fonts predetermined for each print mode are developed in advance on a bitmap and stored. When the printer selects an outline font that has been developed and stored in advance for printing, printing is performed immediately without developing the selected characters on the bitmap again.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart showing specific details of the margin setting process.

First, the flag of log-page-start is determined (#100). If this flag is 1, it means that page processing has started, so margin setting processing is not performed and the process returns. If this flag is O, specify each margin (#1.01, #103, $1
05), a variable (F-LM
ARSF-RMARSF-TMAR and F-BMAR
) respectively (#102, #104, #1
06, #107).

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram showing specific contents of the orientation setting process.

First, the log-page-start flag is determined (#110). If this flag is 1, it means that page processing has started, and the process returns without performing orientation setting processing. If this flag is 0, the orientation flag is determined (#111). If this flag is 1, the paper orientation is set to horizontal (O
is substituted), and a coordinate system corresponding to that orientation is set (#114). When the orientation flag is not 1 (No in #111), the paper orientation is set vertically (1 is assigned to the value of F-ORI), and the coordinate system corresponding to this orientation is set (#114). ).

<Interface Control Unit Command Processing (#39)> FIG. 19 is a flow diagram showing the outline of the interface control command processing.

Here, synchronization processing of commands and print sequences generated in the interface control section 40 is performed by key operations on the operation panel 44.

When FORM specification is selected, that is, operation panel 4
When the FORM ON signal is output from the interface control unit 40 via the bus B3 by the operation in step 4 (
YES in #120), the process moves to FORM setting processing. First, each FORM format data is read from the F-buffer and assigned to each variable (#1 2 1). In order to print the received data in this FORM format, each flag of C-ORISC-MAR is set to prohibit the execution of control commands (orientation specification, margin specification) sent from the data processing device. 1 (# 1 2 2). Subsequently, font setting processing, margin setting processing, and orientation setting processing are performed (#123 to #125). The contents of these setting processes are similar to those shown in the flows of FIGS. 16A, 16B, and 16C to FIG. 17.

When the USER designation is selected, that is, when the USER ON signal is output from the interface control unit 40 via the bus B3 by operating the operation panel 44 (YES in #126), user setting processing is performed.

FIG. 20 shows the USER setting process. The user format data is read from the F-buffer and assigned to each variable (#127), and then the same processing as in the case of FORM specification is performed (1128 to #131). Note that the USER setting process is also executed in FIG. 15.

Next, when the NORMAL designation is selected, that is, when the NORMAL key 906 is pressed on the operation panel 44, or when the power is turned on, the NORMAL
When the L ON signal is output (YES in #132)
, NORMAL setting processing is performed. Here, in order to permit the execution of control commands sent from the data processing device, the C-ORI and C-MAR flags are cleared (#133)L, and then the format control information is initialized (#133). 134) Do. The contents of the format control information initialization process are similar to those shown in the flowchart of FIG. 14.

In the embodiments described above, the present invention is applied to a laser printer, but it can also be applied to an electrophotographic copying machine using a device other than a laser, such as an LED.

Furthermore, although the embodiment described above is applied to a bitmap type printer, it goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to printers of other types such as a character map type or a strip map type.

Further, in the above embodiment, an example of setting a font when a letter is used is shown, but it is possible to freely set an outline font according to various other uses, and the same effect can be achieved in such cases.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, F is used for format setting.
Although two modes, ROM mode and USER mode, are provided, it is sufficient to use only one of the modes, or the printer may have three or more setting modes with setting keys that specify other modes. jiJ Noh.

In the above embodiment, a compressed outline font is expanded into the memory, but data obtained by compressing a bitmap font may be expanded into the memory.

(2) Second Embodiment In a second embodiment of the present invention, specific characters from frequently used fonts are developed in advance in accordance with the print mode. The contents of the second embodiment are almost the same as those of the first embodiment, so only the different points will be explained.

In the second embodiment, first, the storage contents of the F buffer are different. 21A and 21B correspond to FIG. 6 of the first embodiment. FIG. 21A shows the contents of the F buffer in macro view, and FIG. 21B shows the information in the area of each mode. shows. As shown in FIG. 21B, in the second embodiment, in order to identify frequently used characters in advance, a code table of the specific characters is stored in advance.

In the second embodiment of the invention, as shown in FIG. 22, the contents of the font RAM are also different.

This figure corresponds to FIG. 7B of the first embodiment. As shown in FIG. 22, in the second embodiment of the present invention, in order to develop specific characters in advance, a character data area is used as a registration information area to distinguish between specific characters and other characters. Divided into location information areas. Each area is divided into a specific character code and other character codes.

Next, the flow of received data processing in the second failed example will be explained. In the second embodiment, in the received data processing of the first embodiment shown in FIG.
The flow shown in FIG. 23 is inserted between the "No" line of the determination of orientation designation in step #80 and the step of outputting the font address to the P buffer in step #83.

That is, in the second embodiment of the present invention, when the received data is a specific character code to be printed (#2
01 = YES), and the font is a compressed font (
YES in #202), and the character that can be represented by that character code is a character that has not yet been decompressed (#20
3 (No), the character is expanded in the font expansion processing routine 4 (see FIG. 26, which will be described later). That is, in the second embodiment of the present invention, if the received data is a specific character code of a predetermined font, the specific character is expanded in advance.

In the second embodiment of the present invention, the font setting processing routine (corresponding to FIG. 16A of the first embodiment) is also changed. The specific contents of the font setting processing routine according to the length embodiment of the brush 2 of this invention are shown in FIG.

The font name is updated, that is, the variable F-FONT set in #54 in Figure 14 is updated (#290), and then a font is selected by the font name according to the updated F-FONT (# 291>.Next flag a
ddchar is reset (#292). Note that the flag addchar here is a flag indicating whether all registered characters have been expanded. This flag is set when all characters have been expanded. If the selected font is a compressed font (#2
9 (Y at 3), it is checked whether the font has already been decompressed and stored in the font RAM 34. This check is performed by searching the outline font RAM table for the typeface name. If expansion has already been performed (Y in #294), the flag addchar is set (#295); if expansion has not been performed (N in #294), font expansion processing 4 (
#297) is performed, and a bitmap development process for a specific character specified by F-FONT, that is, a process to expand the font data is performed. Also, if the selected font is not a compressed font (N in 8293), F
If the compressed font indicated by F-OFONT in the buffer has already been decompressed (Y in #298), flag a
ddchar is set (#299) and the process returns.

If 10,000 F-OFONTs have not been expanded yet (#
(N at 298), font development processing 3 (#300) is performed, and bitmap development processing of F-OFONT is performed.

Next, the flow of font development processing 3 will be explained with reference to FIG. In this process, the compressed data of the font indicated by F-OFONT is expanded. Stretching is done character by character, not by typeface. Specifically, the 21st
As shown in Figure B, characters that are considered to be used frequently are registered for each font (characters that are expanded in advance at the same time as the font is selected). The font development process is divided into two processes depending on whether the selected character is a registered character or a non-registered character.

First, when opening a registered character into a family (Y in #240)
), reads the registered character code from the F-buffer (#242) until the expansion of the registered character (expansion specified character) is completed (until Y is reached in #241).
, sequential decompression (#243), writing of decompression results (#244)
).

When all characters have been expanded (Y in #241), information on the expanded font is written to the font RAM table (#245). The unused portion of the font RAM area is used as an additional area for storing expanded data of characters other than registered characters (#245). After that, the flag addchar is set because all the registered fonts have been expanded (#24
6).

Next, in the case of a character other than the registered character (N in #240), it is determined whether there is space in the additional area of the font RAM (#247), and if there is space (Y in #247), The specified character is expanded (#248) and the expansion result is written (#249). Update the write pointer to the additional area (#250). If there is no free space in the additional area (N in #247), the write pointer is set to the beginning (#251) and the expansion process is performed as described above, since the additional area is used in a ring buffer format.

Next, the flow shown in FIG. 26 will be explained.

FIG. 26 is a flowchart showing the specific contents of the font development process 4. This process is basically the same as the font expansion process 3 explained in FIG. The only difference is that the font to be expanded is a specified compressed font (F-FONT). Therefore, the explanation of the contents will be omitted.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, frequently used outline fonts are expanded and stored in the memory in advance according to the print mode. Then, when the printer prints, it is determined whether or not a previously decompressed font is selected, and when the font is selected, the character is immediately printed without being decompressed onto the memory again. As a result, a printer control device capable of high-speed processing with a small memory capacity can be provided.

Further, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, specific frequently used characters are determined in advance according to the print mode, and the font thereof is expanded.

Then, when the printer prints, it is determined whether or not a pre-expanded font of a specific character is selected, and when the font is selected, the character is immediately printed without being expanded on the memory again.

As a result, it is possible to provide a printer control device that requires even less memory capacity and is capable of high-speed processing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. IA and FIG. IB are diagrams showing examples of fonts, and FIGS. 2 to 19 are all according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processing system using a printer system. , FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the external appearance of the printer system, and FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the structure of the bitmap data processing device and print engine shown in FIG. 2.
5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the bitmap control section in FIG. 4, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the storage contents of the F-buffer in FIG. 5, FIG. 7A is a diagram showing the contents of the font section 33, 7th
Figure B shows the contents of the font RAM, Figure 7C shows an example of font attributes, Figure 7D shows an example of a specific font corresponding to Figure 7C, and Figures 8A and 8
Figure B is a diagram for explaining the image area, Figure T59 is a plan view showing the configuration of the operation panel in Figure 3, Figures 10A and 10B are diagrams showing examples of specifying the FORM and USER modes, and Figure 11. is a schematic flowchart of the main routine of the interface control section, FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing specific details of system timer interrupt processing, which is one of the interrupt permissions in FIG. 11, and FIG. 13 is a flowchart of the bitmap control section. A processing flow diagram of the main routine, FIG. 14 is a flow diagram showing specific details of format control information initialization in FIG. 13, FIG. 15 is a flow diagram showing specific details of received data processing in FIG. 13, 16A to 16C are flowcharts showing the specific contents of the font setting process in FIG. 15, and FIG.
A flow diagram showing the specific contents of the margin setting process in Figure 5,
FIG. 18 is a flowchart showing the specific content of the orientation setting process in FIG. 15, FIG. 19 is a flowchart showing the specific content of the IFC command process, and FIG. 20 is a flowchart showing the user setting process. FIGS. 21A to 26 are diagrams for explaining a second embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 3 is a bitmap data processing device; 4 is a bitmap data processing device;
1 is a print engine, 10 is a printer system, 30 is a bitmap control unit, 31 is a bitmap writing unit, 32
is BM-RAM, 33 is a font section, 40 is an interface control section, 41 is an electrophotographic control section, 44 is an operation panel, 302 is a SYS-ROM, 309 is an F-buffer,
904 is the FORM key, 905 is the USER key, 906
is the NORMAL key. In each figure, the same reference numerals indicate the same or corresponding parts. 1JirIIA Figure 4 Figure 1B Figure 6 Figure 73: Vinyl Tomari 7゜δ" Figure 3 Figure 7A Figure 7B Figure 7C Figure 7D Figure 89 Figure 18 Figure 11 Figure 10A <FQRM Figure 108 <tJsER> Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 16A of Figure 14 1k94 Figure 16B Modification 145 Figure 17 Figure 16C Figure #154 Figure 20 Figure 82jA Figure 218 Figure 23 Figure 2S Figure 24 Figure 26

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A printer control device for a printer that is capable of printing in specified character patterns and multiple print modes that can be specified and switched, and that compresses character pattern data using a predetermined method. a first storage means for storing the data, a decompression means for decompressing the compressed character pattern data into the original pattern before compression, and a first storage means for storing the character pattern decompressed into the original pattern. 2 storage means, a printing means for printing the expanded characters in the original pattern, and the character pattern to be expanded in accordance with the printing mode is determined in advance, and when switching the printing mode, means for expanding the predetermined character pattern stored in the first storage means and storing it in the second storage means according to the predetermined printing mode; and the specified character. determining means for determining whether a pattern is a character pattern stored in the second storage means; and determining means for determining whether the specified character pattern is stored in the second storage means; After printing, if the specified character pattern is not stored in the second storage means, the compressed data stored in the first storage means is decompressed and stored in the second storage means; A printer control device including a control means for controlling printing. (2) A printer control device for a printer capable of printing in a specified character pattern and multiple print modes that can be specified and switched, which compresses character pattern data using a predetermined method. a first storage means for storing, a decompression means for decompressing the compressed character pattern data into the original pattern before compression, and a first storage means for storing the character pattern decompressed into the original pattern. a second storage means; a printing means for printing characters expanded into the original pattern; and the character pattern to be expanded and specific characters thereof are determined in advance according to the printing mode. , when switching the print mode, the character pattern of the predetermined specific character stored in the first storage means is expanded and stored in the second storage means according to the predetermined print mode; means for storing the specified character pattern in the second storage means; determining means for determining whether the character pattern of the designated specific character is the character pattern of the character stored in the second storage means; If a specific character pattern is stored in the second storage means, it is printed, and if the character pattern of the designated specific character is not stored in the second storage means, it is printed in the first storage means.
A printer control device comprising: control means for controlling the compressed data stored in the storage means to be decompressed, stored in the second storage means, and then printed.