JPH0640077A - Character data printing method and printing apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make outward appearance of printing attractive by a method wherein a reduced character is produced out of full-size character data with reduction ratios made different in height and width, and overlay printing is made with the reduced character moved toward the direction of large reduction ratio, and thereby the stroke width for the part in large reduction ratio is made to look thick when the printing is made. CONSTITUTION:A control section 4, with printing command inputted from a document producing device 2, recognizes through command data that the command is either for reduction or enlargement. The control section 4 reads a character specified by the next reference character code out of a character memory 6. As the read-out character data is for a character in full size, reduction or enlargement is applied in accordance with ratios in the direction X and in the direction Y. In the case where a character such as the one described in the figure is to be printed in half size, half-size character data are produced, with the coordinate data in the direction X and the coordinate data in the direction Y in outline font data made respectively 0.5 and 1.0 times in accordance with the reduction ratios of 0.5 in the direction X and 1.0 in the direction Y. As the character produced in a way as mentioned above looks poor in outward appearance, the control section 4 outputs a command, specifying that the printing should be made in overlaying with the character moved slightly in the direction X.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for printing data created by a dedicated word processor, personal computer or the like, and more particularly to a printing method and printing apparatus suitable for printing reduced character data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A data processing device such as a word processor has character data for printing in a dot font, an outline font, etc., but normally it has data of full-width characters and half-width characters for each character. is there. But,
If non-kanji, JIS first-level, and second-level character data are stored as full-width and half-width data, a large-capacity memory is required, which increases the manufacturing cost of the data processing device. Therefore, by having only full-width character data in the memory, the memory capacity is reduced, and when printing half-width characters, the full-width character data is reduced to 1/2 in the horizontal direction and printed.

[0003]

The left side of FIG. 7 shows double-byte characters of the Chinese numeral "10". When this full-width character is reduced to 1/2 in the horizontal direction and printed as a half-width character, it becomes as shown on the right side of FIG. 7. As can be seen from FIG. 7, since half-width characters are scaled down to 1/2 only in the horizontal direction, the line width in the vertical direction is the same as that of full-width characters, and only the line width in the horizontal direction is scaled down to 1/2. It As a result, there is a problem that the vertical lines become thinner than the horizontal lines, the print feels poor, and the print does not look good.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing method and apparatus for improving the appearance when printing reduced characters such as half-width characters having different reduction ratios in the vertical and horizontal directions based on full-width character data. It is in.

[0005]

The above-described object is to generate a reduced character having a different reduction ratio in the vertical direction and a reduction ratio in the horizontal direction from full-width character data and to print the reduced character by shifting the reduced character in the direction of the larger reduction ratio. This can be achieved by overprinting and thickly printing the line width with a large reduction ratio.

The above-mentioned object is also to obtain reduced character data having different reduction ratios in the vertical direction and the reduction ratio in the horizontal direction from full-width character data by calculation, and when this is expanded into a bitmap and printed, the vertical line outline of the reduced character is obtained. Can also be achieved by calculating the reduced character data by shifting the line width in the horizontal direction and thickening the line width, developing the reduced character data into a bitmap, and printing.

[0007]

When the reduction ratios of the reduced characters in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction are different, if the reduced characters are printed as they are, the line width in the direction in which the reduction ratio is large becomes thin. However, by shifting the reduced characters in this direction and overprinting them, or when calculating the contour data of the reduced characters from the contour data of full-width characters, the position is shifted in the direction in which the width of the vertical line is thickened in advance, The line width becomes thicker, and it is possible to obtain a print result that does not give a feeling of strangeness as much as the difference in reduction ratio.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a character data printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The printing apparatus 1 is connected to the document creating apparatus 2 by a cable 8 and receives a print command and print data sent from the document creating apparatus 2 and a data receiving section 3 and performs control related to printing in accordance with the print instruction. It comprises a control unit 4, a printing unit 5 for printing, and a storage device 7 having a character data memory 6 such as a ROM. The memory 6 stores full-width character data of each character for each typeface to be printed. Document creation device 2 as print data
When the character code data is sent from, the control unit 4 reads the character data corresponding to this character code. When the print command includes the print command of the reduced character, the control unit 4 generates the reduced character data from the double-byte character data at the specified reduction ratio, and sends the reduced character data to the printing unit 5 to print the reduced character. Print on paper.

FIG. 5 shows outline font data of the Mincho type full-width characters of the character "tori" indicated by JIS code "3C68" among the data stored in the memory of FIG. 6 (the outline of the character is shown in FIG. 2). It is shown). Table 1 shows basic command data used to represent outline font data of characters. In this example, "start point", "single straight line", "single curve", "contour end", and "character end" are basic commands.

[0011]

[Table 1]

The outline font data of each character is
It is expressed using the basic command shown in Table 1 and the vertex coordinates of the character. The basic command is 8-bit data in the example of Table 1, but the abbreviation is used in the example of FIG. Hereinafter, abbreviations are enclosed in "".

In FIG. 5, the full-width character data of "Tori" consists of data a, b, c, d, e, f, g. The data a is the outer contour of the biased “ear” of “Tori” at each vertex P00, P
This is contour data that makes one round in the order of 01 → P02 → ... → P0F → P0G → P0H (= P00). First, write the X and Y coordinate data of the start point P00 after the basic command data “80” indicating the “start point”, and then the line type connecting the start point P00 and the next vertex P01 is “single straight line”. The basic command data “81” indicating that it is “,” and the X and Y coordinate data of the vertex P01 are written. And so on. Since the line connecting the vertices P0A and P0D is a curve, the provisional vertices P0B and P0C are replaced by vertices P0A and P0D.
It is assumed to be on the tangent line at and the space between them is represented by Bezier curve data. Therefore, the basic command data “82” indicating “single curve” and the X and Y coordinate data of each vertex P0B, P0C, P0D are written. Below, write the outline data up to the vertex P0H, and finally, the basic command data "83" indicating "end of outline".
To end the data a.

The data b is the outer contour of the "mata" of "Tori", with each vertex P10 → P11 → P12 → ... → P1S → P1T → P1U → P1V (=
This is contour data that makes one round in the order of P10). This data b
Is also expressed by the data of a single straight line and a single curve. Data c
Is the inner contour of the closed region c of the "Mata" of "Tori".
This is contour data that makes one round in the order of P20 → P21 → ... → P26 → P27 (= P20). The data d, e, and f are contour data obtained by going around the inner contours of the three closed regions d, e, and f of the “ear” partial “ear” in order of each vertex, and as the last data g,
The basic command data "84" indicating "end of character" ends all contour data.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example of a print command sent from the document creating apparatus. When performing the reduced printing of the character "Tori", 8-bit "10001" indicating "Character reference"
The command of "111" (see Table 1) is specified, and then the JIS code number indicating the double-byte character data of "Tori" to be referenced is specified in 16 bits as the "reference character code". Next, the ratio in the X direction (horizontal direction) and the ratio in the Y direction (vertical direction) are designated. For example, in the case of half-width characters, the ratio in the X direction is “0.5” and the ratio in the Y direction is “1.0”. The actual ratios are designated as 8-bit data.

The control unit 4, which has received the print command shown in FIG. 4 from the document creating apparatus 2 (FIG. 6), knows from the command data that this command is a command for reducing or enlarging characters.
The control unit 4 reads the character designated by the next reference character code from the memory 6. Since this character data is full-width characters, the character is reduced or enlarged based on the ratio in the X direction and the ratio in the Y direction. For example, in the case of printing a half-width character of "Tori", based on the ratio of 0.5 in the X direction and the ratio of 1.0 in the Y direction, the coordinate data in the X direction of the outline font data shown in FIG. Double the coordinate data in the Y direction by 1.0 to create half-width character data. FIG. 3 is a diagram in which the data of the half-width character “tori” created in this way is displayed as an actual character. The characters in FIG. 3 have the same ratio of the vertical line width to the horizontal line width as compared with the full-width character shown in FIG. 2, and are visually poor. Therefore, the control unit 4 controls the half-width character "Tori".
In the case of printing, as shown in FIG. 1, a command to the printing unit to print the reduced character "Tori" by overlapping it with a slight shift in the X direction with respect to the reduced character "Tori" to be printed at a predetermined position. Output. As a result, the vertical line becomes thicker and the appearance becomes better. The amount of offset printing is adjusted according to the difference between the designated ratio in the X direction and the designated ratio in the Y direction. When performing overprinting, it is possible to save printing toner, ink, etc. by overprinting only the shifted portion after printing the half-width character "Tori" at a predetermined position. When performing overprinting, character data in the overprinted state may be created and then printed. Further, when a reduced character before and after the shift is printed, a valley portion (in FIG. 1, a valley portion p caused by the shift of the crest tip portion of the horizontal scale at the right end of the first image of "Tori") is generated. By performing printing while shifting (printing an intermediate state of misalignment), the smoothness of the entire character can be maintained.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory view of the second embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 8 (a), the outline font data of the Mincho script called "mouth" is obtained by taking the outermost contour coordinate data in the counterclockwise direction as in the case of the "take" data (FIG. 5). The coordinate data of the inner contour is taken clockwise. When the contour position of the half-width character is calculated using the full-width character data of FIG. 8A, and this is expanded into a bitmap and printed, the state on the left side of FIG. 8B is obtained. At the time of this calculation, if the direction of the vector has an upward component,
When calculating the position data, the position data is shifted in advance in the direction in which the line width is thickened as shown by the dotted line in the right figure of FIG. By passing it to 6), the same effect as in the first embodiment can be obtained.

[0018]

According to the present invention, when a reduced character having different reduction ratios in the X and Y directions is generated based on full-width character data and printed, the appearance is improved and the quality of printing is improved. is there.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 illustrates a printing method according to an embodiment of the present invention, which includes half-width characters “Tori”.
It is explanatory drawing when it applies to.

FIG. 2 is a contour diagram of a full-width character “tori” of Mincho type.

FIG. 3 is a contour diagram of a half-width character “tori” generated from the full-width character shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of print command data for reduced and enlarged characters.

5 is an outline font data configuration diagram of full-width characters shown in FIG. 2. FIG.

FIG. 6 is a configuration diagram of a character data printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a printing conceptual diagram of full-width characters and half-width characters.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Printing device, 2 ... Document creating device, 3 ... Data receiving unit,
4 ... control unit, 5 ... printing unit, 6 ... character data memory.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method of generating and printing reduced characters having different reduction ratios in the vertical direction and the reduction ratio in the horizontal direction from full-width character data, wherein when the reduced characters are printed, the reduced characters are shifted in the direction in which the reduction ratio is large. A method for printing character data, characterized by performing overprinting and printing thicker line widths with a large reduction ratio. 2. A memory storing full-width character data, a means for generating reduced character data from the full-width character data when a vertical reduction ratio and a horizontal reduction ratio are designated, and a printing means for printing the reduced characters. A character data printing apparatus including: a printing control unit for instructing the printing unit to shift and print the reduced characters in a direction having a large reduction ratio when the reduction ratios in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction are different from each other. Character data printing device. 3. A method for calculating reduced character data having different reduction ratios in the vertical direction and a reduction ratio in the horizontal direction from full-width character data by calculation, and expanding this into a bitmap to print.
A character data printing method characterized in that the vertical line contour of a reduced character is shifted in the horizontal direction to obtain reduced character data in which the vertical line width is thickened, the reduced character data is developed into a bitmap and printed. 4. A memory storing contour data of full-width characters and a contour coordinate position of a reduced character is calculated from the contour data of full-width characters when a reduction ratio in the vertical direction and a reduction ratio in the horizontal direction are designated and calculated. In a character data printing device comprising a control means for developing a bitmap and a printing means for printing the data of the bitmap, when the reduction ratios in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction are different, the coordinate position of the contour in the direction in which the reduction ratio is small A character data printing device, characterized in that the character data printing device further comprises means for performing a shift in advance in a direction having a large reduction rate when calculating and calculating, and expanding the calculation result into a bitmap.