JPH07219730A - Printing control device, printing device, and control method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a printing controller which can improve efficiency as a whole system by means of distributing printing jobs in the whole system by providing a selection means selecting a printing device having lightest load based on a compared result and a transmission means transmitting printing data printed on the selected printing device. CONSTITUTION:When the printing job is transmitted from a host computer A201 to a printer server 203, the server 203 once stores it in a printing job storage part 203b. Then, the state of the printing jobs of the A-C printers 205-207 is checked, the printer with the lightest load is selected and the received printing job is transmitted. The printer to which the job is transmitted prints and outputs it. The control part 203C of the server 203 executes a whole processing including processings for checking the load situation by communication with the respective A-C printers 205-207 connected by a communication line 204 and for transmitting the printing job to the optimum or designated printer through the communication line 204.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control device, a printing device, and their control in an environment in which a data source such as a host computer and a plurality of printing devices are connected by, for example, a LAN (private communication network). It is about the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of printing system, a print control device temporarily stores print data transmitted from each host computer in the print control device, and in some cases, a print device control language is used before or after a print job. After adding the print data or converting the data, the data is transmitted to a designated printing device or a predetermined printing device.

In such a conventional printing apparatus, even if the host computer, which is a data source, can communicate with the printer, the printer cannot request the status information of the host computer. In addition, it has not been possible to perform communication between printing devices, and to exchange print jobs between printing devices.

Then, a plurality of print jobs are received,
In the stored state, print jobs are generally printed in the order in which they are received, and the print order of received print jobs cannot be changed based on information obtained through communication with the host computer.

[0005]

Therefore, the conventional LA
In the N environment, there are a sufficient number of printing devices because the print control device can send the print job to a predetermined printing device or cannot exchange print jobs between the printing devices. Nevertheless, a situation may occur in which print jobs are concentrated on a specific printing apparatus, and there is a problem that the efficiency of printing as a whole system is not necessarily good.

Further, since it is not possible to change the print order of the received print jobs based on the information obtained through the communication with the host computer, even if there is a print job to be urgently printed in the state where the print jobs are accumulated, There was no choice but to wait until all the accumulated print jobs have been printed, or to continue deleting the print jobs that are being processed up to the target print job by resetting.

Further, in general, unless the print job is sent to the printing apparatus after the print job is processed in advance such as adding data, it is not possible to obtain information about the host computer that sent the print job. Therefore, there is no way to know the sender of the print job that is currently being processed, such as when the printing device jams while printing the print job, or when you want to know how much output the current print job will accompany. .

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and provides a print control apparatus, a print apparatus, and a control method thereof, in which a print job is distributed over the entire system to improve the efficiency of the entire system. The purpose of 1.

A second object of the present invention is to provide a printing control device, a printing device, and a control method thereof that can change the order of print jobs and print in a desired order to smoothly print out.

Further, the host computer which is the data source of the print job, the printing device or time when the host computer was executed, and the time can be specified, and it is easy to deal with the error. The third purpose is to provide

[0011]

In order to achieve the first object, the print control apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in a print control device connected to a plurality of printing devices, a receiving unit that receives print data from a data source, a reading unit that reads the load of each of the printing devices, and a load that is read by the reading unit. The comparison means includes a comparison means, a selection means for selecting a printing apparatus with the lightest load based on a comparison result by the comparison means, and a sending means for sending the print data to the printing apparatus selected by the selection means. .

In order to achieve the first object, the print control method of the present invention has the following configuration. That is,
A print control method in a system in which a data source and a plurality of printing apparatuses are connected by communication, the receiving step of receiving print data from the data source, and the reading step of reading the load of each of the printing apparatuses via communication. And a comparing step for comparing the loads read by the reading step, a selecting step for selecting the printing apparatus with the lightest load based on the comparison result by the comparing step, and a communication with the printing apparatus selected by the selecting step. And sending the print data via.

In order to achieve the above first object, the printing apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, one of the printing devices in a system in which a data source and a plurality of printing devices are connected by communication, receiving means for receiving print data, and reading means for reading the load of each connected printing device, The comparing means compares the loads read by the reading means, the selecting means that selects the printing device that outputs the print data based on the comparison result by the comparing means, and the printing device that is selected by the selecting means. In the case of the printing device, the sending device sends the print data to the printing device, and the printing device outputs the print data when the printing device selected by the selecting device is self-confident. Prepare

In order to achieve the above second object, the printing apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, a printing device connected to a plurality of data sources, receiving means for receiving print data from the data sources, associating means for associating priority with the print data received by the receiving means, and the priority A storage unit that stores the print data in order according to the degree and an output unit that outputs the print data stored in the storage unit according to the order are provided.

In order to achieve the second object, the print control method of the present invention has the following configuration. That is,
A printing control method for controlling a printing device connected to a plurality of data sources, the receiving step of receiving print data from the data source, and the step of associating the print data received by the receiving step with a priority level. And a storage step of storing the print data in order according to the priority,
An output step of printing out the print data stored by the storing step in accordance with the ordering.

In order to achieve the third object, the printing apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, a printing device connected to a data source, receiving means for receiving data source information together with print data, display means for displaying data source information received by the receiving means, and receiving means for receiving by the receiving means. And an output unit that prints out the generated print data.

Further, in the printing device connected to the data source, the receiving means for receiving the data source information together with the print data, and the output for printing out the data source information received by the receiving means together with the print data. And means.

[0018]

With the above arrangement, print data can be distributed according to the load on the printing apparatus.

Further, the output order of the print data can be changed according to the priority, and the print output can be smoothly performed.

Further, the information on the data source of the print data to be output can be output and the information on the data source can be easily known.

[0021]

First Embodiment In this embodiment, a laser beam printer will be taken as an example of a printing apparatus, and a system in which a host computer, a printer and a print server are connected by a LAN will be described.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration and usage of the print server and printer according to this embodiment.

In the figure, reference numerals 201 and 202 denote host computers which are data sources, and a communication line 2 for a print job consisting of character codes, external character fonts, form information or macro registration information as a source of image information.
04 to the print server 203.

A control unit 203c of the print server 203 controls the entire print server, and a print job storage unit 203b for temporarily storing a print job received from the host computers 201 and 202. In the printer registration table 2, a process of adding data to the received print job as needed, or a process of converting data.
03a, a process of communicating with each printer connected by the communication line 204, the load status of each printer is checked by the communication, and a print job is sent to the optimum or designated printer through the communication line 204. Performs the entire process including the process of sending. The load of the printer may be the amount of print data to be output by the printer, or may be the required output time obtained by dividing the amount of print data by the printing capacity of the printer per unit time.

The configuration of the print server 203 can also be shown as shown in FIG. That is, the CPU 13
02 controls the entire server by executing the program stored in PMEM 1304, and realizes the processing by the control unit 203c. The RAM 1303 is a memory that stores a work area and necessary data, and includes a printer registration table 203a and a print job storage unit 203b. The communication line 204 is the communication interface 13
It is connected through 01.

Reference numerals 206 to 207 are printers connected to the communication line 204. In this figure, printer A205
Although only the internal configuration is shown, the printer B 206 and the printer C 207 have the same configuration as the printer A 205. In the printer A 205, the print job transmitted from the printer server 203 is stored in the print job storage unit 205.
It is stored in a in the file format. After that, the print job is analyzed and expanded by the control unit 205b and sent to the printer engine 205c. The control unit 205b controls the printer 205 as a whole.
3, the size of the print job stored in the print job storage unit 205a, the size of the processed portion of the print job being processed, and the like.

The configuration of the printer 205 can be shown as shown in FIG. That is, the CPU 1202 controls the entire printer by executing the program stored in the PMEM 1205, and realizes the processing by the control unit 205b. The RAM 1204 is a memory that stores a work area and necessary data, and includes a print job storage unit 205a. The printer engine 1205 is
It corresponds to the printer engine 205c and is a mechanical portion for performing print output. The communication line 204 is connected via a communication interface 1201.

FIG. 2 shows a printer server 20 according to this embodiment.
6 is a flowchart showing an example of a main data processing procedure in No. 3. The procedure of this flowchart is performed by the control unit 20.
3c, but can also be realized by executing a program stored in the PMEM 1304 by the CPU 1302.

First, when a print job is input from the host computer, the reception process is executed and the received job is stored in the print job storage unit 203b (S2).
01), the process of selecting the destination of the received print job (details will be described later) is executed (S202). Then
Data such as a header page is added to the stored print job and data conversion processing such as code conversion is performed (S
203), the print job is transmitted to the optimum or designated printer selected in step S202 (S204). After that, the process returns to the receiving process.

FIG. 3 shows a print server 20 according to this embodiment.
6 is a flowchart showing an example of details of a destination selection process (step S202 in FIG. 2) in FIG.

First, it is determined whether or not there is a print job in process at a predetermined printer which is the destination of the print job by communication with the printer (S301), and there is no print job in process. For example, the corresponding printer is determined as the transmission destination (S305), and the process ends.

On the other hand, if there is a print job being processed, by communicating with each printer registered in the printer registration table 203a, there remain more print jobs to be processed, and the total size of the print jobs is some. Check the load status of each printer (S30
2). Then, the loads of the printers are compared based on the result (S303), and the printer with the least load is determined as the destination of the print job (S304).

With the above configuration, the print job is assigned to the printer with the lightest load. Therefore, the load of the printing system as a whole can be distributed, and the throughput of the printing system can be expected to improve.

Although the engine unit of the printer used in the system of this embodiment may be of any type, the structure of a laser beam printer used as an example will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing the internal structure of a laser beam printer (hereinafter abbreviated as LBP) applied to this embodiment. This LBP is a character pattern registration from a data source (not shown) and a fixed format ( You can register (form data) etc. In the figure, reference numeral 1000 denotes an LBP main body, which inputs and stores character information (character code) supplied from an externally connected host computer, form information, or a macro command, and responds in accordance with those information. A character pattern, a form pattern, etc. are created, and an image is formed on a recording medium which is a recording medium. 10
Reference numeral 12 denotes an operation panel on which switches for operation and LED displays are arranged, and 1001 is a printer control unit for controlling the entire LBP 1000 and analyzing character information supplied from the host computer. The control unit 1001 mainly converts character information into a video signal having a corresponding character pattern to convert the character information into a laser driver 100.
Output to 2. The laser driver 1002 is a circuit for driving the semiconductor laser 1003, and switches on / off the laser light 1004 emitted from the semiconductor laser 1003 according to an input video signal. Laser 100
A rotary polygon mirror 1005 is swung in the left-right direction to operate on the electrostatic drum 1006. As a result, the electrostatic drum 100
An electrostatic latent image of a character pattern is formed on 6. This latent image is developed by the developing unit 1007 around the electrostatic drum 1006.
After being developed by, it is transferred to recording paper. A cut sheet is used as the recording sheet, and the cut sheet recording sheet is LBP.
It is stored in the paper cassette 1008 attached to 1000,
Paper feed roller 1009 and transport rollers 1010 and 101
1 and the electrostatic drum 1006.
Is supplied to.

In addition to the laser printer, the ink jet type printer engine shown in FIG. 15 can be used.

FIG. 15 is a schematic view of an ink jet recording apparatus IJRA applicable to this embodiment. In the figure, the carriage HC that engages with the spiral groove 5004 of the lead screw 5005 that rotates via the driving force transmission gears 5011 and 5009 in conjunction with the forward / reverse rotation of the drive motor 5013 has pins (not shown). Then, it is reciprocated in the directions of arrows a and b. An inkjet cartridge IJC is mounted on the carriage HC. A paper pressing plate 5002 presses the paper against the platen 5000 in the moving direction of the carriage. 5007,5008
Is a photo coupler, and is a home position detecting means for confirming the existence of the lever 5006 of the carriage in this area and switching the rotation direction of the motor 5013.
Reference numeral 5016 is a member that supports a cap member 5022 that caps the front surface of the recording head. Reference numeral 5015 is a suction unit that sucks the inside of the cap, and performs suction recovery of the recording head through the in-cap opening 5023. Reference numeral 5017 is a cleaning blade, and 5019 is a member that allows this blade to move in the front-rear direction, and these are supported by a main body support plate 5018. Needless to say, a well-known cleaning blade can be applied to this example instead of this form. Reference numeral 5021 denotes a lever for starting suction for suction recovery, and a cam 5020 that engages with the carriage.
And the driving force from the drive motor is controlled by a known transmission means such as clutch switching.

The capping, cleaning, and suction recovery are configured such that the desired processing can be performed at their corresponding positions by the action of the lead screw 5005 when the carriage comes to the area on the home position side. As long as the desired operation is performed at the timing, any of the above can be applied to this example.

In addition to the above, various methods such as heat-sensitive, thermal transfer and impact methods can be applied. The printer engine method described here can also be applied to embodiments other than the first embodiment.

Further, in the above description, the print server is separate from the printer, but the printer having the function of the printer server can be used as the server. In addition, one of the host computers is used as a server, and print jobs from other host computers
It can also be managed by one host computer.

The printer server according to the present embodiment is
The print server may be capable of setting from the host computer whether to send the print job to a predetermined printing device or to the printer with the lightest load. By doing so, the host computer can select the printer that will output the data. Therefore, it is not possible to know which printer will output the data, or the host computer that requested the output can output the data from a printer that is distant from the host computer. It can be prevented.

Further, the printer server of the present embodiment sends the print job to the printing device with the lightest load, and then returns the destination printing device name to the host computer that sent the print job via communication. It may be. By doing so, the host computer that has issued the print request can know which printer will process the request, and will not have to search for the output result when the number of connected printers is large.

[0043]

[Second Embodiment] FIG. 5 shows an example of the configuration of a printing system according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 501 shows a printer A as an example of the configuration of the printing apparatus. 502,503
Is a host computer which is a data source and is connected to the printer A 501 through a communication line 506. 5
04 and 505 are the printer A 50 through the communication line 506.
1 is a printer similar to the printer A501 connected to the printer 1. The printer A 501 includes a print job storage unit 5 for temporarily storing the received print job.
01a, a printer registration table 501b for registering other printers that can be used in the system, and an internal information table 501c for registering information on the printer itself such as the printer name and the installed printer language. Further, it has a control unit 501d that controls the entire printer, and a printer engine 501e that outputs the print data expanded into the bitmap data.

For example, the control unit 501d temporarily stores the received print job in the print job storage unit 501a. When there is a print job in process, the control unit 501d refers to the printer registration table 501b to communicate with another printer. If there is a printer waiting to receive data, a print job is transmitted to that printer, and when there is an inquiry from another printer, the internal information table 501b and the print job storage unit 501a are referenced and a response is sent. Etc., and processing such as reception, analysis, and expansion for print job printing.

The printer A 501 can also be configured as shown in FIG. 13 as in the first embodiment. However,
The RAM 1204 includes an internal information table 501c in addition to the print job storage unit 501a and the printer registration table 501b.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing an example of the flow of a series of processes from the print job reception to the printed matter output by the printer of this embodiment. Although the procedure of this flowchart is realized by the control unit 501d, PM
The program stored in the EM 1205 is executed by the CPU 1202.
It can also be realized by executing.

First, when a print job is received, it is temporarily stored in the print job storage unit 501a (S60).
1). Then, it is checked whether or not there is a print job being processed at that time (S602), and if not, the process proceeds to processing (S606) of analyzing / developing the received print job. If there is a print job being processed, the load status of the other printer is checked by communicating with the other printer connected through the communication line (S603). From the result, it is determined whether or not there is a printer waiting for data reception, that is, there is no print job being processed (S60).
4). If there is no printer waiting for data reception, the received print job is processed to analyze and expand all print jobs received before that (S60).
Perform 6). When the analysis / expansion process (S606) is completed, the expanded data is output as a printed matter (S).
After performing 607), the process returns to the print job receiving process.

On the other hand, if there is a printer waiting to receive data, the print job is transmitted to the printer (S60).
5) Return to the receiving process.

However, the processing of the printer of this embodiment is premised on parallel processing, and the reception of a new print job does not affect the processing of the print job being processed at that time.

By the above processing, the print jobs are distributed to the printers waiting for the job reception, and even though there are printers waiting for the print job reception, the print jobs are concentrated only on a specific printer. It is possible to prevent a decrease in throughput.

In the printer of the present embodiment, the received print job is not the printer waiting for data reception, but the load of itself excluding the received print job and the load of other printers connected through the communication line. You can also compare with and send it to the least loaded printer. That is, instead of the determination of “there is a printer waiting for data reception” in step S604, the load of each printer, for example, the amount of print data, or the processing capacity of each printer is quantified by the number of output lines per hour. , And the product of the amount of data given to each printer are compared, and the printer with the least load is selected. In step S605, the print and job are sent to the printer thus selected.

By doing so, not only the output from the open printer, but also the printer with the least load can be selected and printed from there, so that the efficiency of the entire system can be further improved.

Further, it may be possible to set whether the received print job is transmitted to another printer according to the load of the other printer, or whether all the output is performed by itself. By sending this setting to the printer together with the print job and the job, it is possible to improve the efficiency of the print output of the entire system, and it is possible to select a specific printer from the host computer and output from it.

[0055]

[Third Embodiment] FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the configuration and usage of a printing system according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numerals 701 to 704 denote host computers which are data sources and are connected to a printer A 706 through a communication line 705. A control unit 706a controls the entire printer A. Control unit 706a
Receives the print job, and the print job storage unit 7
Information regarding the print job (host name, host name,
Print job information table 70 based on user name)
6b, processing for holding in 6b, priority information table 706
print job processing order change processing, print job analysis / expansion processing, host computer based on the priority order (here, the priority order by the host computer that is the data transmission source is taken as an example) stored in advance in d Processing for displaying information obtained by communication with the panel, processing for adding data to the print job for printing on the header page or footer of the printed matter, and processing for outputting a video signal to the printer engine 706e.

The printer A 706 can also be configured as shown in FIG. 13 as in the first embodiment. However,
The RAM 1204 includes a print job information table 70.
6b, a print job storage unit 706c, and a priority order information table 706d.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing an example of the main processing procedure in the printer 706 in FIG.
The procedure of this flowchart is realized by the control unit 701a, but can also be realized by executing the program stored in the PMEM 1205 by the CPU 1202.

First, a print job is input, reception processing (details will be described later) is executed (S801), and analysis processing of the received print job is executed (S80).
2). Next, the pudding and the data are expanded (S803), the expanded data is output (S804), and the process returns to the reception data waiting.

FIG. 9 shows step S of the main processing procedure of FIG.
8 is a flowchart illustrating an example of details of reception processing in 801.

First, a print job is received (S90
1) The received print job is stored in the print job storage unit 706c (S902). Then, it is determined whether or not a print job other than the received print job is stored (S903). If not stored, the received print job is set as the first print job to be processed (S908). If you remember
An internal variable (here, tentatively n) is set to 1 (S904).

Then, the priority of the print job to be processed n-th and the priority of the received print job are compared with reference to the print job information table 706b and the priority information table 706d (S905).
In this example, the priority of the print job is determined by which host computer is the data source. Therefore, in this comparison, the data sources of the print job received just now and the nth print job are checked by referring to the print job information table 706b, and the priority order information table 7 is obtained according to the obtained host computer.
Get priority from 06d and compare it. as a result,
If the received print job has a higher priority than the nth print job, the processing order of the print jobs scheduled to be processed after the nth job is delayed by one (S906), and the processing order of the received print job is changed to n. The second (S90
7), the process ends. As a result of the comparison in step S905, if the print job scheduled to be processed nth has a higher priority, it is checked whether the print job scheduled to be processed nth corresponds to the print job scheduled to be processed last ( S909), if it is the last, the received print job is set as the print job scheduled to be processed in the (n + 1) th (S910), and the processing ends. If not the last, 1 is added to n (S911), and step S905
Return to processing.

As described above, the priority of the latest print job is compared with the priorities of the other print jobs in the output waiting state, and the output order is determined according to the priority, thereby determining the predetermined priority. Based on the order, it is possible to change the print order of the print job based on the information obtained by communicating with the host. This enables efficient printing of print jobs.

The priority can be set according to the user if the user who issued the print job is the name of the user who issued the print job, and the priority can be specified regardless of other attributes. You can control the output order.

Further, in the printer of this embodiment, it is possible to set whether to change the print order of the received print jobs based on the priority order information or not. By sending this setting together with the print job from the host computer to the printer and checking the setting before starting the processing of FIG. 8, printing can be performed in the order according to the priority and the data source It is possible to print in the order in which print jobs are issued by the host computer regardless of the host computer.

[0066]

[Fourth Embodiment] FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the configuration and usage of a printing system according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention. This system has the same configuration as that shown in FIG. 7, except that the printer 706 includes a display panel 706f.

FIG. 11 shows the printer 706 shown in FIG.
3 is a flowchart showing an example of a data processing procedure by the. The procedure of this flowchart is realized by the control unit 701a, but can also be realized by executing the program stored in the PMEM 1205 by the CPU 1202.

As shown in FIG. 11, the flow of data processing for displaying information obtained by communication with the host computer on the panel is such that when a print job is first input, reception processing is executed (S1101) and panel display is performed. It is determined whether the setting is made (S1102). If the setting is for panel display, print job information table 7
06b, in this example, the host name of the print job is displayed on the panel 706f (S1103).
On the other hand, if it is set not to display the panel, do nothing,
Analysis processing of the received print job is executed (S11).
04). Then, the expansion processing is executed (S1105), and the display on the panel is returned to the normal display (S1106). Finally, the output process (S1107) is executed, and the process returns to the waiting for received data.

By displaying information on the print job processed in this manner on the panel, the user can know the job being processed. By combining this embodiment with the first to third embodiments, it is possible to know which printer is outputting the print job output from the host computer by looking at the printer panel. Therefore, when the printer has a trouble, the print job being processed can be known by looking at the panel.

[0070]

Fifth Embodiment FIG. 12 is a flow chart showing an example of a data processing procedure by the printer in FIG. 7 or 10. The procedure of this flowchart is performed by the control unit 501.
d or 701a, but PMEM120
It can also be realized by executing the program stored in No. 5 by the CPU 1202.

As shown in FIG. 12, the process flow for printing the information obtained by communication with the host computer by adding data to the print job is as follows. When the print job is first input, the receiving process is executed. (S120
1) The analysis process of the received print job is executed (S1202). Here, with reference to the print job information table 706b, it is determined whether or not the footer is set in this example (S1203). If the setting is to add a footer, footer information is added to the data (S120
4) If the footer is not set, the expansion process (S1205) is executed without doing anything. Finally output processing (S
1206), and returns to waiting for received data.

Through the above processing, information regarding the host computer that has output the print job can be obtained. For this reason, when it is desired to stop printing during output or when an error occurs, the host computer that has output the print output can be known and quick response can be made.

As the footer, in addition to the name of the host computer that is the data source, the time of reception, the name of the user who created the job, the priority, etc. can be added.
It is also possible to execute it in combination with the first to third embodiments.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0075]

As described above, the print control apparatus, the print apparatus, and the control methods for the same according to the present invention can improve the efficiency of the entire system by distributing print jobs in the entire system.

Further, by changing the order of the print jobs according to the priority, the print output can be smoothly performed and the efficiency of the entire system can be improved.

Furthermore, the host computer which is the data source of the print job, the printing device or the time when the print job was executed can be specified, and it is easy to deal with the error.

[0078]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a printing system according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of a main data processing procedure in the printer server of the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an example of detailed procedures of a destination selection routine in the printer server according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a configuration of a laser beam printer used in an example.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a printing system according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of a flow of a series of processes from print job reception to printed matter output in the printer of the second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration example of a printing system according to third and fifth embodiments.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example of a main processing procedure in the printer of the third embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an example of detailed procedures of a reception processing routine in the printer of the third embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration example of a printing system according to a fourth embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing an example of a data processing procedure in the printer of the fourth embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing an example of a data processing procedure in the printer of the fifth embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer according to an embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a print server according to an embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a configuration of an inkjet printer used in an example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 201 Host Computer A 202 Host Computer B 203 Printer Server Main Body 203a Printer Registration Table 203b (Printer Server) Print Job Storage 203c (Printer Server) Control Unit 204 Communication Line 205 Printer A Main Body 205a (Printer A) Of) print job storage unit 205b (of printer A) control unit 205c (of printer A) printer engine 206 printer B 207 printer C

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. A print control device connected to a plurality of printing devices, the receiving device receiving print data from a data source, the reading device reading the load of each of the printing devices, and the reading device reading the data. Comparing means for comparing the loads, a selecting means for selecting the printing device with the lightest load based on the comparison result by the comparing means, and a sending means for sending the print data to the printing device selected by the selecting means. And a print control device. 2. The load of the printing device is the amount of print data to be output.
The print control device described. 3. The print control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the load of the printing apparatus is a time required to output print data to be output. 4. A print control method in a system in which a data source and a plurality of printing devices are connected by communication, the receiving step of receiving print data from the data source, and the load of each of the printing devices via communication. Read-out step for reading out, a comparing step for comparing the loads read out by the reading-out step, a selecting step for selecting the printing apparatus with the lightest load based on the comparison result by the comparing step, and a selecting step for the selecting step. A step of sending the print data to the printing device via communication, and a printing control method. 5. A printing device in a system in which a data source and a plurality of printing devices are communicatively connected to each other, the receiving device receiving print data, and a reading for reading the load of each connected printing device. Means, a comparing means for comparing the loads read by the reading means, a selecting means for selecting a printing device which outputs the print data based on a comparison result by the comparing means, and a printing selected by the selecting means. When the device is another printing device, sending means for sending the print data to the printing device, and output for printing out the print data when the printing device selected by the selecting device is self-confident Means and
A printing apparatus comprising: 6. The printing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the selection unit selects a printing apparatus waiting to receive print data. 7. The printing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the selection unit selects the printing apparatus according to a load based on the print data amount of each printing rule. 8. A printing apparatus connected to a plurality of data sources, comprising: receiving means for receiving print data from the data source; and associating means for associating a priority with the print data received by the receiving means. A printing apparatus, comprising: a storage unit that stores the print data in order according to the priority, and an output unit that outputs the print data stored by the storage unit according to the order. 9. The printing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the priority is set according to a data source. 10. A print control method for controlling a printing device connected to a plurality of data sources, comprising: a receiving step of receiving print data from the data source; and a priority of the print data received by the receiving step. A corresponding step, a storing step for storing the print data in order according to the priority, and an output step for printing out the print data stored by the storing step according to the order. Characteristic printing device. 11. A printing device connected to a data source, comprising: receiving means for receiving data source information together with print data; display means for displaying data source information received by the receiving means; An output unit that prints out the print data received by the unit. 12. A printing device connected to a data source, the receiving means receiving the data source information together with the print data, and the output for printing out the data source information received by the receiving means together with the print data. And a printing device.