JPS641807B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a print control method, and particularly to images of a large number of characters, figures, etc. (hereinafter simply referred to as "images").
The present invention relates to a print control method for assembling a page image as a dot pattern and outputting it to a printing device.

Conventionally, various printers have been used to make hard copies of output data from computer systems, but none of them have been able to keep up with the high speed and variety of data. Therefore, a newly developed printer is the laser beam printer.
This printer has a number of advantages, such as visibility of the output, printing speed, print quality, and the ability to print on plain paper.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a controller section and a printer section of a conventional laser beam printer. In the figure, 1 is the reception memory (MEM), 2
is a dot expander (DOT), 3 is a character pattern memory (CG), and 4 is a page memory (PGEM). Further, 10 is a printing section.

Characters, figures, etc. from the host computer (HC)
When codes and information such as forms are transferred to the laser beam printer, the laser beam printer temporarily stores them in the receiving memory 1, converts them into internal codes, and then transfers them to the character pattern memory 3 using the dot expander 2. Read the dot pattern from the page memory (page image dot expansion memory)
4 is developed into a dot image pattern for one page.

Further, an external memory (not shown) stores a plurality of format forms in addition to a control program, etc., and it is possible to change the format form using the program and to simultaneously print the format form and data. In addition to formats, image data such as figures and graphs are also stored.

The printing section 10 is composed of an optical system, an electrophotographic system, and a transport system. Optical system is He-Ne laser 1
The laser beam emitted from A/O modulator 12
The serial data transferred from the controller section by
The modulated laser light is modulated according to the video signal 5 and enters the scanner 13 . The laser beam reflected by a polygon mirror attached to the scanner 13 scans the photosensitive drum 18 in the axial direction (direction perpendicular to the plane of the drawing). Through this operation, the image signal transferred from the controller section is transferred to the latent image forming charger 1.
4, it is converted into a dot-shaped electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum 18. When the photosensitive drum 18 rotates,
In the developing device 15, the electrostatic latent image is visualized by selective adhesion of toner. This image is transferred by the transfer charger 16 to the printing paper fed from the paper feed stacker 20, thermally fixed by the fixing device 19, and then sent to the output stacker 21 to complete printing.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of a print control device for the laser beam printer as described above. In the figure, 21 is a processing device, 22 is an internal storage device, 23 is a channel device, and 24 is a laser device.
A beam printer and 25 indicate an external storage device.

Information received from a host computer or an external input device (not shown) is stored in the reception memory 1, analyzed by the processing device 21, and stored in the character pattern memory 3 in the internal storage device 22 or external storage. The character pattern in the device 25 is used to create a dot pattern on the image of the page on the page memory 4 in the internal storage device 22. When one page is completed, it is sent as dot pattern information to the laser beam printer 24 via the channel device 23.

In this case, the problem is that the laser beam printer 2
Even if the next page of information is stored in the receiving memory 1, the channel device 23 is in use until the sending to the external storage device 25 is completed.
It is not possible to read from. For this reason,
Conventionally, processing of the next page was started after waiting for the sending of the previous page's worth of dot pattern information to the laser beam printer 24 to be completed, resulting in a large time loss.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the conventional print control method, so that when printing consecutive pages, the print output of the previous page is It is an object of the present invention to provide a print control method that allows processing of the next page to be executed even if the processing of the next page has not been completed.

In order to achieve the above object, the print control method of the present invention stores part of the information of images such as characters and figures in the internal storage device of the print control device, and stores the other part in the external storage device, respectively. In the printing control method in which the external storage device and the printing device are connected to the processing device via one channel device, an external information management memory area for managing information stored in the external storage device is provided. In preparation, while the channel device is sending the dot pattern information of the previous page to the printing device, the information on the images such as characters and figures necessary for assembling the next page image is stored in the external storage device. For information that is stored, the address of the external storage device where the information is stored and the address on the page where this information is written are stored in the external information management memory area, and then stored in the internal storage device. Only the information that is displayed is assembled as a page image, and when the output of the previous page is completed, information is read from the external storage device using the information stored in the external information management memory area and the page image is created. is characterized in that it is completed and output to the printing device.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a printing control device showing one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 31 is a reception memory (MEM), 32 is a dot expander (CONT),
33 is character pattern memory (MCG), 34 is external character pattern management memory (CGC), 35 is external character pattern memory (ECG), 36 is page memory A (PG MAM A), 37 is page memory B (PG
MEM B) And 38 indicates a laser beam printer.

The operation of this embodiment will be described below, taking the case of printing characters as an example.

Information to be printed is temporarily stored in the reception memory 31 from a host computer or other external input device as a command function code for instructing an operation, a character code, a dot pattern, data obtained by compressing the dot pattern, and the like. This information is analyzed by the dot expander 32. This dot expander 32 converts the page memory A3 from the function code etc. in the reception memory 31.
Decide where on 6 the character pattern will be developed.

Further, the dot expander 32 determines the address of the character pattern memory 33 or external character pattern memory 35 that stores the corresponding character pattern from the character code in the reception memory 31, and extracts the character pattern from that address. The data is read out and developed on the page memory A36 to create a character image. After performing this operation on all the information stored in the receiving memory 31, the dot expander 32 sends the contents of the page memory A36 to the laser beam printer 38.

The dot expander 32 receives the information of the next page into the reception memory 31 at the same time as the start of sending out the data. The contents of this reception memory 31 are analyzed by the dot expander 32 as described above. and,
In this state, since the channel device 23 is being used to send out the contents of the page memory A36 of the previous page, the character pattern is developed to the page memory B37. Also, reception memory 3
When searching for a character pattern corresponding to the character code in 1, if the desired character is in the character pattern memory 33, it is read out and developed on the page memory B37, but if the desired character pattern is external If it is in the character pattern memory 35, it cannot be read because the channel device is in use, so in this case, the following steps are taken. That is, for the character pattern in the external character pattern memory 35, the address of the external character pattern memory 35, the address to be developed in the page memory B37, the size of the corresponding character, etc. are simply stored in the external character pattern management memory 34, and the page memory The data is not expanded to B37, but is stored in the receiving memory 31.
Move on to processing the next code within.

When the above operation is performed for all codes in the reception memory 31, only the characters whose desired characters exist in the character pattern memory 33 are developed in the page memory B37. Before and after this operation, all the information in page memory A36 is
After outputting to the beam printer 38, the channel device becomes unused. This is detected, and the character pattern existing in the external character pattern memory 35, which was not performed in the above-mentioned process, is
According to the information in the external character pattern management memory 34 created earlier, the unexpanded character pattern is read from the external character pattern memory 35 and expanded to the address of the page memory B37 stored in the external character pattern management memory 34. .

In this way, by processing all the previously unprocessed character patterns, that is, the information stored in the external character pattern management memory 34,
Since the entire corresponding page is created as a dot pattern on the page memory B37, sending it to the laser beam printer 38 is started.

At the same time as this start, information of the next page can be received in the receiving memory 31 and processed in the same manner as above. Thereafter, by repeating this operation and printing, efficient print information processing becomes possible and waiting time is eliminated.

In the above embodiment, page memory A36 and page memory B37 are used alternately.

Figure 4 shows that among the processes described above, the corresponding character pattern is stored in external character pattern memory (ECG) 3.
5 shows the relationship between the external character pattern management memory (CGC) 34 and the page memory A 36 or the page memory B 37 (indicated as "PG MEM").

In Figure 4, when the character pattern × is located at address a in the external character pattern memory (ECG), the character size × _S and address a are stored in the external character pattern management memory (CGC) and this is stored in the page memory An example of setting the address α to be expanded on MEM) is shown. Characters A, B, C, D, E, F on page memory (PG MEM)
and G are characters whose character patterns exist in the character pattern memory 33.

As described above, in the present invention, in a print control device having an external storage device, an external information management memory for managing information stored in the external storage device is provided, and the channel device If the dot pattern information cannot be read from the external storage device while the dot pattern information is being sent, the address information for the information is stored in the external information management memory, and when the channel device becomes free, the corresponding Since information is read from the external storage device based on the stored address information, by simply adding a simple means, the next page can be read even if the previous page has not been printed yet. This makes it possible to perform the following processing, and has a great practical effect.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing the main parts of a conventional laser beam printer, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the configuration of its printing control device, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of a printing control device according to an embodiment of the present invention. The block diagram, FIG. 4, is a diagram showing the contents of the memory. 31: Reception memory, 32: Dot expander, 3
3: Character pattern memory, 34: External character pattern management memory, 35: External character pattern memory,
36, 37: Page memory, 38: Laser beam printer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Part of the information of images such as characters and figures is stored in the internal storage device of the print control device, and the other part is stored in the external storage device, and the external storage device and the printing device share one channel device. The printing control method includes an external information management memory area for managing information stored in the external storage device, and the channel device stores the dot pattern information of the previous page in the While the information is being sent to the printing device, the information stored in the external storage device, among the image information such as characters and figures necessary for assembling the next page image, is stored in the external storage device. The address of the external storage device and the address on the page where this is to be written are stored in the external information management memory area, and only the information stored in the internal storage device is assembled as a page image. When output of the previous page is completed, information is read from the external storage device using information stored in the external information management memory area to complete a page image and output to the printing device. printing control method.