JP2002218150A - Printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To enable a combination of a scanner and a printer to be optimally selected in a printing system in which a plurality of scanners and printers are sophisticated on a network. When a user is at site 1, some combinations of scanners A, B and printers A, B, C in this site are possible. Therefore, a list showing combinations of scanners and printers with good image reproducibility is created and registered in advance. A list is also registered for the image documents stored in the image document server 200. At this time, the identifier of the scanner that has read the image document and information indicating the reading conditions are also registered. Further, layout information indicating installation locations of the scanner and the printer is registered in a list. Therefore, the user can select a combination with good image quality reproducibility based on the list,
The selection can be limited to only the combination of the scanner and the plotter in the same site.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a printing system in which a plurality of scanners and printers are respectively arranged on a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Heretofore, there has been known a printing system in which a plurality of scanners and printers are respectively distributed on a network and an image read by the scanner is printed by the printer.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional system, since there is a difference in the processing capability between each printer and the scanner, if the user arbitrarily selects a wrong combination of the scanner and the printer, the image read by the scanner will be lost. When printed out on a printer, the reproducibility of the image quality of the document may be reduced. In the case of a color image, even if a general color matching process is performed, the image reproducibility may be lower than that of an integrated system of a scanner and a printer. That is, there is a problem that the reproducibility of image quality cannot be predicted with a scanner and a printer arbitrarily selected by a user.

[0004] Documents to be read by a scanner include:
Since there are originals at hand of the user, originals acquired by the user, and the like, it is necessary to prevent a scanner or printer installed at a remote site from being selected. Further, in order to prevent the above-mentioned problem from occurring, the user has to know in advance the processing capabilities and installation locations of each scanner and printer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and has as its object to provide a printing system that allows a user to easily select an appropriate combination of a scanner and a printer.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, in a printing system according to the present invention, a plurality of scanners for reading a document and generating an image document and a plurality of printers for printing an image document are provided. In a printing system provided on a network, storage means for storing a list of combinations of scanners and printers with good image reproducibility is provided.

In another printing system according to the present invention, in a printing system in which a plurality of scanners for reading a document and generating an image document and a plurality of printers for printing the image document are provided on a network, An image document server that stores the document is provided, and a storage unit that stores an identifier of a scanner that has read the stored image document and a reading condition at that time is provided.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this example,
Scanners and printers are respectively installed at a site 1 such as a building and a site 2 remote from the site 1. Printers A and B and scanner A are installed on the first floor of site 1, and scanner B and client PC 10 are installed on the second floor.
0 is installed, and the printer C and the image document server 2 are located on the third floor.
00 and a distribution server 300 are installed. The image document server 200 stores and manages an image obtained by scanning a document with a scanner. The distribution server 300 centrally manages an address book uniquely existing in each device distributed on the network and distributes the stored image document. Client PC
100 receives an image document. The site 2 is provided with a printer X and a scanner X.

These printers A, B, C, X, scanners A, B, X, client PC 100, image document server 200, and distribution server 300 are connected via a network 400. In the present embodiment, the user selects one scanner and one printer, causes the scanner to read a document, and causes the printer to print out the read image. In such a case, an optimum combination of a scanner and a printer with good image reproducibility can be selected.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a scanner, a printer 500, and a server 600 used as an image document server 200 and a distribution server 300 when a selected scanner and printer are integrated and viewed as one device. It is. In FIG. 2, a processor (CPU)
Reference numeral 10 controls the entire apparatus. Under the control, a ROM 1, a RAM 2, an NVRAM 3, a DSP 4, an operation panel 5, a panel control unit 6, a scan / print engine 7, an engine control unit 8, a storage device 9, and a disk The driver 11, the communication control unit 12, and the modem 13 are connected.

The ROM 1 stores program codes, fonts, and other static data. R
AM2 is used as a temporary storage location for data.
The NVRAM 3 stores nonvolatile data. D
SP4 is a processor for digital signal processing, and performs processing on rectangular image data. The processing contents include image correction, image processing, image compression, and the like. The algorithm is described in a DSP-specific language,
Included as software.

An operation panel 5 and a panel control section 6 control an interface with a user. The scan / print engine 7 and the engine control unit 8 read a paper document and execute printing on transfer paper as an input / output unit for image data. The storage device 9 and the disk driver 11 store a large amount of image data and the like, and are used as a storage location of a database. The communication control unit 12 is connected to a network such as Ethernet (registered trademark), and enables communication with an external device. A peer-to-peer connection mode using a parallel interface, a serial interface, or the like is also possible. The modem 13 is connected to a public line and enables communication with an external device.

A server 600 which can be used as an image document server and a distribution server includes a CPU 21 and a ROM as shown in FIG.
22, a RAM 23, a communication control unit 24, and a database 25, and may exist on any side of the client PC, the scanner, or the printer.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of embedded software in the scanner and the printer. This software can be broadly divided into a four-layer structure including an application layer, a kernel layer, a driver layer, and a hardware layer.

The application layer is a layer that forms an application such as a copy / fax / printer, and the document manager is a functional block that is a central function as an application that handles documents according to a scenario such as a copy / fax / printer. It is. The service manager is a functional block that is required in common for document handling, and manages and executes various services.

The device manager is a functional block that determines the operation of a physical device such as a scanner, a plotter, and an image bus, and manages and executes various devices.
The operation manager controls an operation panel attached to the apparatus, and displays buttons, notifies a button operation, notifies an alert, and the like. The database manager maintains and manages permanent data such as fonts, fixed forms, fax reception histories, device usage histories, and billing data.

The kernel layer is usually incorporated as a kernel of an OS, and provides services to applications by abstracting various devices. The application layer operates by making a system call to the kernel layer.

The driver layer is a group of functional blocks for executing control for driving various hardware. Here, a DSP is used as a driver that performs an operation on image data. DSP processing program is D
The ROM or ROM on the CPU, which is held inside the SP
It is also possible to download and operate the program at

The hardware layer is a set of controllable resources existing in the device.

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described. (First Embodiment) In FIG. 1, when a user is at site 1, several types of combinations of scanners and printers installed at site 1 are possible. As described above, conventionally, it is necessary to grasp the respective processing capabilities in advance and select a scanner and a printer.

In the present embodiment, by holding the processing capability of the scanner as a “scanner property”, it is possible for the printer to determine how much the image quality of the property can be reproduced. (Including color reproducibility) can be extracted for each height.

For this purpose, in this embodiment, a list showing combinations of scanners and printers with good image reproducibility is created in advance and registered in the storage means. The storage means can be provided in a device on a network such as a PC, a scanner, a printer, a server, and a database. The user can select an appropriate combination of the scanner and the printer by searching the list on the PC based on the high image quality reproducibility.

(Second Embodiment) Even when an image read by a scanner is stored in the image document server 200, the scanner that has read the image can be identified. Can identify a printer that optimally processes it.

In order to realize this, in the present embodiment, the identifier of the scanner that has read the image document stored in the image document server and information indicating the reading conditions are recorded as image generation properties. .
Therefore, the user can select an optimal printer based on the image generation properties corresponding to the image document.

Further, in the third embodiment of the present invention, a printer having high image quality reproducibility is associated with an image generation property (scanner identifier and reading conditions) recorded in correspondence with the image document. A list is created and registered in the storage means. Therefore, by searching this list, it is possible to select an optimum printer for the image document.

Further, in the fourth embodiment of the present invention, layout information indicating the installation location of each scanner and printer is registered in a list. This allows the scanner,
Since the installation location of the printer can be grasped, the combination can be limited to the combination of the scanner and the printer in the same site, and the selection of the scanner or the printer installed in the remote site can be eliminated. A method of setting the installation location for each scanner and printer is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-237272.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing in each of the above embodiments. First, the scanner properties of all the scanners in the network are sequentially acquired (step S1), and the presence or absence of the scanner properties of the scanner is checked (step S2). Is displayed (step S3). Therefore, the user can select the most suitable printer for the scanner to be used based on the list.

If there is a scanner property in step S2, the next scanner property is fetched (step S4), all printers in the network are obtained (step S5), and the presence or absence of a printer corresponding to the fetched scanner property is checked. (Step S6). If there is no printer, the process returns to step S2. If there is a printer, it is checked from the layout information whether the scanner and the printer are in the same site (step S7:
Processing according to fourth embodiment). If it is in the same site, the image quality reproducibility by the combination of the scanner property and the printer is calculated and a list is created (step S).
8). In the process of step S8, if the image generation property is calculated instead of the scanner property, the process is related to the third embodiment. Next, after the scanner and printer identifiers are stored for the calculated image quality reproducibility, the process returns to step S6.

[0029]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, an image document is generated with the image quality requested by the user without requiring the user to know the preset scanners and printers and the processing capability, and the printout is performed. can do.

According to the second or third aspect of the present invention, it is possible to print out a stored image document that has been read, with the image quality requested by the user.

According to the invention described in claim 4, the user can select only available scanners and printers (for example, those existing in the same site).

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of each part in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram illustrating a software structure of a scanner and a printer device.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a process according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 100 client PC 200 image document server 300 distribution server 400 network 500 scanner, printer device 600 server A, B, C, X printer A, B, X scanner

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printing system in which a plurality of scanners for reading a document and generating an image document and a plurality of printers for printing the image document are provided on a network. And a storage unit for storing a list of the print data. 2. A printing system in which a plurality of scanners for reading a document and generating an image document and a plurality of printers for printing the image document are provided on a network, wherein an image document server for storing the image document is provided. And a storage unit for storing an identifier of a scanner that has read the stored image document and a reading condition at that time. 3. The printing system according to claim 2, further comprising storage means for storing a list of combinations of the image document stored in the image document server with high image quality reproducibility of the scanner and the printer. 4. The printing system according to claim 1, wherein the installation locations of the scanner and the printer are described in the list.