JP2005071240A - Printing data creation device, printing device, and printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to print without being aware of the format of print data so that a large load is not applied to a printing apparatus.
In a print data creation apparatus (viewer terminal 1), a print data generation unit 12 generates a plurality of print data described and packaged in two or more page description languages, and via a print data transmission unit 14 Thus, a plurality of print data is transmitted to the printing apparatus (page printer 2) to enable selection of print data suitable for the specifications of the printing apparatus. In the printing apparatus, the print data extracting unit 24 refers to the identification data received via the print data receiving unit 21 and extracts printable print data from the corresponding address position of the file in which the print data is stored. To print out via the print output unit 25.
[Selection] Figure 2

Description

  The present invention relates to a print data creation apparatus, a printing apparatus, and a printing system that enable printing of print data to an unspecified printing apparatus and that are suitable for use in, for example, a viewer terminal.

2. Description of the Related Art A printer control device and a printer system that include a plurality of printer drivers, select a printer driver according to the contents to be printed, and generate one PDL (Page Description Language) are known (for example, Patent Documents) 1).
In addition, in a printer having a plurality of PDL analysis processing units that analyze PDL data and generate image data for printing, a printing apparatus that automatically selects an appropriate PDL analysis processing unit according to the received PDL and performs printing A printing system is also known (see, for example, Patent Document 2).
JP 2001-88405 A JP 2001-232902 A

In recent years, mobile terminals that can be carried around, such as viewer terminals and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), have become widespread, and when using these, there are cases where it is desired to print data created immediately at the destination.
In order to print data created on a mobile terminal using a printer at the destination, it is necessary to know what print data format is available for printing by the printer used at that time. The print data needs to be transferred to the printer.

However, according to the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 described above, it is possible to provide a high-quality print by selecting a PDL suitable for the print contents, but the print data generated by the host device is not used. It is not possible to print on a specific printer.
Further, according to the technique disclosed in Patent Document 2, it is assumed that a plurality of PDL analysis processing units exist in a printer that analyzes print data. Therefore, the load on the printer is large.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and for example, enables printing without being aware of the format of the print data with a print data creation device such as a viewer terminal, which places a heavy load on the printing device. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing data creation device, a printing device, and a printing system that are free of print data.

In order to solve the above-described problems, a print data creation apparatus according to the present invention is a print data creation apparatus that can communicate with a printing apparatus that extracts and prints printable print data, and includes two or more page description languages from content. A print data generation unit that generates a plurality of print data described in 1. and a print data transmission unit that transmits the plurality of print data to the printing apparatus.
According to the present invention, the print data generation unit generates a plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages, and transmits the plurality of print data to the printing apparatus via the print data transmission unit. By selecting print data suitable for the specification and enabling the extraction, it is possible to reduce the load on the printing device without being aware of the specification of the printing device to be output.

Further, in the present invention, identification data is generated that describes at least a type of page description language generated for each print data and an address position of a file in which the generated print data is stored, An identification data generation unit associated with the print data is further provided.
According to the present invention, the identification data generation unit generates identification data describing the type of page description language generated for each print data and the address position of the file in which the generated print data is stored, By associating with the print data, the printing device can recognize the necessary file position simply by referring to the identification data, and the print data creation device can print without being aware of the format of the print data. Printing can be performed without imposing a heavy load on the printing apparatus.

  In order to solve the above-described problems, the printing apparatus of the present invention describes at least the type of page description language generated for each print data and the address position of a file in which the generated page description language is stored. A print data receiving unit that receives a plurality of print data to which identification data is assigned, a print data extraction unit that extracts printable print data from a corresponding address position of the file with reference to the identification data, and the extraction And a print output unit for printing the printed data.

  According to the present invention, the print data extraction unit extracts print data that can be printed from the corresponding address position of the file in which the print data is stored with reference to the identification data received via the print data reception unit, and prints the print data. Printing can be performed via the output unit. At this time, the printing apparatus can determine a necessary file position only by referring to the identification data.

  In order to solve the above problems, the printing system of the present invention generates a plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages from content, and at least the type of the page description language for each of the generated print data And a print data creation device that transmits the identification data describing the address position of the file in which the generated page description language is stored, and is connected to the print data creation device and refers to the identification data And printing apparatus for extracting printable print data from the corresponding address position of the file and printing the extracted print data.

  According to the present invention, a plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages generated by the print data creation device for the print device, each of the print data, the type of the page description language, and generation The identification data describing the address position of the file in which the page description language is stored is added and transmitted. At this time, the printing apparatus refers to the received identification data and corresponds to the file in which the print data is stored. Printable print data is extracted from the address position, and the extracted print data is printed, so that the print data creation device can print without being aware of the format of the print data. It is possible to provide a printing system that does not require a large load.

  The present invention is also a print data creation program for use in a print data creation device that can communicate with a printing device that extracts and prints printable print data, and is described in two or more page description languages from the content. A step of causing the computer to execute a step of generating a plurality of print data and a step of transmitting the plurality of print data to the printing apparatus.

  Further, the present invention provides a plurality of identification data to which identification data describing at least the type of page description language and the address position of a file storing the generated page description language is generated for each print data. Receiving a print data; extracting printable print data from a corresponding address position of the file with reference to the identification data; and printing the extracted print data. It is characterized by that.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration of a printing system according to the present invention. The printing system of the present invention is configured by connecting a viewer terminal 1 as a print data creation apparatus and a page printer 2 as a printing apparatus.
The print data generated by the viewer terminal 1 can be directly printed by, for example, a page printer 2 directly connected by a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable or the like, and a communication network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) 5 can be used. It is also possible to print via the print server 3 connected via the memory card 4 or via the memory card 4.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the internal configuration of each of the viewer terminal 1 as a print data creation apparatus and the page printer 2 as a printing apparatus that constitute the printing system of the present invention.
The viewer terminal 1 includes an application processing unit 11, a print data generation unit 12, an identification data generation unit 13, and a print data transmission unit 14. The application processing unit 11 generates a content to be printed by executing a certain application such as document creation or drawing creation, and supplies the content to the print data generation unit 12. The print data generation unit 12 generates and packages a plurality of print data described in PDL such as ESC / Page, PDF (Portable Document Format), PostScript, etc. from the content provided by the application processing unit 11. The data is supplied to the print data transmission unit 14. The print data transmission unit 14 transmits a plurality of print data generated and packaged by the print data generation unit 13 to the page printer 2 so that print data that can be printed by the page printer 2 can be selected.

The identification data generation unit 13 generates header information including type, version, offset, and compression algorithm for each print data generated by the print data generation unit 12, as shown in FIG. Have a function to associate with each print data.
Here, the type is the type of PDL, the version is the version name, the offset is the address of the print data file where the generated print data is stored (the number of bytes from the beginning), and the compression algorithm is the compression of the print data When the data is transmitted to the page printer 2, the compression algorithm name is indicated. Note that the length in parentheses in the offset indicates the data length.
The page printer 2 can extract and import packaged print data that can be interpreted and printed by referring to the header information.

The page printer 2 includes a print data receiving unit 21, a print data file 22, an identification data reference unit 23, a print data extraction unit 24, and a print output unit 25.
The print data receiving unit 21 receives each print data described in one or more PDLs provided from the viewer terminal 1 via USB or LAN 5 or the like, and sends the print data to the print data file 22 as header information. Is supplied to the identification data reference unit 23. As described above, the header information describes at least the type of PDL generated for each print data and the address position of the print data file 22 in which a plurality of print data described by the PDL is stored. Yes. The print data file 22 is a storage device that temporarily stores print data to be transmitted.
The print data extraction unit 24 has a function of extracting printable print data from the corresponding address position of the print data file 22 with reference to the header information. The print output unit 25 is extracted by the print data extraction unit 24. The original function of the page printer 3 for printing the print data is executed.

FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart cited for explaining the operation of the page printer 3 shown in FIGS.
The operation of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 will be described in detail below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

In the viewer terminal 1, in order to be able to print the content generated by the application processing unit 11 even with an unspecified page printer 2, the print data generation unit 12 stores each print data described and packaged in advance in a plurality of PDLs. Generate. Also, the print data together with the header information generated by the identification data creation unit 13 is transmitted to the page printer 2 via the print data transmission unit 14.
In the page printer 2, a plurality of print data received by the print data receiving unit 21 via the USB or LAN 5 is temporarily stored in the print data file 22, and at the same time, the identification data reference unit 23 transmits the print data in association with the print data. Is referred to (S41).

Here, by checking the type and version constituting the header information, it is checked whether or not the print data is described in PDL that can be printed by itself (S42). When it is determined that printing is possible, the print data extraction unit 24 detects the address position from the offset of the header information, and is described in the PDL from the print data file 22 based on the address position (or including the length). Print data is extracted (S44).
Next, the print output unit 25 checks whether the print data is compressed and transmitted from the header information compression algorithm, and confirms that the compression algorithm name is described and compressed. If so (S45, Yes), decompression processing according to the compression algorithm is performed, and printing is executed (S46, S47). If it is confirmed that the image is not compressed, direct printing is executed (S47).

Thus, for example, printing can be performed without being aware of the format of the print data on the print data creation apparatus side such as the viewer terminal 1, and therefore, a large burden is not imposed on the printing apparatus side such as the page printer 2.
That is, the viewer terminal 1 can print content without being aware of the specifications of the page printer 2 to be output. At this time, only the PDL identification process needs to be added on the page printer 2 side. We can cope with little burden. Further, it is possible to confirm the support in the hedge printer 2 by simply transmitting the header information to the page printer 2.

Further, the procedure executed by each of the application processing unit 11, the print data generation unit 12, the identification data generation unit 13, and the print data transmission unit 14 shown in FIG. 2 is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. The print data generation processing according to the present invention may be realized by causing the computer system to read and execute the program recorded in the above. The computer system here includes an OS and hardware such as peripheral devices.
Further, the procedure executed by each of the print data receiving unit 21, the identification data reference unit 23, the print data extracting unit 24, and the print output unit 25 shown in FIG. 2 is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. The printing process of the present invention may be realized by causing the computer system to read and execute the program recorded in the above. The computer system here includes an OS and hardware such as peripheral devices.

Further, the “computer system” includes a homepage providing environment (or display environment) if a WWW system is used.
The program may be transmitted from a computer system storing the program in a storage device or the like to another computer system via a transmission medium or by a transmission wave in the transmission medium. Here, the “transmission medium” for transmitting the program refers to a medium having a function of transmitting information, such as a network (communication network) such as the Internet or a communication line (communication line) such as a telephone line.
The program may be for realizing a part of the functions described above. Furthermore, what can implement | achieve the function mentioned above in combination with the program already recorded on the computer system, and what is called a difference file (difference program) may be sufficient.

  The embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the specific configuration is not limited to this embodiment, and includes design and the like within the scope not departing from the gist of the present invention.

1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration of a printing system according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an internal configuration of each of the print data creation apparatus and the printing apparatus according to the present invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of the identification data used by this invention. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the printing apparatus of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Viewer terminal (print data production apparatus), 2 ... Page printer (printing apparatus), 3 ... Print server, 4 ... Memory card, 5 ... LAN, 11 ... Application processing part, 12 ... Print data generation part, 13 ... Identification Data generation unit, 14 ... print data transmission unit, 21 ... print data reception unit, 22 ... print data file, 23 ... identification data reference unit, 24 ... print data extraction unit, 25 ... print output unit

Claims (6)

A print data creation device capable of communicating with a printing device that extracts and prints printable print data,
A print data generation unit that generates a plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages from the content;
A print data transmission unit for transmitting the plurality of print data to the printing apparatus;
A print data creation apparatus comprising:   Identification data generated for each of the print data, including at least a page description language type and an address position of a file in which the generated print data is stored, and identification data associated with the respective print data The print data creation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a generation unit. Print that receives a plurality of print data to which identification data describing at least the type of page description language and the address position of a file in which the generated page description language is stored is generated for each print data A data receiver;
A print data extraction unit that extracts print data that can be printed from the corresponding address position of the file with reference to the identification data;
A print output unit for printing the extracted print data;
A printing apparatus comprising: A plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages are generated from the content, and at least a type of the page description language and a file storing the generated page description language for each of the generated print data A print data creation device that transmits by adding identification data in which an address position is described;
A printing device connected to the print data creation device, extracting printable print data from the corresponding address position of the file with reference to the transmitted identification data, and printing the extracted print data;
A printing system comprising: A print data creation program used for a print data creation device capable of communicating with a printing device that extracts and prints printable print data,
Generating a plurality of print data described in two or more page description languages from the content;
Transmitting the plurality of print data to the printing device;
Print data creation program for causing a computer to execute. Receiving a plurality of print data to which identification data describing at least a type of page description language and an address position of a file in which the generated page description language is stored is generated for each print data When,
Extracting printable print data from the corresponding address position of the file with reference to the identification data;
Printing the extracted print data;
A printing program that causes a computer to execute.

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