JP2007168103A - Printer and its recovery printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer arranged such that print results with no duplication nor lack can be obtained easily even upon occurrence of jamming. <P>SOLUTION: Upon occurrence of jamming during continuous printing, a printer 20 stops that print operation and makes page data becoming a recovery object evacuate temporarily to a hard disc 35. Upon restoration from jamming, the evacuated page data is skipped and printing is resumed. When printing finishes normally, printing of the page data evacuated to the hard disc 35 is started and then recovery printing is performed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that performs recovery printing in response to the occurrence of a jam and a recovery printing method thereof. More specifically, the present invention relates to a printing apparatus that temporarily saves recovery target page data that is a target of recovery printing when a jam occurs. The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that finally performs recovery printing and a recovery printing method thereof.

  Conventionally, when a jam occurs during continuous printing in a printing apparatus such as a printer, a copying machine, or a multifunction machine, the user first causes a jam from the inside of the printing apparatus in which the printing operation is stopped due to the jam. The printing paper and the paper in the middle of printing are removed, and the printing apparatus is recovered from the jam. In the printing apparatus recovered from the jam, the interrupted printing is resumed after performing the recovery printing on the removed paper.

  As techniques related to this recovery printing, for example, those disclosed in Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 are known. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-228561 mentions a technique for preventing duplication of recovery printing by skipping to just before a page where a jam has occurred and restarting printing after the jam recovery.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561 mentions a technique that enables recovery printing to be performed appropriately by correctly reflecting setting information such as a job header even when a jam occurs in the middle of a print job.
JP 08-216484 A JP-A-2005-022204

  In general, in recovery printing, a recovery target is a page that is being printed or has been printed at the time of occurrence of a jam, and is a page that has not been discharged from the paper discharge port.

  However, the determination of whether or not the page is an undischarged page is made by detecting the end of paper discharge with a sensor installed near the paper discharge port. If a jam occurs due to timing or the like, the determination by this sensor will be out of order.

  As a result, extra pages may be added to the recovery target or missing pages may be generated, resulting in duplicate or missing pages. There was a problem that it was difficult to recover.

  In order to deal with this problem, it is only necessary to check the print result of recovery printing after printing is completed. However, with this method, when mass printing is performed using a stacker or the like, Since it is necessary to identify the location of the jam from the inside and check whether there are any duplications or omissions, the work becomes difficult, so it cannot be said that it is a realistic countermeasure.

  Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and provides a printing apparatus and a recovery printing method for the same that can easily obtain a print result without duplication or omission even when a jam occurs. For the purpose.

  In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention provides a printing apparatus that performs recovery printing in response to the occurrence of a jam, and stores recovery target page data that is a target of the recovery printing in response to the occurrence of the jam. Evacuation processing means to be evacuated, print control means for controlling the resumption of print processing by skipping print processing of the recovery target page data evacuated by the evacuation processing means together with the restoration of the jam, and the resumed print processing And a recovery print processing means for controlling the print processing of the recovery target page data saved in the storage device.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the evacuation processing means is a discharge detection sensor installed near the paper discharge port on a page that is being printed or has been printed when the jam occurs. The page data of a page whose discharge end has not been detected is saved in the storage device as the recovery target page data.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, an identification sheet discharge processing means for controlling discharge of an identification sheet indicating a jam occurrence location prior to restart of the printing process by the print control means is further provided. It is characterized by that.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the recovery printing method of a printing apparatus that performs recovery printing in response to the occurrence of a jam, the recovery processing page data that is the target of the recovery printing in response to the occurrence of the jam The print processing unit controls the restart of the print processing by skipping the print processing of the recovery target page data saved by the save processing unit together with the restoration of the jam, and the restarted print processing. After completion of the above, the recovery print processing means controls the print processing of the recovery target page data saved in the storage device.

  According to the present invention, the recovery target page data that is the target of recovery printing is saved in the storage device in response to the occurrence of the jam, and the printing process of the recovery target page data that is saved along with the recovery of the jam is skipped. In this case, after the resumed printing process is finished, the printing process of the recovery target page data saved in the storage device is controlled. Since the recovered page is inserted at the occurrence location, even if the recovery target page is duplicated or missing, the abnormality is noticed.

  As a result, even when a jam occurs, it is possible to easily obtain a print result without duplication or omission.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of a printing apparatus and a recovery printing method according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the overall configuration of a printing system configured by arranging printing apparatuses according to the present invention. In this embodiment, a case where the printing apparatus according to the present invention is applied to the printer 20 is shown.

  The printing system includes a host computer 10 and a printer 20, and the host computer 10 and the printer 20 may be a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network), or a USB ( Universal Serial Bus) and Centronics etc. are connected so that they can communicate with each other.

  The host computer 10 is a personal computer having a display unit such as a display and an operation unit such as a keyboard and a mouse, and has a function of outputting a print job to the printer 20. The print job is composed of information including image data (page description language format) to be printed and a series of processing instruction groups for outputting the data.

  The printer 20 has a function of receiving a print job from the host computer 10 and performing a printing process based on the job. Here, when a jam occurs due to a paper jam or the like during the printing process, recovery printing which is a feature of the present invention is performed. The details of this recovery printing will be described later. However, when a jam occurs, after the print processing based on the print job is finished, a page to be recovered (hereinafter, this page is referred to as a recovery target page). Since printing is performed, recovery printing comes to the end of the page.

  Here, a part of the functional configuration of the printer 20 will be described. The printer 20 is largely divided into a communication unit 21, a printing unit 22, an operation panel 23, and a controller unit 30.

  The communication unit 21 has a function as a communication interface such as a USB board or a LAN board that connects the printer 20 and the host computer 10. The printer 20 receives a print job from the host computer 10 via the communication unit 21.

  The printing unit 22 includes a photosensitive drum, a transfer roller, a fixing unit, a sheet conveyance unit, a sheet conveyance path, and the like, and is a printing mechanism that forms an image on a recording medium such as a sheet based on an instruction from the controller unit 30. .

  A discharge detection sensor 22a for detecting the end of discharge of the paper is provided near the paper discharge port of the printing unit 22, and it is determined whether or not each page has been printed normally by detecting the end of discharge by this sensor. be able to. Further, a jam detection sensor 22b is provided on the paper transport path of the printing unit 22 to detect the occurrence of jam and the release thereof, and the occurrence of jam and the release thereof are detected by the jam detection (or jam release detection) by this sensor. Can be grasped. In this embodiment, the case where the printing unit 22 adopts a laser method will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the printing unit 22 may adopt another method (for example, an ink jet method). Absent.

  The operation panel 23 functions as a user interface that connects the user and the printer 20. Specifically, it includes a display unit 23a that functions as a display device such as a liquid crystal display, and an operation unit 23b that functions as an input device such as operation buttons.

  The controller unit 30 performs a function of performing overall control of the printer 20. Specifically, in accordance with a control program stored in the ROM 32, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 31 that controls and manages the operation of each unit, and a ROM that is a storage area for storing a control program necessary for the operation of the printer 20 ( Read Only Memory) 32, RAM (Random Access Memory) 33, which is a work area for executing programs, page memory 34, which is a storage area for storing developed image data (page data), and recovery And a hard disk 35 which is a storage area for storing target page data and the like.

  Here, a part of the functional configuration of the CPU 31 will be described with reference to FIG. The various processing functions (functional blocks) realized on the CPU 31 are mainly realized by the CPU 31 executing a control program stored in the ROM 32.

  The CPU 31 includes an analysis development unit 41, a page data transmission unit 42, a page data deletion processing unit 43, a page data save processing unit 44, an identification sheet discharge processing unit 45, and a recovery print processing unit as various processing function units. 46 and a print control unit 47.

  The analysis development unit 41 has a function of analyzing the print job, developing the image data (page data) for each page, and storing the developed page data in the page memory 34. When storing in the page memory 34, a page number is added to each page data, and the page number is written in the normal print area 33a in the RAM 33. The page number is used for a printing sequence.

  The page data transmission unit 42 has a function of transmitting the page data stored in the page memory 34 to the printing unit 22. More specifically, the page numbers written in the normal print area 33a in the RAM 33 are acquired in ascending order of the numbers, and the page data corresponding to the numbers is transmitted to the printing unit 22. The printing unit 22 starts printing based on the data upon receiving the page data.

  The page data deletion processing unit 43 responds to reception of a paper discharge notification from the printing unit 22 (refers to a notification sent along with discharge completion detection by the discharge detection sensor 22a). It has a function of deleting page data from the page memory 34. The page data deletion process is performed by deleting the page number that has been ejected from the page number written in the normal print area 33a and deleting the page data corresponding to the number from the page memory 34. . This deletion completes printing for the page data.

  In response to a jam occurrence notification from the printing unit 22 (refers to a notification sent along with jam detection by the jam detection sensor 22b), the page data save processing unit 44 temporarily sets a recovery target page as a print target. Remove from the process. This process is performed by moving the page number written in the normal print area 33a to the recovery print area 33b and saving the page data corresponding to this page number from the page memory 34 to the hard disk 35.

  In the identification paper discharge processing unit 45, an identification indicating a jam occurrence location in response to a jam release notification from the printing unit 22 (refers to a notification sent upon detection of jam release by the jam detection sensor 22 b). Control paper ejection (including printing). The identification paper is discharged by the identification paper discharge processing unit 45 including page data including information indicating that a jam has occurred and the number of pages of recovery printing (derived from the number of page numbers in the recovery printing area 33b). This is done by generating and storing it in the page memory 34.

  The recovery print processing unit 46 controls recovery printing. This control process checks the recovery print area 33b in the RAM 33 after the end of normal print processing (printing for pages other than the recovery target page), and if the page number has been written, this page number is displayed in the normal print area. This is done by moving the page data corresponding to this page number from the hard disk 35 to the page memory 34. By this control processing, the page data written in the normal print area 33a is transmitted from the page data transmission unit 42 to the printing unit 22, and recovery printing is started.

  The print control unit 47 controls the overall printing process in the printer 20. That is, various processing functions (functional blocks) realized on the CPU 31 operate according to instructions from the print control unit 47. For example, when the jam generation notification is received from the printing unit 22, the development processing by the analysis development unit 41 is stopped and the page data transmission processing by the page data transmission unit 42 is stopped. Further, when a jam release notification is received from the printing unit 22, the printing unit 22 is instructed to control resumption of printing. In addition, the print control unit 47 also controls input / output of data generated between the functional blocks.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an outline of the printing process in the printer 20 described in FIG. 1 and FIG. Here, an outline of processing when a jam occurs twice during continuous printing of a print job composed of page data of 12 pages will be described.

  In the configuration of the print job shown in the figure (upper side), a print job composed of page data of 12 pages to be printed is shown, and a page number is assigned to each page. Further, the printing result shown in the figure (lower side) indicates that recovery printing has been performed after normal printing (printing for pages other than the recovery target page) is completed.

  In this case, the first jam has occurred at the stage where printing for page 5 has been performed, and the page data to be recovered is page 3 to page 5. Further, the second jam has occurred at the stage when printing on page 10 is performed, and the page data to be recovered is page 8 to page 10.

  Here, the outline of the operation at the time of occurrence of the first jam will be described. Since a jam has occurred during printing on the page 5, the printer 20 stops the printing operation and the pages 3 to 3 which are the targets of the recovery printing. 5 page data is saved to the hard disk. With the occurrence of this jam, the user removes the paper corresponding to page 3 to page 5 from the inside of the apparatus, and recovers the printer 20 from the jam.

  In the printer 20 that has recovered from the jam, printing is resumed from the next page of the recovery target page after printing the identification sheet 1 indicating the location of the jam. That is, the identification sheet 1 is printed instead of the recovery printing, and printing is resumed from the page 6.

  The recovery printing corresponding to the first jam is printed after the last page (the 12th page) of the print job is printed. That is, when the first jam occurs, the page data of pages 3 to 5 to be subjected to recovery printing is saved to the hard disk, so that the recovery printing for the page can be performed after the final page printing.

  Next, the operation of the printing process in the printer 20 described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2 will be described with reference to FIGS. Here, the processing in the controller unit 30 will be mainly described.

  In FIG. 4, the printer 20 is waiting to receive a print job from the host computer 10 (NO in step S101). When a print job is received from the host computer 10 (YES in step S101), this process is as follows. Be started.

  When this processing is started, the analysis development unit 41 first analyzes the received print job and develops page data of the N (initial value = 1) page (step S102). Further, when the developed page data is stored in the page memory 34, a page number is added to the page data, and the added page number is written in the normal print area 33a in the RAM 33 (step S103).

  After storing in the page memory 34, the page data transmitting unit 42 transmits the page data to the printing unit 22 (step S104). In response to this, the printing unit 22 starts printing based on this page data (page N).

  The processing from step S102 to step S104 is repeated as long as there is unprocessed page data in the print job (NO in step S105 and step S107, NO in step S110). That is, when the processing for the page data of page N ends, N = N + 1 is calculated (step S109), and the same processing as described above is performed for the next page data (page N).

  By the way, when a jam occurs during the execution of the above-described processing (YES in step S105), although details will be described later, a coping process associated with the jam is performed (step S106).

  If a paper discharge notification is received from the printing unit 22 during execution of the above-described processing (YES in step S107), the page data deletion processing unit 43 together with the page number of the normal printing area 33a The page data corresponding to is deleted from the page memory 34 (step S108). As described above, this paper discharge notification is a notification sent along with the detection of the end of discharge by the discharge detection sensor 22a installed near the paper discharge port.

  Here, when the processing for all the page data in the print job is completed (YES in step S110), the process proceeds to the determination of whether or not to perform recovery printing. In this determination, the recovery print processing unit 46 checks the recovery print area 33b in the RAM 33, and determines whether or not to perform recovery printing depending on whether or not the page number is written here.

  As a result of the determination, when recovery printing is performed (YES in step S111), the details will be described later, but after the recovery printing is performed (step S112), this processing is terminated, but the recovery printing is performed. If not (NO in step S111), this process is terminated as it is.

  Here, the details of the jam handling process in step S106 will be described with reference to FIG.

  When a jam occurs, first, the development processing by the analysis development unit 41 is stopped under the control of the print control unit 47, and the transmission processing of page data (page N) to the printing unit 22 by the page data transmission unit 42 is stopped. (Step S201).

  Further, the page data save processing unit 44 moves the page number currently written in the normal print area 33a to the recovery print area 33b (step S202), and stores the page data corresponding to this page number in the page memory. 34 is saved to the hard disk 35 (step S203).

  Here, when the user recovers the printer 20 from the jam by removing the paper that caused the jam and the paper that is in the middle of printing (YES in step S204), the identification paper discharge processing unit 45 that has received this is received. However, it generates page data for printing the identification sheet indicating the location where the jam occurs, and stores it in the page memory 34.

  When the page data for printing the identification sheet is stored, the page data transmission unit 42 transmits the page data to the printing unit 22 (step S205), and the process is terminated. Note that the printing unit 22 that has received this page data performs jam printing based on the page data for printing the identification sheet as well as recovering the jam. As a result, a printed matter indicating that a jam has occurred is inserted into the jam occurrence location, so that the occurrence location of the jam can be easily identified.

  Note that it is not always necessary to print the identification sheet, and whether or not to print the identification sheet can be appropriately adjusted according to the operation setting of the printer 20. For example, when the page number is assigned to the printed matter, the location of the jam can be specified without this identification paper. In such a case, from the viewpoint of ecology (reduction of wasted paper) However, it is desirable not to print the identification sheet.

  Next, details of the recovery printing process in step S112 will be described with reference to FIG.

  When the recovery printing process starts, first, the recovery printing processing unit 46 moves the page number to be recovered saved in the recovery printing area 33b in the page memory 34 to the normal printing area 33a (step S301). Then, the page data saved in the hard disk 35 is moved into the page memory 34 (step S302).

  When the movement of the page data is completed, the page data transmission unit 42 transmits the page data to the printing unit 22 (step S303). In response to this, the printing unit 22 starts printing based on the page data.

  The processing from step S301 to step S303 is repeated as long as there is a saved page number in the recovery print area 33b (NO in step S304, NO in step S306).

  If a paper discharge notification is received from the printing unit 22 during execution of the above-described processing (YES in step S304), the page data deletion processing unit 43, along with the page number of the normal print area 33a, The page data corresponding to the number is deleted (step S305).

  If all the printing processes for the page number saved in the recovery printing area 33b are completed (YES in step S306), the process is terminated.

  As described above, in the present invention, the recovery target page data that is the target of recovery printing is saved in response to the occurrence of a jam, and printing is performed by skipping the printing process of the recovery target page data that is saved along with the restoration of the jam. Since it is configured to control the restart of the process and to control the printing of the saved page data to be recovered after the restarted print process is completed, the user can refer to the recovery print result and specify the location of the jam. Since the recovered page is inserted, even if the recovery target page is duplicated or missing, the abnormality is noticed.

  As a result, even when a jam occurs, it is possible to easily obtain a print result without duplication or omission.

  In addition, when printing using Nup (printing the contents of N pages into one page) or duplex printing, the page that is the target of recovery printing compared to normal printing (no Nup, single-sided printing) Therefore, when a jam occurs, it is necessary to deal with the page data considering this by saving it to the hard disk 35.

  Further, in the above embodiment, information indicating that a jam has occurred on the identification sheet discharged prior to the occurrence of the jam, the number of pages for recovery printing (derived from the number of page numbers in the recovery print area 33b), and However, this identification sheet only needs to play the role of specifying the location where the jam occurred, so it is not necessary to print the number of pages for recovery printing. There may be. Further, in order to make it stand out, it may be discharged onto a paper having a paper quality or color different from that of a paper that is larger than other paper or other paper.

  In addition, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments shown above and shown in the drawings, and can be implemented with appropriate modifications within a range not changing the gist thereof.

  The printing apparatus and the recovery printing method of the present invention can be applied to all printers such as a printer that performs recovery printing when a jam occurs, a copying machine, a multifunction machine, and the like. By temporarily saving the page data to be recovered, recovery printing is performed at the end of printing. Therefore, even when a jam occurs, it is possible to easily obtain print results without duplication or omission.

1 is a diagram showing an example of the overall configuration of a printing system configured by arranging a printing apparatus (printer 20) according to the present invention. It is a figure which shows a part of functional structure of CPU31 shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows the outline | summary of the printing process in the printer 20 shown in FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of a printing process in the printer 20 shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the jam countermeasure processing of step S106 shown in FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation of recovery printing processing in step S112 shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Host computer 20 Printer 21 Communication part 22 Printing part 22a Discharge detection sensor 22b Jam detection sensor 23 Operation panel 23a Display part 23b Operation part 30 Controller part 31 CPU (Central Processing Unit)
32 ROM (Read Only Memory)
33 RAM (Random Access Memory)
33a Normal printing area 33b Recovery printing area 34 Page memory 35 Hard disk 41 Analysis development unit 42 Page data transmission unit 43 Page data deletion processing unit 44 Page data save processing unit 45 Identification paper discharge processing unit 46 Recovery printing processing unit 47 Print control unit

Claims (4)

In a printing device that performs recovery printing when a jam occurs,
A evacuation processing means for evacuating recovery target page data to be the target of the recovery printing to a storage device in response to the occurrence of the jam;
Print control means for controlling the restart of the printing process by skipping the printing process of the recovery target page data saved by the save processing means together with the restoration of the jam;
And a recovery print processing unit that controls a print process of the recovery target page data saved in the storage device after the resumed print process is completed. The evacuation processing means includes
The page data of a page that is being printed or has been printed at the time of the occurrence of the jam and has not yet been detected by the discharge detection sensor installed near the paper discharge port is stored in the storage device as the recovery target page data. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printing apparatus is retracted. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: an identification sheet discharge processing unit configured to control discharge of an identification sheet indicating a jam occurrence location prior to resuming the printing process by the print control unit. In a recovery printing method of a printing apparatus that performs recovery printing in response to occurrence of a jam,
In response to the occurrence of the jam, the recovery target page data that is the target of the recovery printing is saved in the storage device by the save processing unit,
The printing control unit controls the restart of the printing process by skipping the printing process of the recovery target page data saved by the saving processing unit together with the restoration of the jam,
A recovery printing method for a printing apparatus, wherein after the restarted printing process is finished, the recovery printing processing unit controls the printing process of the recovery target page data saved in the storage device.

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