JPH11228017A - Printer and its system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] In a printing apparatus having a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins to which a unique name corresponding to a user name is not fixed, if the input interface, the host, and the like are different, printed paper is the same. To provide a printing device that can prevent entry into a bin. SOLUTION: When a printer controller 10 receives a PDL for status setting, it interprets a header part thereof, and for example, among the bins of the multi-bin unit, for example, four from a network computer, three from a facsimile, and three more from a facsimile. Is stored as a bin for use when input is obtained from a stand-alone computer. The printed material is distributed to predetermined bins and discharged according to the received print job input from an interface to which the device is connected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus having a multiple bin unit (multi-stage paper discharging apparatus) capable of sorting printed paper into a plurality of bins and discharging the paper, and a printing apparatus having the same. Printing system, including:

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a printing apparatus such as a printer is provided with a multi-bin unit having a plurality of discharge trays and used as a sorter. In this case, the printed matter of a plurality of pages is distributed to a plurality of copies for each bin of the multi-bin unit and discharged. That is, if the print command received by the printer or the like includes information on the number of copies to be printed, a plurality of copies of each page of the document to be printed are printed, and the bin of number 1, the bin of number 2, and so on are sequentially printed. By collating and discharging the sheets up to the bin having the bin number corresponding to the number of copies, a collated print can be obtained.

[0003] This multi-bin unit can also be used as a large-capacity sheet discharging device in which all bins are collectively used. When a large amount of printing is expected at one time, set the multi-bin unit to be used as a large-capacity paper output device, and change the paper output destination to the next bin each time each bin is full of printed paper. To continue printing.

Incidentally, RS-422 (standard of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers of America), Centronics Parallel (Centronics Date)
For a printer having a plurality of input interfaces such as a computer standard and SCSI (American Standards Association standard), a computer or communication device is connected for each interface,
Some print commands input from any interface can be printed.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing a configuration of a printer with a multi-bin unit having such a plurality of input interfaces.

In FIG. 1, a printer 2 has one serial port 281 and two parallel ports 282 and 2.
83, which are connected to the network computer 3, the facsimile machine 4 connected to the outside by a telephone line, and the stand-alone computer 5, respectively.

The printer 2 has a memory (EEPRO) for storing the setting of whether the multi-bin unit 1 is used as a sorter or as a large-capacity sheet discharging device.
M) 27 is provided. For example, the operator presses a mode selection button provided on the control panel 29 of the printer, and stores in the EEPROM 27 the setting of whether to use the multi-bin unit as a sorter or as a large-capacity sheet discharging device. Such setting and execution of printing in accordance with the setting contents are performed by the CPU of the printer 2.
24, a ROM 25, a RAM 26, an EEPROM 27, an interface device 28, and the like.

[0008]

The multi-bin unit is set to be used as a sorter even if a large amount of printing (a large number of pages) is to be executed by a printing command input from an interface or a host. Sometimes this can only be discharged to one bin. In such a case, even if a large number of print commands arrive one after another from each input interface or the host, all the printed materials are discharged to the same bin, so that the bin immediately fills up.

On the other hand, if the multi-bin unit is set so as to be used as a large-capacity paper discharge device, a large amount of printed matter can be discharged. However, a document according to a print command sent from any interface or host or the like can be used. However, since all sheets are discharged to the large-capacity paper discharge device, there is a problem that documents are mixed. In this case, of course, even if the print command includes information about the number of copies, the printed sheets cannot be sorted and discharged.

An object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus having a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins to which a unique name corresponding to a user name is not fixed and which has a different input interface, a different host, etc., so that printed paper is the same. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus that can prevent the printer from entering a bin.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus having a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins, each of which has a fixed unique name corresponding to a user name, and transmits a print job to the printing apparatus. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing system that includes a host and a printing system that can prevent printed paper from entering the same bin of a multi-bin unit in a printing apparatus if the host is different.

[0012]

According to the present invention, a suitable bin is selected from a plurality of bins of a multi-bin unit according to information of a predetermined item, and printed paper is discharged to the bin. This prevents printed paper from entering the same bin if the information of the predetermined items is different.

Thus, when a print command arrives from each input interface or the host or the like, it is possible to appropriately distribute and discharge paper to each bin of the multi-bin unit. Therefore, when a large amount of printing is executed by a command input from a certain interface or a host or the like, the paper can be appropriately distributed to a plurality of bins and discharged, and each document is not mixed.

That is, in the printing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, in a printing apparatus including a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins to which a unique name corresponding to a user name is not fixedly assigned, according to information of a predetermined item. By providing a paper discharge control unit for selecting a suitable bin from among the plurality of bins and discharging the printed paper to the bin, if the information of the predetermined items is different, the printed paper is the same. It is characterized in that it does not enter the bin.

[0015] The printing apparatus according to claim 2 further comprises:
It includes a plurality of input interfaces, and the information of the predetermined item is an input interface that has received a job to be printed among the plurality of input interfaces.

Further, in the printing apparatus according to the third aspect, the information of the predetermined item is a host that has transmitted a job to be printed.

On the other hand, a printing system according to a fourth aspect of the present invention provides a printing apparatus including a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins, each of which has a fixed and unnamed unique name corresponding to a user name, and transmits a print job to the printing apparatus. In the printing system including a host that performs the job, when the host generates a job, the host has its own host name in the job, and the printing apparatus selects an appropriate bin from among the plurality of bins according to the information of the host name. Is selected, and the printed paper is discharged to the bin so that the printed paper does not enter the same bin if the host is different.

[0018]

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

First, regarding the first embodiment of the present invention,
This will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 shows the contents of a printer controller 10 which is a functional block of the printer 2 and a paper feeder 23, a print engine 22, and a paper discharge feeder 21 which are a part of hardware constituting a paper path of the printer.
And a multi-bin unit 1 for selecting a discharge tray by a bin selector 100. In the present embodiment, a multi-bin unit having 10 bins is exemplified.

The print job data from the host 3 is sent to the PDL interpretation unit 12 via the interface unit 11. The print job data is divided into a header portion and a print data portion, and the contents thereof are interpreted by the header interpreter 14 and the print data interpreter 13, respectively. The header portion usually includes setting information such as what paper size is to be used for printing, whether the paper is to be used in the vertical direction or the horizontal direction.

In the case of the present embodiment, in addition to these configurations, settings relating to which interface a print job is to be used for from each interface of the multi-bin unit 1 are stored. A paper discharge control unit 50 is provided which has a function for controlling the multi-bin unit 1 based on the setting.

The paper discharge control section 50 has a status management section 51 for storing a setting of which bin is to be assigned to which input interface in accordance with the transmitted setting information. The setting information at this time may be generated by input from the control panel 29, or may be generated from each of the network computers 3A to 3A.
The status setting PDL transmitted from the 3D or the stand-alone computer 5 may be used.

Hereinafter, an example in which the setting is performed from the stand-alone computer 5 will be described. The printer administrator can use the printer driver setting utility in the stand-alone computer 5 to execute, for example,
Settings are made so that bins from bin1 to bin4 are assigned to the network computer 3, bin5 to bin7 are assigned to the facsimile machine 4, and bin8 to bin10 are assigned to the stand-alone computer 5.

FIG. 3 shows the contents of the status setting PDL generated by the setting utility. The print job 30 is a job in which print data does not substantially exist. In the printer controller 10 that has received the print job 30, the header interpreter 14 of the PDL interpreter 12
Then, the content is converted into a code and passed to the paper discharge control unit 50.

By the way, some printers of this type are configured so that the type of paper can be selected for printing according to the type of input interface. In this case, the type of the input interface and the type of paper are associated with each other in advance, and are developed and stored in the RAM 26 or the like in a table format. In the present embodiment, the setting of the used bin for each interface is also held by using this table. That is, in the paper discharge control unit 50, the status setting unit 5
1 records the above-mentioned setting contents in the form of a table 40 shown in FIG. The setting contents are specifically,
Is stored in the RAM 26.

An example of a procedure for actually performing printing and paper discharge in a state where the above settings are made in the status management unit 51 will be described below.

In the printer 2 that has received the print job, the input signal detection unit 111 of the interface unit 11 detects which of the input ports 281 to 283 the print job has been input from, and outputs the type information addition unit 112. Pass to. Here, type information (for example, facsimile machine 4
If a print command is received from the
2) is added in a PDL format. PD
The header interpreting unit 14 of the L interpreting unit 12 converts the header of the print job into a code and transfers the code to the paper discharge control unit 50. The paper discharge bin determination unit 52 of the paper discharge control unit 50 reads the type information from the information in the header part, and refers to the table 40 to obtain the head bin number of the output destination corresponding to the type information.

If the print job includes a sort command, the bin number is converted based on the first bin number of the output destination, and the print job is sequentially distributed to bins having bin numbers corresponding to the number of copies to be discharged. Thus, a collated printed matter may be obtained.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.
This will be described with reference to the drawings.

The second embodiment is applied to a printing system including a printing apparatus having a multi-bin unit and a plurality of hosts each providing a printing command to the printing apparatus.

In the above-described first embodiment, a setting is made in advance to assign each bin of the multi-bin unit as dedicated to each interface, and the input is detected at each input interface. When the instruction is input, type information indicating the type of each input interface is added to the instruction, and at the stage of printing and discharging, the setting is referred to and the bin is printed in the bin corresponding to the type information. The paper was ejected. That is, the type information for each interface is
Added a job language format to the header of a print job according to the input source interface. In contrast,
In the present embodiment, a plurality of hosts transmit a print command with type information indicating each of them, and refer to the type information included in the print command from the host, so that the printing apparatus can execute the bin corresponding to each host. The printed paper is discharged to the printer.

Hereinafter, an example in which the output destination bin is determined in correspondence with each of the network computers 3A to 3D in FIG. 2 will be described.

In the second embodiment, the printing apparatus does not have the type information adding unit 112 (see FIG. 1), and the type information adding unit corresponds to each of the hosts 3A to 3A.
Except for the point of D (see FIG. 2), the configuration of the printing apparatus and the like is substantially the same as that of the first embodiment, and the description thereof will be omitted.

FIG. 5 shows each host 3 in this embodiment.
3 shows the contents of the print job 60 transmitted from A to 3D (see FIG. 2). That is, each of the hosts 3A to 3D (see FIG. 2) has, for example, HOST = 3A shown in FIG.
Type information indicating the type of the device is added to the print command and transmitted. On the printing apparatus side, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, the setting of the used bin for each host is held in a table. Specifically, in the paper discharge control unit 50 of the printer controller 10, the status setting unit 51 records the information in the form of a table 70 shown in FIG. The settings are recorded in the RAM 26 of the printer 2 (see FIG. 2).

The type information indicating the type of the user is as follows.
Any network address may be used as long as it is only used on the network. For example, the network address may be specified as "HOST = MOON" using type "MOON" as the type information.

In the printer 2 which has received the print job, the discharge bin determination section 52 of the discharge control section 50 reads the type information for each host from the information of the header section, and stores the information in the table 7.
With reference to 0, the first bin number of the output destination corresponding to the host is obtained.

If the print job includes a sort command, the bin numbers are converted based on the output destination head bin number, and the sheets are sequentially distributed to the bins of the bin numbers corresponding to the number of copies to be discharged. Thus, it is the same as in the first embodiment described above that a collated printed matter may be obtained.

As described above, the present invention has been described with respect to specific embodiments. However, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments, and is applicable to other embodiments within the scope of the invention described in the claims. You.

For example, in the above embodiment, settings are made in advance so that each bin of the multi-bin unit is dedicated to each interface or each host, but when the printing apparatus is configured as described above, When the bins allocated exclusively for the interface or each host extend over a plurality of bins, it is of course possible to sort and discharge the printed materials into the plurality of bins.

[0041]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the printing apparatus or system of the present invention, a suitable bin is selected from a plurality of bins of the multi-bin unit according to the information of the input interface or the host. By discharging the printed paper to the bin, if the information of the input interface or the host is different, the printed paper does not enter the same bin.

Therefore, it is possible to provide a printing apparatus in which documents are not mixed even when connected to a plurality of types of hosts such as a computer and a facsimile.

Further, it is possible to provide a printing system in which documents for each user are not mixed even if the printing apparatus is connected to a large number of host computers used by different users via a network.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the printing apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1 and a state in which the printing apparatus is connected to a host to configure a printing system.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a status setting print job according to the first embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a table configuration created and held by a status management unit in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a print job transmitted from each host in the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a table configuration in which each host is associated with an output destination bin in the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Multi-bin unit 100 Bin selector 10 Printer controller 11 Interface unit 111 Input signal detection unit 112 Type information addition unit 12 PDL interpretation unit 13 Print data interpretation unit 14 Header interpretation unit 15 Bitmap data generation unit 16 Engine control unit 2 Printer 21 Discharge Paper feeder 22 print engine 23 paper feeder 24 CPU 25 ROM 26 RAM 27 EEPROM 28 interface device 29 control panel 281, 282, 283 input port 3 network computer 4 facsimile device 5 stand-alone computer 30 print job 40 table 50 paper discharge control unit 51 Status management unit 52 Output bin determination unit 60 Print job 70 Table

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus comprising a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins to which a unique name corresponding to a user name is not fixed, and which is adapted from the plurality of bins according to information of a predetermined item. By having a paper ejection control means for selecting a bin and discharging printed paper to the bin, the printed paper is prevented from entering the same bin if the information of the predetermined items is different. A printing device characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a plurality of input interfaces, wherein the information of the predetermined item is an input interface that has received a job to be printed among the plurality of input interfaces. A printing device, comprising: 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information of the predetermined item is a host that has transmitted a job to be printed. 4. A printing system comprising: a printing apparatus having a multi-bin unit having a plurality of bins each of which has a unique name corresponding to a user name, and a host transmitting a print job to the printing apparatus; When the host generates a job, the host has its own host name in the job, the printing apparatus selects a suitable bin from the plurality of bins according to the information of the host name, and By discharging printed paper,
A printing system wherein the printed paper is prevented from entering the same bin if the host is different.