JP2798640B2 - Ruled line printing control method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a ruled line printing control method, and more particularly, to a document including a ruled line command in an overlay format for a serial printer which has a ruled line font and does not have a print control code capable of coping with the ruled line command in an overlay format. The present invention relates to a ruled line printing control method for printing data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A method for creating a document including ruled lines such as a table and a character entry frame as electronic data and printing the same with a printer includes:
Ruled lines are treated in the same way as characters, and ruled line fonts of the same format as character fonts are printed as dots, and ruled lines are printed, and ruled lines are treated as graphic lines different from characters, and characters and graphic ruled lines are overlaid in overlay format There are things to do.

[0003] Currently widely used printers include a page printer which performs high-speed printing in page units, such as a laser printer, and a line printer by moving a print head such as a thermal transfer system or an ink jet system. There is a non-impact serial printer that performs When the ruled line is overprinted by the page printer, one page of character data and ruled line data are given, and the data can be developed into dot data of one page of character and ruled line, respectively, and overprinted. On the other hand, in the case of a serial printer,
In general, since only a few rows of memory are built in, it is necessary to input not only character data but also ruled line data in line units. For this reason, a print command is sent from the upper information processing apparatus to the printer in line units. The print command includes, in addition to line feed information specifying a line feed width, a character string command for printing characters and a ruled line. A command in a different format from the ruled line command for printing is included. On the other hand, when a ruled line font is used, there is no ruled line command, and the character code of the ruled line font is specified in a character string command. Therefore, some serial printers with a built-in ruled line font do not have a function of analyzing ruled line commands and printing ruled lines, and such printers can print document data including ruled lines in an overlay format. Can not.

[0004]

As described above, in a serial printer which has a ruled line font and does not have an analysis function of a ruled line command in an overlay format, the document data created by the ruled line processing in the overlay format is printed as it is. Can not do. To enable printing, it is necessary to convert a ruled line command into a print control code for dot information that can be processed by the printer and input the same to the printer.

By the way, in a serial printer,
The maximum height of a vertical ruled line that can be printed at once by moving the print head is the height of the print head. However, since one line of document data, that is, a line feed width is usually larger than the height of the print head, the maximum height of the document data is one line. There is a problem that the vertical ruled lines are not continuously printed only by replacing each ruled line in the line with a ruled line font or graphic line one-to-one.
As a countermeasure, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-191166, when the vertical width of the ruled line font is smaller than the line feed width of the document data, a function of complementarily printing the gap between the ruled line fonts to make the vertical ruled lines continuous is provided. Is proposed, but it is necessary to provide a similar function when converting a ruled line command into a print control code for dot information that can be processed by the printer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a serial printer which does not have a print control code which can correspond to an overlay format ruled line command, and which can convert document data created by overlay format ruled line processing without missing a part of vertical ruled lines. An object of the present invention is to provide a ruled line printing control method for printing.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a ruled line printing control method in which a serial printer which does not have a print control code corresponding to an overlayed ruled line command prints document data including an overlayed ruled line command. Command input means for inputting a line-by-line print command for instructing printing of ruled lines and characters, and analyzing the input print command to extract ruled line commands for printing ruled lines Command analyzing means, a dividing line command for dividing the extracted ruled line command into a plurality of lines each having a vertical width of the print head, and converting the divided ruled line commands into divided ruled line commands for printing ruled lines in each line; Creates dot data that composes the figure of the corresponding ruled line from the command and print control code for dot information that the printer can understand Means for creating ruled line print control code to be created, and dot information created by the ruled line print control code creating means by converting portions other than the ruled line command of the print command input by the command input means into print control codes that can be understood by the printer. Printing control code creating means for combining with the printing control code for printing, and printing control code transmitting means for sending the combined printing control code to the printer.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a ruled line printing control system.
In the ruled line printing control method described above,
When dividing the extracted ruled line command into multiple lines of the vertical width of the print head and converting it to divided ruled line commands, printing is performed from the line whose line feed width is equal to the vertical size of the print head and the line feed width of the input document data. It is characterized in that the head is divided into rows equal to the difference obtained by subtracting an integral multiple of the vertical width of the head.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a ruled line printing control system.
In the ruled line printing control method described above,
When the extracted ruled line command is divided into a plurality of lines of the vertical width of the print head and converted to a divided ruled line command, the line feed width is divided into a plurality of lines each having a value obtained by equally dividing the line feed width of the input document data. It is characterized by comprising.

[0010]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of one embodiment of the present invention.

A ruled line printing control system 10 of the present embodiment shown in FIG.
Command analysis means 12 for analyzing the input print command and extracting ruled line commands for printing ruled lines
A line dividing means 13 for dividing the extracted ruled line command into a plurality of lines each having a size corresponding to the vertical width of the print head, and converting the divided ruled line commands into divided ruled line commands for printing ruled lines in each line; From the corresponding ruled line portion to generate a dot information print control code that can be understood by the printer, and the printer can understand the portions other than the ruled line of the print command. A printing control code creating unit 15 that converts the printing control code into a printing control code of the dot information for the ruled line created by the ruled line printing control code creating unit 14, and the combined printing control code into the printer 20.
And a printing control code transmitting means 16 for transmitting to the
The printer 20 executes printing according to the printing control code.

Hereinafter, the operation of the embodiment of FIG. 1 will be described in detail with reference to a specific example. For simplicity,
Consider printing a two-line document including a character entry frame with ruled lines as shown in FIG. 2 as an example. The first line of this document is composed of only the character string “Ai”, and the second line contains the character string “ABC” and an entry frame 21 with a ruled line surrounding this character string. As shown in FIG. 2, the line feed width of the document is x, and the print width (vertical width of the print head) that can be printed by moving the print head once is y, and the line feed width x is larger than the print width y.
<X <2y, and the height of the entry frame 21 is the line feed width x
Shall be equal to

Here, the printer 20 has a function of moving a sheet in the vertical direction according to line feed information to perform a line feed, a function of developing character codes into dot data and printing, and a function of printing dots within the height range of the print head. It has a function of receiving data from outside and printing it, but does not have a print control code for dot-expanding and printing the instruction content of the ruled line command.

First, as the document data for printing the document shown in FIG. 2, a print command is input by the command input unit 11 line by line. The print command includes line feed information indicating a line feed width, a character string command indicating a character string print, a rule command indicating a rule print, and a dot information command indicating a dot data print. The data format included in this command is different. The character string command contains information such as the starting position coordinates of the character string, the character size, the character code string, and the like, and the ruled line command contains the relative position coordinates and line type of the ruled line starting point and ending point in the line.
Information such as the line width is included.

The command analysis means 12 analyzes the print command input by the command input means 11 for each line, extracts a ruled line command, and combines the line command with the line feed information.
The character string command and the dot information command other than the ruled line command are printed together with the line feed information.
Send to 5. Since there is no ruled line in the first line of the document in FIG. 2, the command analysis unit 12 converts the character string command for printing the character string "Ai", which is the print content of the first line, with the line feed information and the print control code generation unit. Send to 15. Since the second line includes an entry frame 21 with a ruled line in addition to the character string “ABC”, the command analysis unit 12 extracts a ruled line command instructing the printing of the entry frame 21 and extracts it along with line feed information. The character string command for the character string "ABC" and the line feed information are sent to the line dividing means 13 and the printing control code creating means 15 is sent.
Transfer to

The line dividing means 13 compares the line feed width obtained from the line feed information with the print width printable by a single movement of the print head, and if the line feed width is larger than the print width,
The ruled line command received from the command analysis unit 12 is divided into a plurality of lines of a print width, and is converted into a divided ruled line command for printing ruled lines in each line of the divided print width. In the case of the second line of the document shown in FIG. 2, when the line feed width x of the document is compared with the print width y, there is a relationship of y <x <2y. It is divided into two lines within the print width y, and a divided ruled line command corresponding to each divided line is created.

Here, one line of the document (line having a line feed width size) is a logical line, a line having a print width (vertical width of the print head) printable by one movement of the print head is a print line, and a logical line is a logical line. A plurality of divided lines within the print width is defined as a physical line. Normal size characters are printed within the range of the print width based on the lower end of the logical line, so when dividing a logical line into physical lines,
The logical line is divided into a reference physical line having a common lower end and the same width as the print line, and a physical line including a logical line portion not included in the reference physical line. In the case of the second line of the document shown in FIG. 2, as shown in FIG.
Is divided into two physical lines: a physical line including only the upper part of the character string, and a physical line that is a reference physical line, has a line width of y, and includes the character string “ABC” and most of the entry box 21.

Subsequently, the ruled line command received from the command analysis means 12 in which the positions of the start point and the end point of the ruled line forming the entry frame 21 are represented by the position information in the logical line is divided into physical lines and physical lines, respectively. The position of the ruled line forming each part of the entry frame 21 is converted into a divided ruled line command for two lines displayed by the position information in the print line. From the line feed information in the print command and the print width of the printer, x-y of the line feed width of the print line for printing the physical line and y of the line feed width of the print line for printing the physical line are calculated based on this. The position information of the ruled line in the logical line of the ruled line command is converted into the position information of the ruled line in each divided print line, a divided ruled line command for two lines is created, and the ruled line print control code creating means is combined with each line feed information. Transfer to 14.

The ruled line print control code creating means 14 converts ruled line information in a divided ruled line command of each divided print line into dot data constituting a ruled line for each print line, and controls printing of dot information which can be understood by a printer. Create code. That is, the dot data constituting the entry frame 21 by the ruled line of the logical row in FIG. 3 is divided into physical rows and physical rows,
Create dot information for printing in two lines. First, as shown in FIG. 4A, the portion of the entry frame 21 (points a and b
Dot data of a vertical line connecting the points, a horizontal line connecting the points a and c, and a vertical line connecting the points c and d). Next, FIG.
As shown in (b), a ruled line portion (a vertical line connecting points b and e,
The dot data of a horizontal line connecting the points e and f and a vertical line connecting the points d and f) is created. The created dot data is incorporated into the print control code of the dot information and passed to the print control code creating means 15.

The print control code creating means 15 creates a print control code corresponding to a command other than a ruled line command such as a character string command in a print command, and generates a ruled line created by the ruled line print control code creating means 14. The print control code of the dot data and the line feed information are matched and merged, and the print control code for each print line is edited.

Since there is no ruled line in the first line of the document shown in FIG.
By creating the print control code of the character string "Ai", the print control code is created as it is without changing the line feed information. Since the second line of the document in FIG. 2 includes a ruled line, first, a print line printing control code for printing a physical line is created from dot data of the ruled line of the physical line. Next, by creating a print control code of the character string “ABC” and merging it with the print control code of the dot data constituting the ruled line of the physical line, the print control code of the print line for printing the physical line is obtained. Created.

The created printing control code is sent to the printer 20 by the printing control code transmitting means 16, and the character code is developed into dot data by the character generator.
Printing is performed simultaneously with the dot data of the ruled line by moving the print head.

As described above, a serial printer which incorporates a ruled line font in a character generator and does not have a print control code capable of responding to an overlay format ruled line command can be used.
It is possible to print document data including a ruled line command in an overlay format. Moreover, when the line feed width of the logical line is larger than the vertical width of the print head, the logical line is divided into a plurality of lines within the vertical width of the print head, and printing of ruled lines is performed for each line. Printing can be performed without dropping a part.

In the description of the above-described embodiment, when the line dividing means divides a logical line into a plurality of physical lines and takes correspondence between the divided physical lines and print lines, FIGS. ), The width of the physical line and the line feed width of the print line are selected to be equal, and the ruled line of the physical line is printed below the print line. However, without being limited to this, for example, the line feed width of the print line for the physical line and the print line for the physical line may be made equal, and the ruled line of the physical line may be printed at the center instead of the bottom of the print line. it can.

[0026]

As described above, according to the ruled line printing control method of the present invention, the ruled line command in the overlay format is divided for each vertical width of the print head and output as dot data. It is possible to cause a serial printer having no corresponding print control code to print document data including a ruled line command in an overlay format. Moreover, even when the line feed width of the document is larger than the vertical width of the print head, there is an effect that printing can be performed without causing a phenomenon in which a part of the vertical ruled line is lost between lines and discontinuous.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a document image for explaining the operation of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a concept of dividing a document image of FIG. 2 by a line dividing unit.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a printing operation by dividing the document image of FIG. 2 into lines.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 10 ruled line printing control method 11 command input means 12 command analysis means 13 line dividing means 14 ruled line print control code creation means 15 printing control code creation means 16 printing control code transmission means 20 printer 21 entry frame

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A ruled line printing control method for printing a document data including an overlayed ruled line command on a serial printer that does not have a print control code that can correspond to an overlayed ruled line command. Command input means for inputting a print command for instructing printing on a line-by-line basis; command analysis means for analyzing the input print command to extract ruled line commands for printing ruled lines; Line dividing means for dividing into a plurality of lines each having a vertical width and converting them into divided ruled line commands for printing ruled lines within each line, and dot data constituting a figure of a corresponding ruled line portion from each divided ruled line command. A ruled line print control code creating means for creating a print control code for dot information which can be created and understood by a printer; A printing control for converting a part other than the ruled line command of the print command input by the command input means into a print control code that can be understood by the printer, and combining the print command with the dot information print control code created by the ruled line print control code creating means. A ruled line printing control method, comprising: a code generation unit; and a printing control code transmission unit that transmits a synthesized printing control code to a printer. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the line dividing unit divides the extracted ruled line command into a plurality of lines each having a vertical width of the print head and converts the divided line command into a divided ruled line command. 2. The ruled line print control method according to claim 1, wherein the line is divided into a line and a line equal to a difference obtained by subtracting an integral multiple of the vertical width of the print head from the line feed width of the input document data. 3. When the line dividing means divides the extracted ruled line command into a plurality of lines each having the vertical width of a print head and converts the divided ruled line command into divided ruled line commands, the line feed width is equal to the line feed width of the input document data. 2. The ruled line printing control method according to claim 1, wherein the divided line is divided into a plurality of lines.