JP5251166B2 - Printer control method and apparatus, and printer control program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a printer control method and apparatus for causing a printer to print with a layout corresponding to the type of print medium, and a printer control program. In this specification, the term “printer” refers to all devices that color a target medium using black or colored gas, liquid, or powder. In addition, it includes devices called multifunction devices with scanner and copy functions.

  As print media that can be printed by a printer, divided seal printing paper called a mini photo sticker or a mini photo sticker in which a plurality of stickers each having an adhesive layer on the back surface are arranged on one sheet is commercially available. As a technique for printing the same image on each sticker of such paper, Patent Document 1 detects the type of print medium by the printer and reduces the input image according to the detection result. Printing on individual seals is disclosed. Patent Document 2 discloses a technique for shortening the execution time on the printer side when printing a plurality of the same images side by side.

  In order to perform printing on the divided sticker from an application program operating on a computer, attribute information that is unique information of the printer is acquired from the printer, and processing is performed based on the information. Acquisition of attribute information and display of a menu such as a print medium type based on the information are performed by a printer driver program operating on the same computer. The printer driver program also converts image data sent from the application program into data suitable for printing by the printer in accordance with a print command from the application program, and transmits the data to the printer.

When the printer is compatible with the division seal, the attribute information includes information indicating that it corresponds to the print medium type. The printer driver program acquires the information and displays it on the application program. If it is an application program that supports divisional seal printing, for example, a user interface flow such as image selection (one or more), print medium size selection, print medium type selection, layout selection, layout execution, and printing. Thus, it is possible to perform layout selection according to the type of print medium in advance and to print in a layout desired by the user.
JP 2000-313143 A JP 2005-262537 A

  However, it is necessary for the application program or the printer to be able to print an image corresponding to each seal of the divided seal. When trying to print from an application program that does not support the division seal, the printer drive bar is used in a fixed flow of selecting one image, selecting a print medium size, selecting a print medium type, and starting printing. Such an application program has no concept of layout, and even if, for example, a mini photo sticker in which a 16-part sticker is arranged on one sheet is selected as the type of print medium, the size of the print medium in the application program is selected. Therefore, an image having the full print medium size is passed to the printer driver. Since the user has selected the mini photo sticker as the print medium type, the user expects that the 16-divided mini photo sticker will be printed. However, due to the structure of the driver, the print medium fills up like any other print medium. The image will be printed. In addition, when the printer side uniquely handles it, a large image memory for storing image data is required, the processing load is large, and high-speed processing is difficult.

  In addition, even if an application program is compatible with a commercially available special print medium, the application program cannot support a special print medium released after the application program is created even if the printer supports it. .

  The present invention solves such problems and provides a printer control method and apparatus, and a printer control program capable of causing a printer to print a plurality of identical images from a single image data on a single print medium. Objective.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the first step of capturing image data and reducing it to a size that can be printed as one M × N (M and N are integers of 2 or more) identical images on a single print medium. A second step of generating one line raster data for printing by repeating one line of the reduced image data M times, and transmitting the raster data generated in the second step to the printer. A printer control method comprising: repeating a second step and a third step from the first line to the last line of the reduced image data, and further repeating it N times Is done.

  Each time the data for one line is reduced in the first step, the second step and the third step are executed, and the image data reduced in the first step is stored from the first line to the last line. It is desirable to repeat the second step and the third step for the stored image data from the first line to the last line of the image data, and then repeat it N-1 times.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, an image data input unit to which image data is input, and M × N pieces of input image data (M and N are integers of 2 or more) on one print medium. A reduction processing unit that reduces to a size that can be printed as the same image, and data for each line of the reduced image data are repeated M times to generate one line of raster data for printing, and the first of the reduced image data A raster data generation unit that repeatedly generates N data from raster data corresponding to the first line to raster data corresponding to the last line of the reduced image data, and transmits the generated raster data to the printer line by line. A printer control apparatus comprising a raster buffer is provided.

  A reduced image buffer for storing image data reduced by the reduction processing unit is provided, and the raster data generation unit repeats the reduced data M times each time the reduction processing unit reduces the data for one line. After the raster data is generated and the reduction processing unit finishes the reduction processing of the last line, the data for each line is taken out from the reduced image buffer and the data is repeated M times so that each line of raster data for printing is printed. Is preferably repeated N-1 times from the first line to the last line of the image data stored in the reduced image buffer.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, the image data is taken into a computer and reduced to a size that can be printed as M × N (M and N are integers of 2 or more) identical images on a single print medium. 1 procedure, a second procedure for generating 1 line raster data for printing by repeating 1 line data of the reduced image data M times, and the raster data generated by the second procedure is printed on the printer. And a fourth procedure that repeats the second procedure and the third procedure from the first line to the last line of the reduced image data and repeats it N times. A printer control program is provided.

  As a fourth procedure, the computer stores the procedure for executing the second procedure and the third procedure every time data for one line is reduced in the first procedure, and the image data reduced by the first procedure. For the stored procedure from the first line to the last line and for the stored image data, the second and third procedures are repeated from the first line to the last line of the image data, It is desirable to execute a procedure that is repeated once.

[First Embodiment]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the first embodiment of the present invention, and shows an example in which the present invention is implemented as a printer control apparatus. The printer control apparatus 1 is connected between a printer, a computer, a network, an image memory, and other image data supply sources, and generates data for the printer 2 to print from input image data for each raster line. The image data input unit 11 to which image data is input and M × N pieces of input image data on a single print medium (M and N are integers of 2 or more) are the same. The reduction processing unit 12 that reduces the image data to a size that can be printed, the reduced image buffer 13 that stores the image data reduced by the reduction processing unit 12, and the data for each line of the reduced image data are printed M times repeatedly. 1 line raster data is generated, and the last of the reduced image data is generated from the raster data corresponding to the first line of the reduced image data. Comprising up to raster data corresponding to the in-raster data generation unit 14 for generating repeated N times, a raster buffer 15 to transmit the generated raster data to the printer for each line.

[Operation of First Embodiment]
FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the operation of the printer control apparatus 1 shown in FIG. In order to print M × N pieces of image data, it is necessary to include a margin, so it is necessary to reduce the original image data to be smaller than 1 / M or 1 / N. In the following, for the sake of simplicity, the blank portion is not taken into consideration, and the image data input to the image data input unit 11 is reduced to 1 / M in both the vertical and horizontal directions. A description will be given assuming that individual printing is performed. Here, “vertical” and “horizontal” mean the paper feeding direction and raster direction of the printer, respectively. Note that this direction is not necessarily the same as the direction of the image data to be printed.

  The image data input unit 11 includes an image buffer. When image data is stored in the image buffer, the reduction processing unit 12 receives image data corresponding to one raster line when printing the image data (step S1). ), Reduced to 1 / M (step S2), and stored in the reduced image buffer 13 (step S3). Here, the “image data corresponding to one raster line” received by the reduction processing unit 12 may be data thinned out so that the original image data is reduced in the vertical direction. Also, the image data to be reduced may be used. The raster data generation unit 14 receives the data for one line reduced from the reduction processing unit 12, and repeats it M times in the horizontal direction and writes it into the raster buffer 15, thereby generating raster data for one line ( In step S4, the data stored in the raster buffer 15 is transmitted to the printer 2 (step S5). The above processing is repeated until the last raster line of the image data (S6). With the above processing, the printer 2 prints M reduced images in the horizontal direction.

  Subsequently, the raster data generation unit 14 extracts one line of reduced data from the reduced image buffer 13 (step S7), repeats it M times in the horizontal direction, and writes it in the raster buffer 15 to thereby store one line. Raster data is generated (step S8), and the data stored in the raster buffer 15 is transmitted to the printer 2 (step S9). The above processing is repeated until the last raster line of the image data (step S10). With the above processing, the printer 2 prints M reduced images in the second row. By repeating the processing from step S7 to step 11 N-1 times (step S11), the printer 2 completes printing of M × N reduced images.

  In this embodiment, raster data generation unit 14 generates raster data directly from the output of reduction processing unit 12 for the first M reduced images. Thus, printing can be started during the image data reduction process, and the waiting time of the printer 2 can be shortened. For the subsequent reduced images, the data stored in the reduced image buffer 13 is used so that it is not necessary to repeat the reduction process.

[Examples of print media and print layout]
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a layout example of divided seals. FIG. 4 shows an example of a normal printing result, and FIG. Here, a layout example of a mini photo sticker in which 16 stickers are arranged on one sheet is shown. If the image data is printed as it is in the print medium size without performing layout processing, an image having the full print medium size is printed as shown in FIG. In contrast, when the layout process described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2 is executed with M = N = 4, a print result as shown in FIG. 4 is obtained.

  When the print medium feeding direction is the horizontal direction in FIG. 3 to FIG. 5 (the longitudinal direction of the print medium), the “lateral direction” used in the description with reference to FIG. The vertical direction.

[Second Embodiment]
FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment includes an attribute information acquisition processing unit 16 that acquires attribute information of the printer 2 and notifies the image data supply source of the attribute information, and also notifies the reduction processing unit 12 and the raster data generation unit 14. Different from the first embodiment.

  In the description of the first embodiment, for simplification, only the process in which the printer control apparatus 1 reduces the input image data and causes the printer 2 to print M × N reduced images has been described. Practically, the printer control device 1 reduces the input image data to a size corresponding to a specific print medium type regardless of the attribute information of the printer 2 and the size of the input image data. The present invention can also be implemented as an apparatus that prints M × N identical images on a single print medium. In this case, if the aspect ratio of the image data does not match the aspect ratio of the area to be printed, a part of the image data may be cut and processed so that the aspect ratio does not change, and the aspect ratio is allowed to change. It is good to do. However, such an apparatus can only perform a fixed process and is inflexible.

  On the other hand, in the second embodiment, the attribute information acquisition processing unit 16 acquires attribute information from the printer 2, and the reduction processing unit 12 and the raster data generation unit 14 determine the type of print medium from the image data supply source. In response to the designation, it is determined whether layout processing is necessary, and printer control is performed based on the determination.

[Third Embodiment]
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing the third embodiment of the present invention, and shows an example in which the present invention is implemented as a printer driver program. The computer 20 includes hardware such as a CPU, RAM, ROM, hard disk, and various interfaces, and programs such as an application program 31, a video driver program 32, and a printer driver program 33 can operate under a predetermined operating system. ing. In FIG. 7, the memory 23, the video interface 24, and the printer interface 25 related to printer control among the hardware configuring the computer 20 are indicated by broken-line blocks. The printer driver program 33 captures image data and executes a first procedure for reducing the size so that M × N (M and N are integers of 2 or more) identical images can be printed on a single print medium. A second procedure for generating one line of raster data for printing by repeating the data input unit 35 and the reduction processing unit 36 with one line of the reduced image data M times, and is generated by this second procedure. The third procedure for transmitting the raster data to the printer 22, and the second procedure and the third procedure are repeated from the first line to the last line of the reduced image data, and this is repeated N times. And a raster data generation unit 37 for executing the procedure.

  The printing process by each program will be described. The application program 31 performs various processes for processing, displaying, and printing an image. The video driver program 32 displays various information such as images, characters, videos, and user interfaces on the display device 21 via the video interface 24 according to instructions from the application program 31. The printer driver program 33 performs processing for printing images and characters on the printer 22 in accordance with instructions from the application program 31.

  Next, the operation of the printer driver program 34 will be described. The attribute information acquisition processing unit 34 acquires attribute information, which is unique information of the printer, from the printer 22 via the printer interface 25, notifies the application program 31 of the information, and reduces the reduction processing unit 36 and raster data. The generation unit 37 is also notified. The image data input unit 35 receives a print command and image data to be printed from the application program 31. This print command includes information on the selected print medium size and print medium type. When the selected print medium type is an M × N divided sheet, the reduction processing unit 36 reduces the image data to such a size that an image is printed on each divided sheet, and stores the image data in the memory 23. At the same time, the data is output to the raster data generation unit 37. The raster data generation unit 37 receives the data for one line reduced from the reduction processing unit 36, generates raster data for one line by repeating the data M times in the horizontal direction, and outputs the data via the printer interface 25 to the printer. 22 to send. The raster data generation unit 37 repeats the above processing up to the last raster line of the image data, and causes the printer 22 to print M reduced images in the horizontal direction. Subsequently, the raster data generation unit 37 takes out the reduced data for one line from the memory 23 and repeats it in the horizontal direction M times to generate raster data for one line, and the printer 22 via the printer interface 25. Send to. This is repeated until the last raster line of the image data, and the repetition process is repeated N-1 times. Thus, the printer 22 completes printing of M × N reduced images.

  In this embodiment, it is not necessary to deal with the application program 31 in order to support a special print medium such as a divided sheet. For this reason, even when the producer of the application program 31 is different from the producer of the driver program 33, it becomes possible to deal with the special print medium only by the work of the producer of the driver program 33.

  In the above description, the divided sheet has been described as an example. However, the present invention can be similarly implemented when printing on another print medium. For example, a plurality of reduced images can be printed on normal paper, or the reduced images can be printed on a printing medium other than paper such as plastic or cloth.

1 is a block configuration diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention, and shows an example in which the present invention is implemented as a printer control device. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the operation of the printer control apparatus shown in FIG. It is a figure explaining the example of a layout of a division | segmentation seal | sticker. It is a figure which shows the example of the normal printing result to the division | segmentation seal | sticker shown in FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a result of printing on a divided sticker illustrated in FIG. 3 when layout processing is not performed. It is a block block diagram which shows the 2nd Embodiment of this invention, and shows the example which implemented this invention as a printer control apparatus. It is a block block diagram which shows the 3rd Embodiment of this invention, and shows the example which implemented this invention as a printer driver program.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printer control apparatus 2, 22 Printer 11, 35 Image data input part 12, 36 Reduction process part 13 Reduced image buffer 14, 37 Raster data generation part 15 Raster buffer 16, 34 Attribute information acquisition process part 20 Computer 21 Display apparatus 23 Memory 24 Video Interface 25 Printer Interface 31 Application Program 32 Video Driver Program 33 Printer Driver

Claims (4)

Capturing image data, the image data corresponding to one line for printing among the image data captured, M pieces × N rows whole image data on one print medium (M, N are both integer of 2 or more A first step of reducing the image to a size that can be printed as the same image of
The reduced image data for one line has a second step of generating the raster data for one line for printing repeated M times,
A third step of transmitting the raster data generated in the second step to a printer,
When printing M identical images in the first row in the paper feeding direction of the M × N identical images,
Each time the image data for one line is reduced in the first step, the second step and the third step are executed.
The image data reduced by the first step is stored from the first line to the last line,
Of the above M × N same images, when printing M same images in the second and subsequent rows in the paper feed direction of the printer,
A printer control method characterized by repeating the second step and the third step with respect to the stored image data from the first line to the last line, and further repeating it N-1 times .   2. The printer control method according to claim 1, wherein both M and N are 4, and the one printing medium is a divided sticker printing sheet in which a sticker provided with an adhesive layer on a back surface is arranged on one sheet. . An image data input unit for inputting image data;
The image data corresponding to one line when printing of the input image data, M number × N rows whole image data on one print medium (M, N are both integer of 2 or more) as the same images A reduction processing unit that reduces the size to a printable size;
The reduced image data for one line was generated raster data for one line for printing each repeated M times, which corresponds to the last line of the image data from the raster data corresponding to the first line of the image data A raster data generation unit that repeatedly generates up to raster data N times;
A raster buffer for transmitting the generated raster data to the printer line by line ;
A reduced image buffer for storing the image data reduced by the reduction processing unit ,
When printing M identical images in the first row in the paper feeding direction of the M × N identical images,
The raster data generation unit generates raster data for printing by repeating the reduced image data M times each time the reduction processing unit reduces the image data for one line,
The reduced image buffer stores the image data reduced by the reduction processing unit from the first line to the last line,
Of the above M × N same images, when printing M same images in the second and subsequent rows in the paper feed direction of the printer,
The image data for each line is extracted from the reduced image buffer, and the image data is repeated M times to generate one line of raster data for printing. From the first line of the image data stored in the reduced image buffer, A printer control apparatus characterized by repeating N-1 times up to the last line . On the computer,
Capturing image data, the image data corresponding to one line for printing among the image data captured, M pieces × N rows whole image data on one print medium (M, N are both integer of 2 or more ) A first procedure for reducing the size so that it can be printed as the same image;
The reduced image data for one line has a second procedure for generating raster data for one line for printing repeated M times,
A third procedure for transmitting the raster data generated in the second procedure to the printer ; and
When printing M identical images in the first row in the paper feeding direction of the M × N identical images,
A procedure for executing the second procedure and the third procedure each time image data for one line is reduced in the first procedure;
A procedure for storing the image data reduced by the first procedure from the first line to the last line;
And execute
Of the above M × N same images, when printing M same images in the second and subsequent rows in the paper feed direction of the printer,
A procedure in which the second procedure and the third procedure are repeated on the stored image data from the first line to the last line, and the procedure is repeated N-1 times.
Printer control program characterized Rukoto allowed to run.

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