JPH0226869B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a printing pattern conversion device, and in particular,
The present invention relates to a device for converting print data to be printed by a type printer into a dot pattern to be printed by a dot printer.

[Prior art]

When creating charts, graphs, etc. using conventional type printers, straight lines such as ruled lines are generally created by consecutively printing multiple types such as hyphens and strokes, but due to their nature, solid lines It was impossible to do so, and straight lines became broken lines, making them difficult to see. On the other hand, a dot-type printer can easily print straight lines as solid lines. However, when a print data string intended for a type format printer is input to a dot format printer, even if multiple codes such as hyphens and strokes are consecutive, hyphens and strokes will be printed as dots for each character. Therefore, it is still impossible to print a solid line. That is, even if existing diagram creation software created for type printers is applied directly to dot printers, it will not be possible to print ruled lines as solid lines, and modifications will be required.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to print straight lines as solid lines, etc. by directly applying the print data string to a dot format printer without modifying chart creation software created for type format printers. The object of the present invention is to provide a printing pattern conversion device that is capable of converting printing patterns.

[Summary of the invention]

The printing pattern conversion device of the present invention includes an input buffer for inputting printing data intended for a type printer and storing it in correspondence with the printing format, and for each data stored in the input buffer. means for generating a bit pattern indicative of data to be printed in dot format by referring to surrounding data of the dot pattern; means for holding a plurality of dot patterns and outputting a dot pattern indicated by the bit pattern; The device is characterized by having an output buffer for storing the data and sending it to a dot format printer.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 3.
This will be explained based on FIG.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a print pattern converting device which is an embodiment of the present invention. In the same figure, 1
2 is a switch circuit, 2 is an input buffer, 3 is a bit pattern generation circuit, 4 is a dot format print pattern generation circuit, and 5 is an output buffer.

The switch circuit 1 determines whether or not to convert input data in print format to a print pattern in dot format. If the input data is not converted (for example, when the input data is a normal character code), the input data is converted into output data as is. When sending and converting the data as a hyphen (for example, when the input data is a code such as a hyphen or a stroke), the input data is stored in the input buffer 2.

It is now assumed that the input buffer 2 stores input data of a printing pattern (hyphen and stroke) in a type format having a size of three lines as shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 shows the operations of the bit pattern generation circuit 3 and the dot type print pattern generation circuit 4. This shows an example in which a bit pattern is generated from data a of a print pattern (hyphen) in the upper left corner of Figure 2, and a dot pattern (dot pattern) b indicated by this bit pattern is output. There is. The bit pattern generation circuit 3 extracts one character a from the upper left column from the input data of the printing pattern in the typeface format as shown in FIG. A bit pattern of "1" and "0" is generated. Here, "1" has characters,
“0” means no character. In the case of the above character a, the upper direction is "0", the lower direction is "1", the left direction is "0", and the right direction is "1", so the bit pattern is 1010.
becomes. This bit pattern is stored in a 4-bit register 31. A dot-type print pattern is generated from the bit pattern stored in the register 31 in accordance with a conversion table 41 provided in the dot-type print pattern generation circuit 4. In the above example, the bit pattern is 1010, which is 10
Since this is the number equivalent to 10 in base numbers, using this value 10 as an index, 10 in the conversion table 41 is
When an address pattern is selected, a print pattern b in dot format is output. The same operation is performed for each character of the input data stored in the input buffer 2 to sequentially generate a dot-type printing pattern. The dot-type print pattern generated by the dot-type print pattern generation circuit 4 is stored in the output buffer 5, and is printed in dots by a dot-type printer.

When all the characters of the input data of the print pattern in the typeface format shown in Figure 2 stored in the input buffer 2 are converted by the above operation, as shown in Figure 4, a dot format with ruled lines filled with solid lines is obtained. The output data of the printing pattern can be obtained.

In the above embodiment, by appropriately changing the bit length of the register 31 shown in FIG. 3, the capacity of the input buffer 2 and the capacity of the output buffer 5 shown in FIG. It is also possible to change the contents of the conversion table 41 to generate any dot-type printing pattern.

Further, the printing pattern conversion device described above can be realized not only by the embodiment using the hardware circuit as described above but also by firmware using a ROM.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to convert input data of a print pattern in type format into output data of a print pattern in dot format.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the printing pattern converting device according to the present invention can convert a print pattern in a type format into a desired printing pattern in a dot format. This makes it possible to draw straight lines as solid lines by using off-the-shelf graphics creation software that is intended for output on this type of printer.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a print pattern conversion device which is an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing an example of input data of a print pattern in type format, and Fig. 3 is a diagram showing a bit pattern generation circuit and a print pattern in dot format. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the operation of the generating circuit, and is a diagram showing an example of output data of a dot-type printing pattern. 1...Switch circuit, 2...Input buffer, 3
. . . Bit pattern generation circuit, 4 . . . Dot format printing pattern generation circuit, 5 . . . Output buffer.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A printing pattern conversion device that inputs print data intended for a typeface printer and outputs a dot pattern intended for a dot type printer, the apparatus being intended for the typeface type printer. an input buffer for storing input print data corresponding to the print format; and for each data stored in the input buffer,
means for generating a bit pattern indicating data to be printed in dot format by referring to surrounding data of the data; means for holding a plurality of bit patterns and outputting a dot pattern indicated by the bit pattern; A printing pattern conversion device comprising: an output buffer for storing a dot pattern and sending it to a dot format printer.