JPH065458B2 - label - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a label that develops color when heated by, for example, a thermal head.

2. Description of the Related Art In general, using a thermal head as a printing means in a label printer or the like has various features such that a free printing pattern can be obtained and clear bar code printing can be performed. However, the print color of the label is constant over the whole area, so if there is information to be emphasized in the print information or information of a concept different from other information, enclose it in a line or print it in bold type especially. Is dealt with by doing. Although such means can achieve the purpose to some extent, it is something that can be understood by looking carefully, and the part can be seen at a glance, and the print information can be easily read. Not that.

In particular, for example, as the contents printed on the label by the weighing and printing device, generally, general information such as "product name" and "weight", and specific information such as "advertisement product" and "service product" It also includes fixed information such as "per 100 g (yen)" and "content (g)" that should be the title of each item. In such a label, when general information, specific information and fixed information for different purposes are expressed in one color, the information is mixed and its contents are extremely difficult to read, and emphasis is placed on other parts. It is difficult to make the specific information that you want to stand out.

In this respect, in order to make various information easy to read, it is conceivable to develop a label having multicolor coloring characteristics and perform multicolor printing on such a label. However, if it is attempted to develop three or more colors, it is difficult to develop a label having such characteristics, and it is expected that printing control for such a label will be complicated, which is not practical.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a label that makes it easy to read each information even when various kinds of information are mixed as print contents and can clearly display certain information by distinguishing it from other information. And

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention has a two-color color development temperature characteristic in which different colors are formed in accordance with the temperature given by the printing unit of a printer, and at least one of these colors has a conspicuous brightness. The fixed information is preprinted in a contrasting color that is different from any of the colors.

As a result, at least three colors are obtained, which makes the printed contents easy to read. In addition, at least one of the colors of the label and the fixed information that is pre-printed are lightness contrasting colors, which makes it easier to read the printed content and clearly distinguishes the information in any color from other information. To be done. Furthermore, since the information to be preprinted is fixed information that hardly changes, there is no problem even if preprinting, and there is no complexity of printing the same information for each label.

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In this embodiment, an example of a label used in the weighing and printing apparatus will be shown.
Therefore, an example of a weighing and printing apparatus that prints on the label of this embodiment will also be described. First, an example of contents printed on the label 1 is shown in FIG. Label 1 has processing date, effective date, code, product number, per 100g (yen), internal capacity
(g), store name, division line, price (yen), and other unique information 12 is printed (preprinted) in advance. Then, the thermal head 10 to be described later prints general information 13 to 16 such as product name 13, date 14, barcode 15, data 16 and the like and specific information 17 such as "advertisement product". In the present embodiment, the specific information 17 that is "advertisement item" is a portion to be emphasized, and is different in color from the other printed portions by a means described later. Specifically, this label 1 has a two-color coloring layer on its surface and has a characteristic of two-color coloring temperature, and the background is white, and the upper layer side is for basic coloring such as black and the lower layer side is red. It is said to be a different color for emphasis. That is, the label 1 develops two colors depending on the amount of heat energy applied to the label 1. When the current to the heating element of the thermal head 10 is constant, the label 1 develops a black basic color at a low temperature for a short time. When a high temperature is applied for a long time, a different color of red is developed.

Next, the label 1 has a rectangular shape and is affixed on a long mount 2 at equal intervals. Then, as shown in FIG. 2, the mount 2 is wound in a roll shape and held by the label supply unit 3 of the weighing and printing apparatus. The backing sheet 2 is bent at a label peeling plate 6 portion via a platen 5 driven by a pulse motor 4, and wound around a winding shaft 9 driven by a winding motor 8 via a roller 7. A thermal head 10 is provided on the platen 5. Further, the label 1 peeled off by the label peeling plate 6 is detected by a label detector 11 which photoelectrically acts on the passing timing of its leading edge and the presence / absence thereof.

Next, the electric circuit configuration of the weighing and printing apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. First, a print controller 20 that operates according to a print command or a label detection signal is provided.
A balance 21 is connected to the input sides of the two AND gates 22 and 23, and the controller 20 is directly connected to the other input side of these AND gates 22 and 23 or the inverter 2
4 are connected. These AND gates 2
A first printing buffer 27 and a second printing buffer 28 are connected to the output sides of 2 and 23 via charactor generator converting circuits 25 and 26, respectively. The controller 20 is connected to the print buffers 27 and 28 through X address, Y address, and clock lines.

Then, the second print buffer 28 operates the OR gate 2
It is connected to the shift register 30 of the thermal head 10 via 9. On the other hand, the first printing buffer 27
Is connected to the input side of an AND gate 31 together with C.CONT (color control) from the print controller 20, and the AND gate 31 is connected to the OR gate 2
9 is connected.

Here, the internal structure of the thermal head 10 will be described. First, the data of the print buffers 27 and 28 are input to the shift register 30 by one bit by the clock (CLK), and the contents of the shift register 30 are connected in parallel by the latch circuit 32 by the strobe signal (STB). Be transferred to at once. To the latch circuit 32, an AND gate 36 is connected via a number of AND gates 33 to control the energization of each heating element 35 commonly connected to a power source 34. These AND gates 36 are opened by the enable signal (ENB).

Further, the print controller 20 is connected with a timer 37 which serves as an energization time control circuit. This timer 37
Starts with the T ₁ signal and regulates the time T ₂ . This T ₂ is the first print buffer 27 as described later.
And the contents of the second print buffer 28 are printed at the same time. The timer 37 has a variable resistor 3
8 is connected, making the T ₂ time adjustable.

Further, a motor driver 39 connected to the pulse motor 4 is connected to the print controller 20, and thereby the feeding of the label 1 is controlled.

In such a structure, the strobe signal STB and the enable signal ENB are respectively generated at the timing of the rising of T _{1 and} the rising of T ₂ . Now, it is assumed that the cycle of T ₁ is the one-line printing time required for different color printing on the label 1.
At every T ₁ , the pulse motor 4 is driven and the label 1
Send one line. Here, the line feed does not mean a line of characters but a line of dot units.
Then, T ₂ is regulated by the timer 36, and the T ₁ cycle is divided into a time period of T _{2 and} a time period of (T ₁ −T ₂ ). Here, it is assumed that the output of the timer 36 becomes the H level after the output of T _{1 and the} time of T ₂ later.

The first printing buffer 27 will be referred to as a memory and the second printing buffer 28 will be referred to as a memory, and the printing operation will be described below. Then, in the contents stored in each memory, the X address indicates the address of each row, and the Y address indicates the address of each row. Therefore, X
There are print contents of 0, 1, 2, ..., YY for each address.

Therefore, description will be made based on the timing chart shown in FIG. In the example shown in the figure, the printing starts from the N data memory printing portion. In this portion, the STB signal and the ENB signal based on T ₁ are used to generate the heating element 35 based on the data already input to the shift register 30.
Since the power supply to the head has started and T ₂ is still at the L level, the C.CONT signal is also at the L level so that the memory output is not applied to the thermal head 10.
Therefore, at this time, the data input to the thermal head 10 is only the content of the memory, and the content actually printed is based on the data input immediately before.

Then, after a lapse of T ₂ time, the contents of the memory input to the shift register 30 are input to the latch circuit 32, and the heating element 35 is energized. Therefore,
At this time, the contents of the previously input memory are printed. Further, since T ₂ is at the H level, the C.CONT signal is also at the H level, and the data of both the memory and the memory are input to the shift register 30 of the thermal head 10.

In this way, the label 1 is line feed in a period of T ₁
Operates so as to alternately receive the synthesized contents of the memory and the contents of only the memory and sequentially print the contents in the time zone divided into the time of (T ₁ -T ₂ ) and the time of T ₂ . Therefore, the content for general print data stored in the memory is low because the energization time is only T ₂ and the temperature is low, so that the product name 13 and the like are printed with a basic black color. Meanwhile, since a high temperature only specific information 17 portion of the content is "ad goods" Memory is energization time of the heating element 35 is as long as T _1, coloring and other product name 13 or the like to be energized T ₂ hours only Differently, the printing is performed by the different color development of red, and the specific information 17 is extremely clearly distinguished.

The above description is the operation on the print line including the portion that causes different colors to be formed as in the specific information 17, and in the present embodiment,
In a printing line such as a bar code portion that does not include such a portion that develops a different color, the printing time is shortened. This is shown in the second 1-line printing portion in FIG. That is, the specific information 1 in the memory
This is a case where no data is stored in the memory for 7, but data is stored only in the memory. In this case, even if the time T ₁ has not elapsed, the power is supplied for the time T ₂ required for printing the product name 13 etc., and when the time for the basic black color printing elapses, the next line is printed. To T
₁ pulse is output. As a result, the time required for printing is shortened in the print line of the portion that does not have the specific information 17, so that the label issuing time can be shortened as a whole, and the label issuing can be performed efficiently. In other words, in this embodiment, the energization time, that is, the printing time, is extended only in the printing line that requires the different color printing.

In the implementation, the variable resistor 38 is properly adjusted to
Change ₂ hours. This is appropriately adjusted depending on the properties of the paper of the label 1.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the color of the specific information 17 thus printed on the label 1 in a different color and the processing date, effective date, code, part number, 1 preprinted on the label 1.
It is characterized by the relationship with the print color of the unique information 12 such as per 00 g (yen), internal capacity (g), store name, and division line, so that the pre-print color is red so that the specific information 17 that is printed in red stands out. On the other hand, a color that is a contrasting color with lightness, specifically, blue is used. In order to express this in FIG.
Subsequent to each symbol, the subscripts of (BK) are shown in the black portion, (R) in the red portion, and (B) in the blue portion. Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the printing of the specific information 17 is printed in a state in which the label 1 is emphasized so as to stand out so that the emphasized message can be accurately expressed.

Further, in the present embodiment, the "advertisement item" is colored differently in red as the specific information 17, but each item of various print groups (unique information 12) determined by pre-printing on the label 1 is used. Alternatively, it is possible to select whether or not to print with different colors for each color and to select and combine them, so that printing can be performed. For such various different color printing, a flag (for example, a red color or a black color) for selecting the item name, auxiliary character (for example, advertisement item), weight, and price item in the flag memory by the keyboard or the flag setting command (for example, Red = 1 and black = 0) are stored respectively, and printing buffer 2
When the memory data 7 and 28 are created, black data may be created in the print buffer 27 and red data may be created in the print buffer 28 according to the selection flag.

By the way, in this embodiment, further improvement is made. In other words, the amount of money (price) calculated by (weight) x (unit price) based on the weight when printing the pre-printed label 1 by printing a message such as "advertisement item" as emphasized print characters. Is also preferably emphasized. In particular, as in the present embodiment, when the emphasized message is "advertisement item", the unit price is reduced, so it is more preferable to emphasize the unit price. Regarding this point, in this embodiment, the price (or unit price) 16 itself is printed as black at low temperature like other general print data, but the fixed information 12 to be preprinted is used.
Of these, the price around the print position of this price 16 (yen) and the fixed information 18 such as the frame line are preprinted in red (more specifically, the price (yen) part is red white It becomes a blank character). That is, the price 16 is a contrast color with respect to black, and the fixed information 18 around this is highlighted in red, so that the customer pays attention to the price 16, and eventually,
Even if the color that develops is black, the price of 16 stands out. Also, since the price 16 itself is printed in black, the image is good.

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has the two-color color development temperature characteristics as described above, and at least one of these colors is a lightness contrasting color that is conspicuous and is different from any of the colors, and the fixed information is preprinted. Since at least three colors are obtained, it is possible to extremely easily read the print contents including information that can be classified into, for example, three types of concepts. Since at least one of the colors and the fixed information that has been preprinted are lightness contrasting colors, the information in any one of the colors can be clearly distinguished from the other information, and the specific information can be emphasized conspicuously. In addition, it is possible to realize easy reading of printed contents and enhancement of specific information at the same time.

[Brief description of drawings]

The drawings show an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a plan view of a label, FIG. 2 is a side view showing a part of the mechanism of a weighing and printing device, FIG. 3 is its block diagram, and FIG. Is a timing chart. 1 ... Label, 12, 18 ... Fixed information (pre-printed contents)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A two-color coloring temperature characteristic that colors different colors depending on a temperature given by a printing section of a printer is provided, and at least one of these colors has a brightness contrast color. A label having fixed information preprinted in a color different from that of the color.