JP2000094750A - Portable printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent a printing speed from lowering and restrain a consumption amount of a battery when reverse printing is designated. SOLUTION: In printing according to a reverse-designating means for printing characters in a designated area as reverse characters (S5, Y), when a printing rate in the area designated by the reverse-designating means is a predetermined value or smaller (S9, N), a background of the reverse characters are printed into black solid (S10) by a background automatic selection mode (S7-S8). When the printing rate of the area designated by the reverse-designating means is larger than the predetermined value (S9, Y), the background of the reverse characters are printed in a halftone (S11). When the printing rate is too high, the background of the reverse characters are printed in a halftone, not black solid. Accordingly, a printing speed is not lowered and a consumption amount of a battery is restrained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a portable printer driven by electric power stored in a battery.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing a label L having an inverted designated area a in which white characters are printed on a black solid background. In the area a, the ratio of the number of black dots to the number of dots per line, that is, the printing rate is high.

When printing a line with a high printing rate, a printer that prints with a thermal head requires a high driving voltage and a large power consumption to print the line.

[0004] In particular, portable printers that are driven by power stored in a battery, such as those used for physical distribution, tend to cause inconvenience due to an increase in drive voltage and an increase in power consumption.

[0005] First, if the power consumption is large, the power stored in the battery is quickly lost, and the frequency of battery replacement becomes high.

Even if a high driving voltage is required, a high driving voltage cannot be obtained with a portable printer driven by a battery, so that the voltage per dot is reduced and printing is blurred. Printing may not be possible. For this reason, when printing a line with a high printing rate, if the printing of one line is normally performed in two divisions in normal times, measures such as increasing the number of divisions and printing one line in three divisions are not suitable. Sometimes it is. However, increasing the number of divisions per line is effective in preventing blurring of printing, but has the disadvantage of slowing down printing speed. In addition, such measures cannot reduce battery consumption.

In order to avoid such inconveniences, the printing of the reversal designation which increases the printing rate is out of the specification, and the user is described as a precautionary note in an instruction manual or the like, thereby avoiding the printing of the reversal designation for the user. Some portable printers are urging them to do so.

[0008]

As in the prior art, even if the user's own attention is given in the instruction manual, the user uses the reverse designation if there is an operational necessity in actual use. In this case, the printing speed is reduced, and the battery consumption is increased.

[0009] However, in a printer used for distribution, there is a great disadvantage due to a slow printing speed. For labels used for most physical distribution purposes, barcodes need only be readable, and white characters can be read and the print area should be sharpened. Often it is not necessary to have a solid black background.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to prevent a reduction in printing speed when performing a reverse designation printing.

Further, the present invention provides a method for printing reverse designation.
The purpose is to reduce battery consumption.

[0012]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable printer driven by electric power stored in a battery, comprising: a thermal head for printing predetermined contents on a sheet; and a character in a designated area. Inversion designating means for printing a character as a white character, a printing rate determining means for determining a printing rate in an area designated by the inversion designating means, and a white area when a determination value by the printing rate determining means is equal to or less than a predetermined value. Print with the background of the blank character set to black solid,
A background automatic selecting means for thinning out and printing a part of the background of the outline character when the determination value is higher than a predetermined value;

Therefore, if the printing rate is too high,
The background of the white characters is not solid black but is printed with some parts thinned out.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the portable printer according to the first aspect, wherein the background of the outline character is printed in solid black irrespective of the printing ratio of the area designated by the reverse designating means. Black solid reversing means, thinning reversing means for thinning out and printing a part of the background of the outline character regardless of the printing rate of the area designated by the reversing designating means, and an area designated by the reversing designating means A background designating means is provided which enables an operator to set which of the black solid inverting means, the thinning inverting means and the automatic background selecting means to use when printing.

Therefore, it is possible to set by the user whether the background of the white characters is always solid black, or a part of the white characters is always thinned out, or the background is automatically switched as appropriate according to the printing rate.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of a portable printer according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. First, FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a control system provided in the portable printer according to the present embodiment.

First, the portable printer is provided with a CPU 1 for executing various arithmetic processes and centrally controlling each unit. CPU 1 has battery 2 and flash RO
M3 and SRAM4 are connected by a bus line. A predetermined area of the SRAM 4 is used as a print buffer.

The CPU 1 is connected to an LED 5, various switches 6, a label sensor 7, a motor driver 8, a thermal head controller 9, and a selector 10 via a bus.

The LED 5 is a light-emitting element for display. Although only one LED 5 is shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of LEDs 5 are actually provided for error display, battery exhaustion display, print-in-progress display, and the like. .

The various switches 6 include a power switch, a feed switch, and a thermal head open switch.

A pulse motor 11 for feeding a sheet is connected to the motor driver 8.

A thermal head 12 is connected to the thermal head controller 9. The label sensor 7 is
It is detected whether there is a sheet at a position facing the thermal head 12. The selector 10 is connected with an infrared sensor controller 14 to which an infrared sensor 13 is connected, an RF module 15 for wireless communication, and an I / F 16 used for communication with a personal computer.
Which of these three is used depends on the selection by the selector 10.

The printing process of this portable printer is performed first by using the infrared sensor 13 or the RF module 15 or the I / F 1
6, the print data is temporarily stored in the SRAM 4 and then stored in the SRAM 4.
4 is developed as image data assigned to each line in a print buffer provided in the print buffer 4. At the time of expansion, in the print area designated to be inverted, characters are inverted to white characters and expanded. Next, the image data of each line is sent to the thermal head by dividing one line for two times. Then, the heating element corresponding to the image data of the thermal head 12 generates heat. By repeating this, predetermined contents are printed on the label L.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when the portable printer receives a command. When any command is received after the power is turned on (Y in step S1), first, it is determined whether or not the received command is a background designation command for designating a background when characters are displayed in reverse (step S2). ).

Here, the background designation command in step S2 is a shaded reversal mode in which the background of the outline character is always shaded when the inversion designation is printed, or the background of the outline character is always solid black. Whether to use the black solid inversion mode or the automatic background selection mode in which the background is solid black and the background is shaded when the printing ratio exceeds 30% when the printing ratio is 30% or less. Is a command when the user has set. The hatching inversion mode is provided as thinning inversion means. FIG. 3 shows a label L having a print area b in which the halftone reversal mode is used.

If it is determined in step S2 that the command is a background designation command (Y in step S2), the process proceeds to step S3.
The contents designated as the background are backed up in the nonvolatile memory (step S3).

If it is determined in step S2 that the command is not a background designation command (N in step S2), the process proceeds to step S4, where it is determined whether the command is a drawing command (step S4). If the command is a drawing command (Y in step S4), the process proceeds to step S5, where it is determined whether or not the drawing is a reverse designation drawing (step S5). If the reverse is not designated (N in step S5), a normal character drawing process is performed (step S6), and the process returns to step S1.
Wait for the next command.

If the command is an inversion designation command in step S5 (Y in step S5), the flow shifts to step S7 to refer to which of the three types of background designation is set (step S7). .

If the background has not been designated in steps S2 to S3 in advance, the conventional black solid inversion mode is selected.

If the automatic background selection mode has been set, the process proceeds from step S7 to step S8, where the printing rate is calculated (step S8), and the process proceeds to step S9. If the printing rate is equal to or less than the specified value 30% in step S9 (N in step S9), the process proceeds to step S10.
Perform print processing in black solid reversal mode (step S1
0). If the printing rate is higher than the specified value in step S9 (Y in step S9), step S1
In step S11, the printing process is performed in the halftone reversal mode (step S11).

If the black solid reversal mode has been set or if no mode has been set, the process proceeds from step S7 to step S10, where printing processing is performed in the black solid reversal mode (step S10). .

If the reverse mode has been set, the process proceeds from step S7 to step S11, where printing is performed in the reverse mode (step S11).

If it is determined in step S4 that the received command is not a drawing command, the process proceeds from step S4 to step S12, where processing other than drawing, such as issuance and feed, is performed (step S12).

For such a portable printer,
The user can select the background of the outline character when the reverse is designated according to the use state or the operation mode.

In order to use a solid black background as much as possible and to use a shaded background only for a high printing ratio, set an automatic background selection mode, and only when the printing ratio exceeds 30%, The background of the outline character is shaded.

If the conventional solid black background is required for operation, the solid black inversion mode is set. However, in this case, the battery is consumed as compared with the case where the background is shaded, and the time required for printing becomes longer because the number of divisions for printing one line increases.

When priority is placed on power saving and printing speed, or when it is inconvenient to change the background of blank characters depending on the printing rate, a shaded reversal mode is set, and the background of blank characters is always shaded. .

In this embodiment, the thinning-out reversal has been described by reversing the shading. However, the embodiment is not limited to the shading.

[0039]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automatic background selection mode for selecting whether the background of white characters is to be solid black or partially thinned out in accordance with the printing rate of the area designated to be reversed. When the printing rate is very high, the background of the white characters is not black solid but is printed by thinning out a part, so that the power consumption of the battery can be suppressed and the printing speed can be prevented from lowering. .

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a background designation that enables an operator to set any of the solid black reversal mode, the thinning reversal mode, and the automatic background selection mode when printing an area designated for reversal. Since it has means,
Whether the background of the white characters is always solid black, always partially thinned out, or automatically switched as appropriate in accordance with the printing rate can be set by the user. According to the state and the operation mode, the background of the white character when the reverse is designated can be selected.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a control system included in an embodiment of a portable printer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of processing when the portable printer receives a command.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a label having a print area in which a thinning-out reversal mode is used.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a conventional label having a print area designated to be reversed.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Battery 12 Thermal head

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A portable printer driven by electric power stored in a battery, a thermal head for printing predetermined contents on a sheet of paper, inversion designating means for printing characters in a designated area as white characters, A print ratio determining unit that determines a print ratio of an area specified by the unit, and when the determination value by the print ratio determination unit is equal to or less than a predetermined value, printing is performed by setting the background of the outlined character to a solid black background and the determination value A background automatic selection means for thinning out and printing a part of the background of the outline character when is higher than a predetermined value. 2. A black solid reversing means for printing the background of the white character as a solid black regardless of a printing ratio of an area designated by the reversing designating means, and printing the area designated by the reversing designating means. Thinning-out reversing means for thinning out and printing a part of the background of the white character regardless of the ratio; and when printing the area designated by the reversing designating means, the black solid reversing means, the thinning-out reversing means, and the background automatic selection. 2. The portable printer according to claim 1, further comprising: a background designating unit that allows an operator to set which of the units is to be used.