JP2001287415A - Recording apparatus and its control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable printing irrespective of a size of recording media and with respect to any of forward and backward transfer directions of the recording media in an ink jet recording apparatus. SOLUTION: A recording paper transfer part of a body 11 of this recording apparatus is freed at one side to be an opening, so that the recording paper 14 of a large size can be printed. The recording paper 14 can be transferred in any of forward and backward directions to be printed by a recording head 12.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, such as an ink jet recording apparatus, for performing print output on recording paper, and a control method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIGS. 11A and 11B are diagrams showing a schematic structure of a conventional recording apparatus of this kind, wherein FIG. 11A is a top view and FIG. 11B is a front view. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes a recording apparatus main body, 102, a recording head that moves along a carriage shaft 103, and 104, a recording paper.

In the recording apparatus having the above-described configuration, the recording head 102 reciprocates in the scanning direction to print one line on the recording paper 104, and then an LF (not shown).
(Line feed) Recording paper 10 by motor and roller
4 is conveyed in the sub-scanning direction (the direction of the arrow in the figure), and printing of the next line is performed.

[0004]

In the above-mentioned conventional recording apparatus, both ends of the carriage moving section are fixed. For example, in the case of a recording apparatus corresponding to the A4 size, an A4 size recording apparatus is used. Paper can be transported vertically,
In addition, since the carriage is restricted so as to be movable beyond the width of A4, it is difficult to reduce the size of the printing apparatus main body. Depending on the use form of the user, for example, it is often the case that the user mainly wants to print on a recording medium larger than a postcard such as A4, mainly for the purpose of printing a postcard.
Even such a user had to select a large recording device because of the A4 size which is rarely printed.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H5-270079 discloses a recording apparatus for releasing one side of a transport section of a recording apparatus main body. Printing can be performed only on either the left end or the right end.

In the case of such an apparatus, the user creates data in which the data to be printed is turned upside down, left and right in advance, and inserts the paper from the lower end to print on the right end (left end). Although it is possible, if the data covers a plurality of pages, it is necessary to flip the top, bottom, left, and right for each page, which imposes a heavy burden on the user and is not realistic.

Although it is possible to cause the printer driver to perform an operation of inverting up, down, left, and right for each page, the printer driver usually converts image data as data rasterized by the function of the OS on the host computer. Received, and it is not always possible to flip up, down, left, and right in page units.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and enables printing regardless of the size of the recording medium, and prints in either the forward or reverse transport direction of the recording medium. It is an object of the present invention to provide a possible recording apparatus and a control method thereof.

[0009]

A recording apparatus and a control method thereof according to the present invention are configured as follows.

(1) A recording apparatus for performing print output on a recording medium, wherein one side of a transport section for transporting the recording medium for printing has an opening shape, and the recording medium can be moved from any direction. Transportable.

(2) In the above (1), when the conveyance direction of the recording medium is specified to be the reverse direction, the order of the data signals transferred from the printer driver to the recording head is changed.

(3) In the above (2), a switch for designating the transport direction of the recording medium by the user is provided.

(4) In the above (2), a sensor for detecting the direction of conveyance of the recording medium is provided.

(5) A method of controlling a recording apparatus in which one side of a transport section for transporting a recording medium for printing has an open shape, wherein the recording medium can be transported in any direction.

(6) In the above (5), when the conveyance direction of the recording medium is specified to be the reverse direction, the order of the data signals transferred from the printer driver to the recording head is changed.

(7) In the above (6), the conveyance direction of the recording medium is detected by a sensor.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and shows a main part of a print control system. In the figure, 1 is a control unit for controlling the entire printing apparatus, 2 is a switch of an operation unit for designating the conveying direction of the recording medium by the user, 3 is two sensors for detecting the conveying direction of the recording medium, and 4 is the recording A printer driver that controls the recording head 5 that prints on a medium.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic configuration of a recording apparatus according to the present embodiment. Here, a main part of a line printer for performing ink jet recording is shown. In addition, FIG.
Indicates a state without a recording medium, and (b) indicates a state with a recording medium. In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes a printing apparatus main body, 12 denotes a printing head, which moves along a carriage shaft 13 and
2 'indicates a recording head at the right end position. Reference numeral 14 denotes a recording sheet as the recording medium.

The above-described recording apparatus includes a recording paper 1 as shown in FIG.
4 has an open shape on one side of the transport unit for transporting it for printing, that is, one side of the recording paper transport system has an open shape, and the recording paper 14 can be transported in any of forward and reverse directions. . When the transport direction of the recording paper 14 is designated by the switch 2 in the reverse direction, the order of the DMA signals which are data signals transferred from the printer driver 4 to the recording head 5 is changed. Also, depending on the setting,
The order of the DMA signals to be automatically transferred to the recording head 5 can be changed by detecting the forward / reverse of the transport direction by the two sensors 3.

In this recording apparatus, one side of the recording paper transport section is opened as described above. Then, the recording head 12 moves on the carriage shaft 13 in the main scanning direction, and performs printing up to the right end position of the illustrated head. In other respects, the recording apparatus is the same as the conventional recording apparatus. However, in this embodiment, since one side of the recording paper transport unit is open, printing can be performed on recording paper 14 wider than the recording apparatus main body 11. .

Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the present recording apparatus is capable of recording paper in either a forward direction (FIG. 3B) or a reverse direction (FIG. 3A). Recording device body 11
When printing on the recording paper 14 having a wider width, it is possible to print on the left end side and the right end side of the recording paper 14.

If the transport direction of the recording paper 14 is reversed, the recording head 12 cannot print the contents of the print buffer in the same manner as in the normal case. The reason will be described below.

FIG. 4 is an image diagram showing expanded data (bit image data) transferred by the host driver to the recording apparatus. In this figure, each character is a group of bitmap data, and the data is associated with dot ON / OFF by 0/1 for 1 byte = 8 bits of data. The rectangular portion at the upper left in the figure is 1 byte = 8 bits of data, and the transfer order of this data is freely determined by the system.

For example, in a certain system, the data is sequentially transferred from the upper left to the lower left, and the data is transferred one step lower and again from the left to right. In another system, the data is transferred in order from the upper left to the lower left. When the data is transferred to the lower end, the data is moved right by one step and then transferred from the upper to the bottom again.
Here, a system in which data is transferred from left to right, and then moved down one step and transferred from left to right will be described.

In the present recording apparatus, the data sent in the data transfer order described above is held on a RAM called a print buffer. As shown in FIG. 5, the state of the print buffer is obtained by finely dividing the entire print data created by the host driver into strips, and one of the strips is one print buffer. That is, in this figure, there are print buffers 1 to 8 that have data to be printed, and there is no data to be printed in the print buffers 9 to 13 below. The height of this one print buffer is equal to the height at which the recording head 12 can perform printing in one scan. That is, two scans are required to print the first line (A to K) of the character strings shown in FIG. 5, and eight scans are required to print all the character strings. It is.

In this recording apparatus, it is necessary to perform data conversion called HV conversion. FIG. 6 shows the received bitmap data on the print buffer before the HV conversion, and focuses on one print buffer shown in FIG. In this system, as described above, since data is transferred from left to right, it is easy to express the address arrangement on the RAM serving as the print buffer in order from left to right. However, the recording nozzles of the actual recording head 12 are arranged in a line in the height direction of the print buffer, and only one column of data can be recorded in one printing. By performing this continuously while scanning in the main scanning direction, printing for one scan is performed. At this time, for data to be DMA-transferred to the recording head 12, for example, if the recording nozzle has 24 dots, it is necessary to transfer 24 dots = 3 bytes. Therefore, it is necessary to convert the data in the address list in FIG. 6 into a state as shown in FIG. The print data on the print buffer after the HV conversion is arranged in the order of addresses suitable for the DMA transfer to the print head 12.

When the recording paper transport direction is set to "reverse" in this recording apparatus, if the recording paper 14 is centered up and down, the result is as shown in FIG. 8A. Looking at the center, the result is as shown in FIG. And
Here, as shown in FIG. 12, the recording data must be printed in a state where the recording data is turned upside down and left and right. However, simply changing the transport direction of the recording apparatus to “reverse” does not reverse the data in the print buffer, so that such a print result cannot be obtained. That is, a print result in which the order of the print buffers in FIG.

Therefore, the present recording apparatus has a function of inverting the data after the HV conversion up and down and left and right as shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 9 are basically the same except that the top, bottom, left and right are inverted. To obtain the data of FIG. 9, the data of FIG.
Can be realized by performing DMA transfer from the lower address to the upper address and from the LSB to the MSB.

Further, the present recording apparatus has a configuration in which the user can specify the transport direction of the recording paper 14 by operating the switch 2. In response to the switch 2, the DMA transfer is performed in reverse order. Is possible. In addition, it is also possible to provide a sensor or the like on both the “forward” and “reverse” of the recording paper insertion section and automatically detect “reverse” in the recording paper transport direction.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the operation of the above embodiment. The control processing shown in this flowchart is executed by the CPU of the control unit 1 according to a program stored in advance.

When print data is input (S1) and the transport direction of the recording paper 14 is the forward direction (S2), the data is transferred as it is, and printing is performed by the recording head 12 (S1).
3). If the recording paper 14 is conveyed in the reverse direction (S2), the DMA signal is transferred in the reverse order as described above, and printing is performed (S3).

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Regardless of the size of the recording medium, printing can be performed in a width that allows the carriage operation unit to move. Also, regardless of whether the transport direction is switched to "forward" or "reverse", the print data can be recorded upside down and left and right inside the recording device, so it can be reversed upside down and left and right by the printer driver that generates the print data. Or the user does not need to invert the print data up, down, left and right.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an operation of the recording apparatus according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing expansion data of a host driver.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a bit image on a print buffer.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing received data.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing data after HV conversion.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing an actual operation of the apparatus of the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing data during printing.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional recording apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Control part 2 Switch 3 Sensor 4 Printer driver 5 Recording head 11 Recording device main body 12 Recording head 13 Carriage shaft 14 Recording paper

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A recording apparatus for performing printing output on a recording medium, wherein one side of a transport section for transporting the recording medium for printing has an opening shape, and the recording medium is transported in any of forward and reverse directions. A recording device characterized in that the recording device can be used. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the order of the data signals transferred from the printer driver to the print head is changed when the print medium is conveyed in the reverse direction. 3. The apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a switch for specifying a recording medium conveyance direction by a user.
The recording device according to any one of the preceding claims. 4. The recording apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a sensor for detecting a transport direction of the recording medium. 5. A method for controlling a recording apparatus, wherein one side of a transport unit that transports a recording medium for printing has an open shape.
A method of controlling a printing apparatus, wherein the printing medium can be conveyed in any of forward and reverse directions. 6. The printing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the order of the data signals transferred from the printer driver to the print head is changed when the transport direction of the print medium is specified to be the reverse direction. Control method. 7. The control method according to claim 6, wherein the direction of conveyance of the recording medium is detected by a sensor.