JP2004348423A - Electronic document printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic document printing system which can shorten entire printing time by early starting a printer when electronic document data formed of a format in which the structure description necessary to interpret the structure of data is described at the last of the electronic document like a PDF format is printed. <P>SOLUTION: The electronic document printing system 10 comprises a printer 30 for directly rasterizing an electronic document formed of a format in which the structural description necessary to interpret the structure is described at the last of the electronic document, and a computer 20. The computer divides electronic document data into at least three or more data blocks, sequentially transfers the data block from the last to the printer and sequentially transfers the divided data blocks from the head data block after a reception acknowledging signal showing the reception of mutual converting table from the printer. Thus, the transferring and printing processes of the electronic document data are overlapped and can be processed, and the printing time can be shortened. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed, such as an electronic document (PDF data) created in Adobe Acrobat (trade name) format manufactured by Adobe Systems (Adobe Systems). The present invention relates to an electronic document printing system that prints electronic document data created in a format described at the end of an electronic document, and in particular, transmits the electronic document data as it is to a printing device, and the printing device transmits the electronic document data. The present invention relates to an electronic document printing system capable of providing a print output of a first page and an entire print output to a user in a shorter time using a printing apparatus having a direct print function of interpreting, converting the print data, and printing the print data. It is.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in a data processing device in a network environment, many documents (documents) are digitized and stored on a memory device of a server device or another computer device, and each computer storing the electronic document represents the Internet. Adobe Acrobat (Portable Document Format) manufactured by Adobe Systems, XML (extensible Markup Language), HTML (Hyper Text Document), and HTML (Hyper Text Document). Those suitable for reference and distribution on a network have been used.
[0003]
An electronic document created in the format described above can be linked to another document specified by a URL on a computer or a network by describing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the electronic document. It is configured to allow reference. When browsing an electronic document on a computer device, an Internet connection application is activated to specify the address of the electronic document by a URL to display the corresponding electronic document, or to display an external document when the document including the external reference is displayed. When the pointer displayed as a reference is clicked, the referenced document is immediately displayed and viewed, or the corresponding document can be downloaded and stored in the computer device.
[0004]
In particular, electronic documents created in the Acrobat PDF (trade name) format, which is software developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated, can be viewed using the Acrobat Reader (PC application trade name), which is distributed free of charge by the company to view the contents. Although it is necessary, it is widely used in general, and is recently installed as a standard function in many computer devices (such as personal computers). This software can display documents in the original layout regardless of the type of computer device, and can print brochures and instruction manuals distributed via the Internet in the same format as the original printed materials on the computer device. Widely used for display and reference.
[0005]
Conventionally, when an electronic document (PDF data) created in Adobe Acrobat (Acrobat) PDF format is printed, it is downloaded from the Internet and taken into a computer device, or created by a user of the computer device. After saving the electronic document in PDF format, opening the electronic document (PDF data) using an acrobat reader and checking it on the display screen of the computer device, the PDF data is transmitted to the computer device or a print server on a network. After being reconfigured into print data using a page description language (Page Description Language) such as PDL that can be interpreted by the printing apparatus by the printer driver held by the printer driver, the printer is connected to the network. To print and send to the printing apparatus (printer) are common in the electronic document printing system configurations.
[0006]
For example, when printing a PDF-format electronic document downloaded and stored in a computer device, the procedure has a time relationship with the procedure shown in FIG. That is, the computer device opens the saved electronic document in the PDF format by the acrobat reader. At this time, the Acrobat reader interprets the PDF data, and the document is displayed on a display or the like. The time required for interpreting the PDF data is T11 in the figure. When the user designates printing, the computer device converts the PDF data into a language interpretable by the printing device, for example, PDL data (print data) described in the PDL language by the printer driver. The time required for the conversion to the PDL data is T12 in the figure.
[0007]
This PDL data is transferred to the printing device. The time required for this transfer process is T13 in the figure. Upon receiving the transferred PDL data, the printing apparatus performs a rasterization process (developing it into bitmap data) for one page for each page and prints it. The time required for the rasterization is T14 in the figure, and the rasterization process is sequentially performed for each page break of the PDL data when the document includes a plurality of pages. The time for performing the printing process based on the bitmap data created by the rasterizing process is represented by T15 in the figure.
[0008]
Printing starts when the first page of print data (PDL data) has been received and the first page has been bit-mapped, and each page has finished receiving the print data of the page and the print data of the page is converted to a bit map. It is performed where it has been transformed. For this reason, since it takes time to print out all pages, the user feels that the waiting time is long, and there has been a demand for a printing system for electronic documents that can obtain printouts in a shorter time.
[0009]
According to the configuration of such a general printing system, even if an electronic document is in a format suitable for reference and distribution on a network, it is converted into print data using a PDL language or the like when printing. Data that is larger than the original electronic document size because it is sent to the printing device, and the print data cannot be completely received by a low-end printing device with a reduced reception buffer and page buffer capacity. And printing was hindered in some cases.
[0010]
From such a background, for example, in the following Patent Document 1, the electronic device such as PDF (Portable Document Format), XML (extensible Markup Language), and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) receives the electronic document directly on the printing apparatus side. A direct printing type printing apparatus having a function of interpreting an electronic document in each format described above and converting the electronic document into print data is disclosed.
[0011]
In the case of the direct printing method disclosed in Patent Document 1, generally, PDF data is smaller than print data reconstructed using PDL or the like which is a page description language, so that low-end printing with a reduced storage capacity. The apparatus has the advantage that the entire data can be easily received, and the data transfer time from the computer apparatus to the printing apparatus is reduced.
[0012]
When printing a PDF-format electronic document stored in a computer using this printing apparatus, the procedure is time-related to the procedure shown in FIG. That is, the computer device transfers the saved PDF format electronic document to the printing device in the same format. The time required for this transfer processing is T23 in the figure. When the printing apparatus has completely received the transferred PDF data, the PDF interpreter starts interpretation of the PDF data, and performs rasterization processing (developing into bitmap data) for each page and prints. The time required for the rasterization is T24 in the figure, and the rasterization process is sequentially performed for each page configuration of the PDF data when the document includes a plurality of pages. The processing time for printing by the printing mechanism based on the bitmap data created by the rasterizing process is represented by T25 in the figure.
[0013]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-2002-358183 (FIG. 3, paragraph [0005] column)
[0014]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In the printing system for directly transferring PDF data as described above, printing starts from the point where PDF data has been completely received. Is interpreted, there is a restriction that the time T24 for actually forming a bitmap (rasterize) cannot overlap.
[0015]
By the way, this is a restriction caused by the structure of the electronic document in the PDF format, and this point will be described below. FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram showing the structure of a PDF format electronic document. As shown in FIG. 8, the PDF format is structurally classified into four types: a header part, a body part, a mutual compatibility table part, and a trailer part. The transfer of the PDF data is performed by a header part, a body part, a mutual compatibility table part, and a trailer part. It is performed in the order of the division.
[0016]
The header part is version information of the application (acrobat / PDF) used to create the PDF data, and the body part is a page object that describes the page structure of the document, or text or image drawing data (contents) that is the body of the document. ) And data objects describing resources such as fonts and the like used for drawing these data. The cross-compatibility table contains information indicating the positions of all objects in the body, that is, This is a part in which a list of information (pointers) indicating the position (location) from the head of the PDF data of the object is described. The trailer part is described in the information indicating the head position of the mutual compatibility table part and the body part. This part describes the information indicating the root address of the catalog object.
[0017]
The catalog object is information that forms the basis of the tree structure of the PDF data, and has a structure in which a description of the catalog object refers to a page object or a thumbnail object indicating a page configuration of the PDF data (document).
[0018]
When the PDF interpreter receives the trailer at the end of the PDF data (the start part of the PDF data in the true sense), the PDF interpreter stores the mutual compatibility table in the storage device based on the start position information of the mutual compatibility table, The page configuration is followed by referring to the catalog object, the page object of the first page is analyzed, and the data object described in the page object is obtained and rasterized. The PDF analysis unit refers to the mutual compatibility table stored to obtain the contents of each object. That is, the PDF format is configured to obtain the corresponding position information in the PDF data from the object described in the mutual compatibility table and its position information, and to analyze the description of the target object. That is, the electronic document in the PDF format has a structure in which a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed is described at the end of the electronic document.
[0019]
Therefore, when interpreting the PDF data, it is necessary to first refer to the trailer section existing at the end of the data to check where in the data the cross-compatible table and the catalog object exist. The arrow in FIG. 8 shows the flow of the interpretation of the PDF data. First, as shown by the arrow A, the head position information of the mutual compatibility table of the trailer unit (the pointer value following the “startxref” flag indicating where in the entire data is located) ) Is used as an index from the beginning of the entire data, an inter-compatible table is searched, and the inter-compatible table is stored in the storage unit.
[0020]
Next, referring to the catalog object as shown by the arrow B, a page object is searched. When there are a plurality of pages, the page object 1 which is the first page is found, the position of the page object 1 is obtained from the mutual compatibility table, the page object 1 is searched as shown by an arrow C, and the first page is entered from the description. The data object to be obtained, for example, the data object 1 is known, the position of the data object 1 is obtained from the mutual compatibility table, the data object 1 is searched as indicated by an arrow D, and rasterization is performed based on the contents, resources, and the like described therein. I do.
After receiving the trailer at the end in this manner, the object of the body is searched using the mutual compatibility table, so that the PDF data transfer time T23 and the PDF interpretation unit in the printing apparatus determine the PDF data. Interpretation and bitmapping (rasterization) time T24 cannot be overlapped and time is required until printing.
[0021]
As described above, when printing an electronic document created in the Acrobat PDF (product name) format including a plurality of pages, it takes time to print out the first page, and it is necessary to obtain a printout of the entire document. Since it takes time, there has been a demand for an electronic document printing system that can provide a print output to a user in a shorter time.
[0022]
The inventor of the present application has conducted various studies in order to solve the above-described problems, and as a result, in the printing system of FIG. 6 which interprets PDF data, converts the data into print data, and transfers the print data to the printing apparatus, While the time T13 for transferring the print data and the time T14 for the printing device to actually bitmap (rasterize) the print data can partially overlap, the electronic document in the PDF format shown in FIG. 7 is directly processed by the printing device. In this case, attention is paid to the fact that the time T23 for transferring the print data via a network or the like and the time T24 for the printing apparatus to actually bitmap (rasterize) the PDF cannot overlap.
[0023]
The present inventor has made various studies and found that a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed, such as an electronic document created in a PDF format, is described at the end of the electronic document. When printing, the electronic document data processing unit of the computer device divides the electronic document data constituting one electronic document into at least three or more data blocks, transfers the data blocks to the printing device in order from the last data block, and performs printing. After receiving the reception notification signal indicating the reception of the mutual compatibility table from the device, if the divided data blocks are transferred to the printing device in order from the first data block, the electronic document data interpretation unit of the printing device first Obtain the trailer section and the cross-compatibility table from the transferred data block, and then the body section of the transferred data block It is possible to start printing when one page of data objects are collected by searching for page objects and data objects from the printer, and perform a printing operation (interpretation of electronic document data, page rasterizing operation) and divided data. The inventors have found that the block transfer operation can be overlapped, and have completed the present invention.
[0024]
That is, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described disadvantage, and to print electronic document data created in a format in which a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed is described at the end of the electronic document. In the electronic document printing system, a printing device having a direct printing function of transmitting electronic document data as it is to a printing device, interpreting the electronic document data on the printing device side, converting the data into print data, and printing the data, is used. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic document printing system that can shorten the entire printing time by shortening the printing start time.
[0025]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The above object of the present invention can be achieved by the following configurations. That is, the electronic document printing system according to the present invention includes a computer device and a printing device connected to the computer device directly or via a network, and the computer device interprets the structure of data to be printed. In an electronic document printing system that transmits electronic document data created in a format in which the structural description required for the electronic document is described at the end of the electronic document to the printing device as it is, and prints it with the printing device,
The printing device includes an electronic document data interpretation unit that interprets and rasterizes the electronic document data, the computer device includes an electronic document data processing unit,
The electronic document data processing unit divides the data to be printed into at least three or more data blocks, transfers the data blocks to the printing device in order from the last data block, and receives a reception notification signal indicating reception of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device. , The divided data blocks are transferred to the printing apparatus in order from the first data block.
[0026]
With such a configuration, the printing apparatus receives the data blocks in order from the last data block, and when receiving the trailer section and the cross-compatible table section, notifies the computer apparatus of the reception. Is for transferring the divided data blocks to the printing device in order from the first data block. Therefore, the printing device receives the data blocks transferred from the computer device in order from the last data block, and receives the data blocks from the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table unit. If the printer receives the data blocks transferred in order from the first data block after the confirmation, the printing apparatus can perform the receiving operation and the rasterizing operation of the received data block in an overlapped manner. An electronic sentence that can reduce the printing time of printing and the entire electronic document data It is possible to provide a printing system.
[0027]
According to another aspect of the present invention, the electronic document data processing unit adds identification information for identifying a position of the divided data block in the electronic document data to each data block. It is characterized by doing so. With this configuration, the transfer order of the divided data blocks can be easily controlled.
[0028]
According to another aspect of the present invention, the number of data blocks to be divided is variable according to the size of electronic document data. With this configuration, it is possible to further increase the probability that the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table unit are included in the last data block to be first transferred to the printing apparatus.
[0029]
According to another aspect of the present invention, the electronic document data interpreting unit obtains information of a trailer unit and a cross-compatible table unit in the electronic document data, and then receives the object data of the page to be printed. According to another aspect, the printing apparatus receives the divided data blocks in parallel with a printing operation. It is characterized by having done.
[0030]
With this configuration, the operation of receiving the data block from the beginning of the electronic document data sequentially received after receiving the last data block, and the operation of rasterizing the received data block can be overlapped. It is possible to provide an electronic document printing system that can reduce the printing time of the first page and the printing time of the entire electronic document data.
[0031]
According to still another aspect of the present invention, the page to be printed is an arbitrary page specified by a user of a computer device, or the page to be printed is a head of electronic document data. Page. With this configuration, the user can print an arbitrary page or the first page first.
[0032]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, an electronic document printing system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the attached drawings, taking an example of an electronic document (PDF data) created in a PDF format. However, the embodiment described below exemplifies an electronic document printing system for embodying the technical idea of the present invention, and is intended to limit the present invention to the electronic document printing system of a specific embodiment. However, the present invention is equally applicable to other aspects included in the claims.
[0033]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic document printing system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing apparatus, and FIG. 3 is a print processing procedure in the electronic document printing system according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the computer apparatus, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the printing apparatus.
[0034]
An electronic document printing system 10 according to the present invention includes a computer device 20 and a printing device 30 connected via an intra network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) 14 as shown in FIG. The computer device 20 can be connected to the WWW server device 40 or the like via the network 12 such as the Internet. The computer device 20 creates an electronic document according to the PDF format by itself, or the WWW server device via the Internet 12 From 40, an electronic document created in PDF format can be downloaded and saved.
[0035]
The computer device 20 includes an electronic document data processing unit. The electronic document data processing unit is specifically a PDF data processing unit 21 (hereinafter, referred to as a PDF data processing unit 21). When the computer device 20 prints an electronic document of a plurality of pages created in the PDF format, The data processor 21 simply divides the PDF data to be printed into at least three or more data blocks. The division size of the PDF data is, for example, equal in principle, and the division position of the body part is a division position of an object described in the body part. Further, identification information for identifying the order of the original PDF data is added to the divided data block.
[0036]
Then, the PDF data processing unit 21 first transfers the divided data blocks to the printing device 30 in order from the last data block, and receives a reception notification indicating reception of the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table unit from the printing device 30. Until there is, data blocks divided in this order, that is, sequentially from the rear of the original PDF data, are transferred. Thus, the printing apparatus 30 can obtain information on the trailer section and the mutual compatibility table section which usually exist at the end of the PDF data before the header section and the body section.
[0037]
When receiving a reception notification indicating the reception of the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table unit from the printing device 30, the computer device 20 reverses the transfer order of the data blocks, and then, among the divided data blocks, the original PDF data of the original PDF data. The data blocks are transferred to the printing device 30 in order from the data block corresponding to the head. Therefore, the printing apparatus 30 obtains the trailer section and the mutual compatibility table section in the data blocks received in order from the end, and then interprets the PDF data at the time when the first data block transferred from the computer apparatus 20 is received. Processing can be started.
[0038]
The printing device 30 has an electronic document data interpreting unit for interpreting electronic document data having the above-described structure. The electronic document data interpreting unit is, specifically, a PDF interpreting unit 33 capable of directly rasterizing an electronic document created in Adobe Acrobat (Acrobat) PDF (trade name) format. Data blocks of the divided PDF data transferred from the device 20 are sequentially received, and the PDF data is analyzed, rasterized, and printed.
[0039]
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the printing apparatus 30. The printing device 30 includes an interface unit 31, a PDF data receiving unit 32, a PDF interpreting unit 33, a printing mechanism unit 34, a control unit 35, and a storage unit 36. The control unit 35 is composed of a normal MPU (microprocessor unit), and controls the operation of each unit. The storage unit 36 includes a RAM, a ROM, an HDD, and the like. A control program for the control unit 35 to control each unit is stored in the ROM. The RAM is used as a temporary storage unit for control, and the HDD is used for storing data.
[0040]
A data block (divided PDF data) transmitted from the computer device 20 is received by the PDF data receiving unit 32 from the LAN 14 via the interface unit 31. The PDF data receiving unit 32 sends the received data block to the PDF interpreting unit 33. When a data block transferred from the computer device 20 is first received, the PDF interpreter 33 checks the data block, and refers to the trailer unit to search the mutual compatibility table. When the mutual compatibility table (from the beginning to the end of the description of the mutual compatibility table) is received in the data block transferred in order from the end, the PDF interpreting unit 33 transmits a reception notification signal to the computer device 20. The computer device 20 that has received the reception notification signal reverses the transfer order of the data blocks, and transfers the data blocks to the printing device 30 in order from the first data block.
[0041]
The PDF interpreting unit 33 of the printing device 30 stores the cross-compatibility table of the received data blocks in the storage unit 36. When the first data block of the PDF data transferred from the computer device 20 is received thereafter, the PDF interpreting unit 33 stores the data in the storage unit 36. By referring to the stored mutual compatibility table, following the page object indicating the page configuration and the object configuration of each page according to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer unit, describing the page object in the storage unit 36 based on the description of the page object Page rasterization is started when the data objects for one page are obtained after the obtained data objects are obtained. The printing mechanism 34 can start printing based on the rasterized bitmap data.
[0042]
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a printing procedure and a time relationship of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention. In the aspect of the present invention, when printing PDF data, the PDF data processing unit 21 of the computer device 20 divides the PDF data into at least three or more data blocks, and sequentially prints the printing device 30 from the last data block. After receiving the reception notification signal indicating the reception of the mutual compatibility table from the printing apparatus 30, the divided data blocks are transferred to the printing apparatus in order from the first data block.
[0043]
That is, as shown in FIG. 3, when printing PDF data, if the PDF data includes a plurality of pages, the computer device 20 causes the PDF data processing unit 21 to convert the PDF data into at least three or more data blocks. Divided into To each of the divided data blocks, identification information for identifying the order of the original PDF data is added. This identification information may be a sequential number such as 1 / n to n / n, where n is the number of divisions.
[0044]
In addition, it is preferable that the size of the data block to be divided be, for example, equal in principle, and that the division position of the body part be a division position of an object described in the body part. The number of divisions may be a number of divisions determined in advance according to the size of the original PDF data.
[0045]
The time required for the division process in the PDF data processing unit 21 is T32 in FIG. 3. When the PDF data processing unit 21 completes the division of the PDF data, the PDF data processing unit 21 first transfers the data blocks to the printing device 30 in order from the last data block, When receiving the reception notification signal indicating the reception of the trailer unit and the cross-compatible table unit from the device 30, the transfer order of the divided data blocks is reversed, and the printing device 30 starts from the divided data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data. Transfer to That is, the printing apparatus 30 can obtain the information of the trailer section and the mutual compatibility table section which usually exist at the end of the PDF data before the header section and the body section. The time required to transfer the divided data block is T33 in FIG.
[0046]
The printing device 30 receives the divided data blocks transferred in order from the end by the computer device 20, checks the data blocks in the PDF interpreting unit 33 as described above, and refers to the trailer unit to Search compatible tables. When the cross-compatibility table is searched for in the data block for which the cross-compatibility table has been received, the PDF interpreting unit 33 stores the cross-compatibility table in the storage unit 36, and transmits a reception notification of the cross-compatibility table to the computer device 20. .
[0047]
When the computer device 20 receives the reception notification signal of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device 30, the PDF data processing unit 21 reverses the transfer order of the divided data blocks, and this time, the data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data is returned. To the printing device 30 in this order. When receiving the first data block of the PDF data transferred from the computer device 20, the printing device 30 refers to the mutual compatibility table stored in the storage unit 36, and according to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer unit. The page object indicating the page structure and the object structure of each page is traced, the data object stored in the storage unit 36 is obtained based on the description of the page object, and the page rasterization is started when the data object for one page is completed. .
[0048]
The time required for this page rasterization is T34 in FIG. 3. In this case, the transfer T33 of the divided data block and the page rasterization T34 can overlap, and FIG. 3 shows this state. When the page rasterization for one page is completed, the printing mechanism unit 34 performs printing based on the bitmap data created by the rasterization process. This print processing time is represented by T35 in the figure.
[0049]
As described above, the PDF data has a configuration as shown in FIG. 8, and is classified into four types: a header portion, a body portion, a mutual compatibility table portion, and a trailer portion. When interpreting the PDF data, first, always refer to the trailer part existing at the end of the data to check where in the data the mutual compatibility table exists. Then, from the "startxref" flag of the trailer unit, the value is used as an index (pointer) from the beginning of the entire data to find the mutual compatibility table, and the mutual compatibility table is stored in the storage device. Then, by referring to the mutual compatibility table, the page object is traced, the data object included in the page is known, and the entity of the target data is obtained and rasterized by the information described in the data object.
[0050]
FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of the computer device 20 described above. That is, the PDF data processing unit 21 divides the original PDF data according to the division number n (n is an integer of at least 3) in step S10. The size of the data blocks to be divided may be uniform. Then, the last data block divided in step S11 is transferred to the printing device 30, and the control variable I is set to n-1. Next, in step S12, the PDF data processing unit 21 checks whether there is a reception notification signal of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device 30. If there is no reception notification signal, in step S13, the PDF data processing unit 21 prints the data block specified by the control variable I (the data block immediately before the last data block because I = n-1). 30, the control variable I is decremented by 1, and the process returns to step S12.
[0051]
In step S12, if there is a reception notification signal of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device 30, the PDF data processing unit 21 sets the control variable I to 1 in step S14, and in step S15, sets the data block ( Since I = 1, the first data block of the original PDF data) is transferred to the printing apparatus 30, and 1 is added to the control variable I. Next, the PDF data processing unit 21 checks the number of data block transfers in step S16. If the number of transfers is not n, there is an untransferred data block, and the process returns to step S15. If the number of transfers is n, the transfer of all data blocks has been completed, and the transfer ends in step S17.
[0052]
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of the printing apparatus 30. When the printing device 30 starts transferring the PDF data (divided data blocks) from the computer device 20 according to the procedure of FIG. 4, the PDF interpreting unit 33 sequentially starts from the last data block from the computer device 20 in step S21. The data block to be transferred is received via the interface unit 31 and the PDF data receiving unit 32.
[0053]
Next, the PDF interpreting unit 33 examines the received data block in step S22, and determines whether the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table have been completely received. If the received data block does not include the entire mutual compatibility table, the data block next transferred from the computer device 20 is received in step S23, and the process returns to step S22. If the entire data compatibility table is included in the received data block, the PDF interpreting unit 33 stores the data compatibility table in the storage unit 36, and indicates that the computer device 20 has received the data compatibility table in step S24. Send a notification signal.
[0054]
When the printing device 30 notifies the reception of the mutual compatibility table, as described above, the computer device 20 reverses the transfer order of the data blocks and transfers the data blocks in order from the data block corresponding to the head of the original PDF data. Then, the PDF interpreting unit 33 receives the next data block in step S25, refers to the received mutual compatibility table, and performs PDF data interpretation and rasterization of the received data block in step S26, Printing is performed in step S27.
[0055]
That is, the PDF interpreting unit 33 refers to the root address of the catalog object described in the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table stored in the storage unit 36 to search for the page object and the data object of the received data block, and Obtain data objects for pages and perform page rasterization. In step S26, the data blocks sequentially received are interpreted. In step S27, printing is performed by the printing mechanism unit 34 each time bitmap data for one page is created.
[0056]
In step S28, it is determined whether the reception of the data block has been completed. This determination can be made by identification information attached to each data block or by counting the number of data blocks. For example, when the number of divisions is n, the reception of all data blocks indicates that the reception of all data blocks has been completed.
[0057]
The PDF data processing unit 21 of the computer device 20 can be configured to add a page number to start printing to the printing device 30 as additional information according to a user's designation. When receiving the information of the print start page, the PDF interpreting unit 33 of the printing apparatus 30 receives a page object indicating the page configuration of the corresponding page and a data block containing the data object described in the page object. At the time of rasterization, printing is first performed by the printing mechanism unit 34.
[0058]
In this case, the bitmap data rasterized before the designated page is temporarily stored in the storage unit 36, and is controlled so as to be printed after the designated page is printed. If there is no designation of a page to be printed first, printing may be performed in order from the first page of the PDF data. Further, it is also possible to configure so that the print page order is all specified by the user.
[0059]
【The invention's effect】
As described above in detail, according to the electronic document printing system of the present invention, the transfer time and the print time can be overlapped, and as a result, the user can obtain a printed matter obtained in a short time. . This method is particularly effective for printing an electronic document with a large number of pages created in a format such as the PDF format, and has an excellent effect as an electronic document printing system.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the configuration of an electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing apparatus in the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a time chart showing a procedure and a time relationship of a PDF data printing process of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure in a computer device of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of processing in the printing apparatus of the electronic document printing system according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a time chart showing a procedure and a time relationship of a PDF data printing process in a conventional general electronic document printing system.
FIG. 7 is a time chart showing a procedure and a time relationship of a PDF data printing process in an electronic document printing system using the printing device disclosed in Patent Document 1.
FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of an electronic document created in a PDF format and a procedure for interpreting PDF data.
[Explanation of symbols]
10 Electronic Document Printing System 12 Internet (Network)
14 LAN (intranet)
20 computer device 21 PDF data processing unit 30 printing device 33 PDF interpreting unit

Claims (7)

The electronic device includes a computer device and a printing device connected to the computer device directly or via a network. The computer device has a structure description necessary for interpreting the structure of data to be printed, written at the end of the electronic document. In an electronic document printing system that transmits electronic document data created in a format as it is to a printing device and prints it with the printing device,
The printing device includes an electronic document data interpretation unit that interprets and rasterizes the electronic document data, the computer device includes an electronic document data processing unit,
The electronic document data processing unit divides the electronic document data to be printed into at least three or more data blocks, transfers the data blocks to the printing device in order from the last data block, and indicates reception of the mutual compatibility table from the printing device. The electronic document printing system according to claim 1, wherein, after receiving the notification signal, the divided data blocks are transferred to the printing apparatus in order from the first data block. 2. The electronic document data processing unit according to claim 1, wherein identification information for identifying a position of the divided data block in the electronic document data is added to each data block. The electronic document printing system according to 1. 2. The electronic document printing system according to claim 1, wherein the number of data blocks to be divided is variable according to the size of electronic document data. The electronic document data interpreting unit receives the last data block transferred first, obtains information of the trailer unit and the mutual compatibility table unit, and then notifies the computer device of the reception of the mutual compatibility table. 4. The electronic document printing system according to claim 1, wherein the printing of the page is started when the object data of the page to be printed is received. 5. . The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the printing device receives the divided data blocks in parallel with a printing operation. The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the page to be printed is an arbitrary page specified by a user of a computer device. The electronic document printing system according to claim 4, wherein the page to be printed is a first page of electronic document data.

Images