JP2008046792A - Information processor, printing device, print processing system, print processing method, program and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a correspondence of a page number of a print result with a print source file and a page number thereof in addition to the print result in an easy-to-recognize manner in print processing for fetching document data of designated pages for document files formed by various applications and integrally printing it as one print job. <P>SOLUTION: An editing support application 11 is activated on a PC, whereby the information processor 10 attains each function of a UI control part 12 for allowing selection of print source files or page designation through a UI screen; a print job generation part 13 for assigning and integrating document data of designated pages in a designated order by performing the selection of document files as print sources and page designation by a user through the UI screen to generate one print job, and an index generation part 14 for generating an index showing a correspondence between the page number of each print source file and the page number of a print destination. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an integrated printing technique for fetching document data of a page specified by a user from document files created by various application software, and performing integrated printing as a single print job. The present invention relates to an integrated printing technique capable of easily grasping the correspondence between a previous page number, a document file name of a printing source, and a specified page number.

As a technique for fetching document data of a specified page from a document file created by various application software and performing integrated printing as a single print job, for example, as in Patent Document 1, the same unification is performed based on interrupt page information. There is a document in which a new document is generated from a print job having a job ID so that a plurality of print jobs can be printed with an arbitrary document configuration.
JP 2004-151889 A

  However, the conventional integrated printing technique has a problem that the correspondence between the printing result and the printing source document is complicated and difficult to understand. For example, when it is desired to correct the printing source document by looking at the print result, it may be impossible to immediately know what page of which document should be corrected.

  The present invention has been made to solve such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to make it possible to easily grasp the correspondence between a print result page number, a print source document, and the page number together with the print result. To do.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention comprises the following technical means.
The first technical means is provided with a printer driver, displays a UI screen, and specifies pages from the UI screen for document data in respective document files created by different application programs. An information processing apparatus that executes editing support application software that captures document data from a specified page of a document file, sequentially assigns the document data to a printing destination page in a specified order, and generates one print job. A print job generation function that integrates each document data as one print job, and a page number of a print destination and a document file name of a print source based on information related to page designation input from the UI screen And an index generation function for generating index data for printing an index page that lists correspondences with specified page numbers, and when the user designates a page and issues a print instruction, the generated print The job and index data are sent to the printer driver.

  According to a second technical means, in the first technical means, the editing support application uses the index data as the print job so that an index page printed by the generated index data is not included in the number of pages in the print job. It has the function added to.

  According to a third technical means, in the first or second technical means, the editing support application has an editing function for enabling editing of the arrangement order of the designated pages.

  A fourth technical means is the same as the third technical means, characterized in that the editing support application has a function of enabling designation to print one page a plurality of times.

  According to a fifth technical means, in any one of the first to fourth technical means, the editing support application has a function of setting N-Up printing for assigning a plurality of printing source logical pages to one physical page of a printing destination. It is characterized by that.

  According to a sixth technical means, in the fifth technical means, the printer driver, when a page in which N-Up printing is set is included in the sent print job, performs page composition processing based on the setting. It has the function to perform.

  A seventh technical means is any one of the first to sixth technical means, wherein the editing support application has a tab print function.

  According to an eighth technical means, in the seventh technical means, the editing support application has a function of preventing the tab page from being included in the print destination page when the tab page is inserted by the tab print function. Features.

  According to a ninth technical means, in any one of the first to eighth technical means, the editing support application has a function of setting a page number to be printed in a print result for the print job. To do.

  A tenth technical means according to any one of the first to ninth technical means, wherein the editing support application, for the print job, includes a file name of the printing source document together with a page number in the printing result and the printing source document. An information processing apparatus having a function of setting a page number to be printed.

  An eleventh technical means is any one of the first to tenth technical means, wherein the editing support application has a function of setting a plurality of copies.

  A twelfth technical means is characterized in that, in the eleventh technical means, the editing support application has a function of printing an index page only on the first copy when a plurality of copies are set. To do.

  According to a thirteenth technical means, in the eleventh technical means, the editing support application prints the same first index page even after the second copy of the index page when a plurality of copies are set. It has the function to make.

A fourteenth technical means is a printing apparatus that is connected to an information processing apparatus and prints print data sent from the information processing apparatus.
The print data generated based on one print job in which the document data in each document file created by different application programs are integrated, the page number of the printing destination, the document file name of the printing source, the specified page number, In this case, an index generation function for printing an index page based on the print information when the print information including the correspondence relationship is added and sent is provided.

  A fifteenth technical means is a print processing system in which an information processing apparatus and a printing apparatus are connected via a network, and a print job created by the information processing apparatus is printed by the printing apparatus. -The page data specified by the user is integrated as a single print job for each document file created by the program, and the print destination page together with print data in a format suitable for the printer based on the integrated print job. The printing apparatus has a function of adding print information including the correspondence relationship between the number, the document file name of the printing source, and the specified page number, and the printing apparatus transmits print data to which the print information is added from the information processing apparatus. In order to print the index page based on the print information Characterized in that it has a index generation function.

  A sixteenth technical means is a print processing method in which document data of specified pages of respective document files created by different application programs are integrated and printed as one print job, and created by different application programs. For each of the document files, a step of capturing user-specified page data, a step of integrating each of the acquired document data as one print job, and a page input information input by the user, Generating index data for printing an index page that lists the correspondence between the page number of the print destination, the document file name of the print source, and the specified page number; When the page designation is completed and a print instruction is issued, a step of sending the generated print job and index data to a printer driver, and print data in a format suitable for the printer is generated based on the print job and index data. And a step of transmitting the print data to a printing unit.

  The seventeenth technical means is a program that causes the control unit in the information processing apparatus to execute the print processing method as the sixteenth technical means.

  The eighteenth technical means is a computer-readable recording medium on which a program according to the seventeenth technical means is recorded.

According to the present invention, when document data in respective document files created by different application programs are integrated and printed, the correspondence relationship between the printing source document file and its designated page and the printing destination page is shown. Since the index page is printed, the correspondence relationship can be easily known, and it is extremely effective when the data of the printing source needs to be corrected.
Further, according to the present invention, it is possible to print one page a plurality of times when changing the order of page arrangement.

Further, according to the present invention, a plurality of logical pages can be printed on one physical page such as N-Up printing or bookbinding printing.
Further, according to the present invention, the page number can be printed on the print result.
Further, according to the present invention, the file name of the printing source document and the page number in the printing source document can be printed together with the page number in the printing result.
In addition, according to the present invention, when a plurality of copies are set, the index page is printed only on the first copy, and the same first index page is printed on the second and subsequent copies. Can also be printed.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating functional blocks of the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The information processing apparatus 10 includes a CPU that executes various programs and controls the entire apparatus, a personal computer including a ROM, a RAM, an HDD, an input / output interface, a network interface, and the like, and an editing support application according to the present invention. 11 and a normal printer driver 15 are installed.

The functions of the UI control unit 12, the print job generation unit 13, and the index generation unit 14 of the editing support application 11 are realized when the information processing apparatus 10 is activated and the editing support application 11 is started up, and are executed by the CPU. The
That is, the UI control unit 12 performs input control from the input interface and output control to the display unit, and the print job generation unit 13 selects a document file created by a different application program from the UI screen. By designating each page, image data is fetched from the designated page of the corresponding document file, and sequentially assigned to the print destination pages in the designated order and integrated to generate one print job, and the index generation unit 14 Performs processing for generating an index representing the correspondence between the page number of each print source document and the page number of the print destination.
Note that the editing support application 11 also has a function of setting special printing such as N-Up printing, double-sided printing, and tab sheet printing, as will be described later. Tab paper is a tab with tabs attached to it, and tab paper printing means printing on tab paper other than tabs or tabs. For example, when printing a print job consisting of multiple pages, Tab sheets are inserted to divide each page into chapters, and “Chapter 1”, “Chapter 2”, etc. are printed on the tabs of the tab sheets.

  The printer driver 15 includes a print data generation unit 16 that generates print data in a format suitable for a connected printer based on a print job generated by an application, and print data that performs control to transmit the generated print data to the printer. Each of the functions of the transmission control unit 17 and the printer interface unit 18 for enabling the print data from the print data transmission control unit 17 to be transmitted to the printing unit 20 through the network interface is provided.

  FIG. 2 conceptually shows the flow of data in the information processing apparatus of the present embodiment. A print job generated by integrating four documents by the editing support application 11 includes the printer driver 15 together with index page data. The printer driver 15 generates print data as a composite document based on the data and transmits the print data to the printing unit 20.

When the editing support application 11 is activated in the information processing apparatus 10, a UI screen for selecting a printing source document and specifying a page as shown in FIG. 3 is displayed.
On the UI screen, the user first inputs, for example, a file name in the input field for inputting the “document file” a of the printing source, and then selects the editing target of the document file in the input field for inputting “page” b. The number of the page to be input is input from the numeric keypad, for example. When inputting a plurality of pages, for example, they are input separated by commas. It is also possible to specify a page for printing one page of the printing source document twice or more at the printing destination.

  When the file name and the number of the corresponding page are entered in the input fields of “document file” a and “page” b and the “registration button” c is clicked, the entered “file name” and “page” are changed to “list screen”. It is sequentially displayed on the previous page of d. The “destination page” in the “list screen” d is a page number in a state in which a plurality of documents are combined and printed, and the “original page” is the “page” input as the document of the print source. "B. The “list screen” d also displays the setting status of “double-sided printing” and “N-Up”.

  Special printing settings such as N-Up printing, double-sided printing, and tab sheet printing in the editing support application 11 can be performed using, for example, a function key of the keyboard, but special printing settings are designated on the UI screen. A check box may be displayed. As for the N-Up setting, when a plurality of printing source pages are input for one printing destination page, the N-Up for the number of input pages may be automatically set.

  In this embodiment, it is assumed that the document data to be edited is at hand as printed paper. However, a list of document files that can be handled by the editing support application software is displayed, and a desired document is displayed from the list. By specifying the file and displaying the contents and specifying the corresponding page, the printing source document file and the page may be input.

When the user completes the page specification and further performs the print instruction after setting the number of prints and finishing settings, the print job generation unit 13 integrates the data of the specified pages in the specified order, and prints one print. Create a job.
The index generation unit 14 generates an index that lists the correspondence between the file name and page number of the printing source document and the page number in the document data to be integrated, according to the designated order and page.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of an index page printed by the printing unit based on the index page data generated by the index generating unit 14, and the 10 to 12 pages of the print result are set to 4-Up. Page 1 and page 17, page 3 and page 15, page 4 and page 16 indicate that one page is designated to be printed twice.

Note that the editing support application 11 can be set to a mode in which the page number of the printing source document and the file name of the printing source document are added to each printing destination page, or the page number in the printing result is added together at the user's selection. It also has a function that can be done.
The editing support application 11 has a function of adding index data to the print job so that an index page printed by the generated index data is not included in the number of pages in the print job.
The editing support application 11 also has an editing function that enables editing of the order of specified pages.

Further, the editing support application 11 has a tab print function, and has a function of setting a tab page not to be included in the print destination page when a tab page is inserted.
The editing support application 11 has a function of setting a plurality of copies printing, and when a plurality of copies are set, the index page can be set to be printed only on the first copy. is there.

  When the index generation unit 14 finishes generating the index, the print job generated by the print job generation unit 13 and the index page data generated by the index generation unit 14 are sent to the printer driver 15, and the print data generation unit 16 Print data in a format suitable for the connected printer is generated on the basis of the data. If N-Up printing or the like is set, page composition processing is executed here.

  If the number of copies is set, the printer driver 15 develops the print data by the number of copies. The user can select whether to add the index data only to the first page of the first copy or to the top of all the copies on the UI screen of the application, and the printer driver can select according to the setting. To determine how to attach index data. Also, the printer driver 15 performs page composition for N-Up printing.

  The print data generated by the print data generation unit 16 is transmitted from the print data transmission control unit 17 to the printing unit 20 through the printer interface unit 18. In practice, the print data generated by the printer driver is spooled to the HDD or the like, and the spooled print data is sequentially transmitted to the printing unit.

  When the print unit 20 receives the print data to which the index page data is added as a front page, the index page is first printed prior to printing the print data. Normally, the index page is set not to be included in the page number of the document, but can be included in the page number by user setting.

FIG. 5 shows a printing apparatus as a second embodiment of the present invention in which an index page is generated on the printing apparatus side, and shows only functional blocks in an information processing system including the information processing apparatus. ing. In this case, the functions realized by the editing support application of the information processing apparatus 30 are the UI control unit 32 and the print job generation unit 33, and the functions corresponding to the index generation unit in the first embodiment are not included. However, the document file name of the printing source and the page number information thereof have a function of sending print information including the page number of the printing destination together with the print job.
Since the printer driver 34 is a normal printer driver like the printer driver 15 described above, description of the print data generation unit 35, the print data transmission control unit 36, and the printer interface unit 37 is omitted.

When the print data to which the above-mentioned print information sent from the information processing apparatus 30 is added is sent to the printing apparatus 40, first, the index generation unit 41 generates index data to perform index page printing processing. After that, the print unit 42 executes print data print processing.
In the case of this embodiment, the index generation function for printing the index page on the printing apparatus is realized by storing it in the storage unit as firmware, for example.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing processing of the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. When the above-described print editing / print editing application is started on the information processing apparatus, the UI screen is displayed (step S1), and the page number N of the printing destination is set to “1” (step S2). The user selects a document file to be printed on the UI screen (step S3), and designates a page on which document data to be captured is written (step S4). If special printing such as N-Up printing or double-sided printing for designating a plurality of pages is performed, the setting is performed in step S5. In the case of normal printing, the process proceeds to the next step, and registration is performed for assigning the print setting information such as the file name of the document selected in step S3, the page number specified in step S4, and special printing to the printing destination N page. Next, the document file name of the printing source registered by the current designation, the designated page, and print setting information are added to the Nth page number list display column displayed on the UI screen (step S7). Step S8).

  When further page designation is to be continued with the same document file (step S9 / Y), 1 is added to N (step S10), and steps S4 to S9 are repeated. When the page designation in the document file is completed and another document file is selected (step S11), 1 is added to N (step S12), and steps S3 to S11 are repeated.

When the designation is completed (step S13) and a printing instruction is issued (step S14), the above-described index page is generated (step S15), and then the data of the designated page is fetched from each document file. Are integrated (step S16), the print setting information including the index information is added to the print job and sent to the printer driver (step S17).
When the above-described print job and print information are sent to the printer driver 15, print data suitable for the processing format of the connected printer is generated, the generated print data is spooled (step S18), and the spooled print data is sequentially stored. When the print data is transmitted to the printer (step S19) and there is no print data to be transmitted (step S20), the process is terminated.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating processing of a printing system using the printing apparatus according to the second embodiment. Steps S21 to S34 are the same as steps S1 to S14 in the case of FIG.
When the page designation is completed and printing is instructed, the data of the designated page is fetched from each document file and integrated as one print job (step S35), and the print source document file name and the print job are added to the print job. The page number information is added with print information including the page number of the print destination and sent to the printer driver 15 (step S36).
When the above-described print job and print information are sent to the printer driver 15, print data suitable for the processing format of the connected printer is generated, the generated print data is spooled (step S37), and the spooled print data is sequentially transferred. The data is transmitted to the printer (step S38).

  When print data to which the above-described print information is added is sent to the printer, first, the index generation unit 41 generates index data based on the print information (step S39), and executes index page print processing. (Step S41). Next, the print data of the integrated document is printed (step S41). When there is no print data (step S42), the process ends. This embodiment also supports N-Up printing, double-sided printing, tab printing, and the like, as in the case of the first embodiment. In addition, as described above, the information processing apparatus connected to the printing apparatus can also send print information including the print source document file name and its page number information together with the print destination page number together with the print job. Is required.

As described above, according to the present invention, in integrated printing, it is possible to easily grasp the correspondence between the print result, the page number of the print result, the print source document, and the page number.
In the present invention, the index generation function can be provided on the information processing apparatus side as in the first embodiment, or can be realized on the printing apparatus side as in the second embodiment. .
In the case of the first embodiment, it is only necessary to install the editing support application software in the personal computer, and there is an advantage that no special function is required for the printer driver or the printer.

It is a figure which shows the functional block of the information processing apparatus in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a conceptual diagram which shows the flow of the data in the information processing apparatus of 1st Embodiment. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a UI screen for selecting a print source document and specifying a page. It is a figure which shows an example of an index page. It is the functional block diagram which showed the printing apparatus in the 2nd Embodiment of this invention in the information processing system. It is a flowchart which shows the process of the information processing apparatus in the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is the flowchart which showed the processing flow of the printing apparatus in the 2nd Embodiment of this invention including the processing flow of information processing apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Information processing apparatus, 11 ... Editing support application, 12 ... UI control part, 13 ... Print job production | generation part, 14 ... Index production | generation part, 15, 34 ... Printer driver, 16, 35 ... Print data production | generation part, 17, 36 ... print data transmission control unit, 18, 37 ... printer interface unit, 20 ... printing unit, 40 ... printing device, 41 ... index generation unit, 42 ... printing unit.

Claims (18)

A printer driver is provided, a UI screen is displayed, and a document is designated from the designated page of the corresponding document file by designating each page from the UI screen for document data in each document file created by a different application program. An information processing apparatus that executes editing support application software that takes in data and sequentially assigns the data to a printing destination page in a specified order to generate one print job,
The editing support application includes a print job generation function that integrates each document data as one print job, a page number of a print destination, a document file name of a print source, and information on page designation input from the UI screen. It has an index generation function that generates index data for printing index pages that list the correspondences with specified page numbers.
An information processing apparatus that sends the generated print job and index data to the printer driver when a user designates a page and issues a print instruction.   The editing support application has a function of adding the index data to the print job so that an index page printed by the generated index data is not included in the number of pages in the print job. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing support application has an editing function that enables the arrangement order of the designated pages to be edited.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the editing support application includes a function that enables a single page to be printed a plurality of times.   5. The information processing according to claim 1, wherein the editing support application has a function of setting N-Up printing that assigns a plurality of logical pages of a printing source to one physical page of a printing destination. apparatus.   6. The printer driver according to claim 5, wherein when the sent print job includes a page for which N-Up printing is set, the printer driver performs a page composition process based on the setting. The information processing apparatus described in 1.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing support application has a tab print function.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the editing support application has a function of preventing a tab page from being included in a printing destination page when a tab page is inserted by the tab printing function.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing support application has a function of setting a page number to be printed in a print result for the print job.   The editing support application has a function of setting a file name of a printing source document and a page number in the printing source document to be printed together with a page number in a printing result for the print job. Item 10. The information processing device according to any one of Items 1 to 9.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing support application has a function of setting a plurality of copies.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the editing support application has a function of printing the index page only on the first copy when printing a plurality of copies is set.   The editing support application has a function of printing the same index page of the first copy even after the second copy of the index page when printing a plurality of copies is set. 11. The information processing apparatus according to 11. In a printing apparatus that is connected to an information processing apparatus and prints print data sent from the information processing apparatus,
The print data generated based on one print job in which the document data in each document file created by different application programs are integrated, the page number of the printing destination, the document file name of the printing source, the specified page number, A printing apparatus comprising an index generation function for printing an index page based on print information when print information including the corresponding relationship is added and sent. A print processing system in which an information processing apparatus and a printing apparatus are connected via a network, and a print job created by the information processing apparatus is printed by the printing apparatus,
The information processing apparatus integrates page data designated by the user as a single print job for each document file created by a different application program, and adapts to the printer based on the integrated print job. Along with the print data in the format, it has a function of adding and transmitting print information including the correspondence between the page number of the print destination, the document file name of the print source, and the specified page number,
The printing apparatus has an index generation function for printing an index page based on the print information when print data to which the print information is added is sent from the information processing apparatus. Print processing system. In a print processing method for printing by integrating document data of specified pages of respective document files created by different application programs as one print job,
Capturing user-specified page data for each document file created by a different application program;
Integrating each captured document data as one print job;
A step of generating index data for printing an index page that lists correspondence relationships between a page number of a printing destination, a document file name of a printing source, and a designated page number based on information on page designation input by a user. When,
A step of sending the generated print job and index data to a printer driver upon completion of page designation by the user and a print instruction;
Generating print data in a format suitable for a printer based on the print job and index data;
Transmitting the print data to a printing unit;
A print processing method characterized by comprising:   A program causing a control unit in an information processing apparatus to execute the print processing method according to claim 16. The computer-readable recording medium which recorded the program of Claim 17.

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