JPH0630910B2 - Printing method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a printing method in which a printer having a plurality of character fonts can always switch printing in a desired font.

(B) Prior art Electronic printers are widely used as peripheral devices for office automation.Printing is performed based on the character code from the host computer from a type that prints by key input operation such as a word processor. Various types have been put to practical use.

There are many fonts for letters, symbols, and numbers (hereinafter referred to as “letters”) used for printing on this type of printer, and looking at only alphanumeric characters, Elite, Pica (Pic)
a), Gothic, Italic, Bold, etc., as well as national characters such as German and French vowel symbols, the number of which is significant. There are many. Therefore, recently, a printer having a plurality of fonts, that is, print fonts has been developed so that the same printer can print characters of several kinds of fonts.

When it is necessary to change the font to another one during printing on a printer equipped with such multiple fonts, it is common to select a preferred font (character style) and print with that font. In some cases, it may be desirable to select a font from the viewpoint of character pitch rather than font. For example, you may want to print on a table in a sentence in a font different from the font of characters other than the table, but due to the format of the table, the character pitch may need to be the same as the sentence other than the table. In such a case, it may be preferable to automatically determine the font style from the viewpoint of character pitch rather than the font style.

However, some character fonts have different fonts but have the same character pitches.Therefore, it is not always possible to print the desired font simply by selecting a character pitch, and the font changes with each printing. There is a problem that it ends up.

(C) Object and configuration of the invention The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and when printing with a printer having a plurality of character fonts, the desired character style is printed even if the character fonts are switched by the character pitch. In order to achieve this purpose, the character fonts in the printer are given priorities in advance, and printing is performed in accordance with the priorities.

(D) Examples The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of essential parts of a printer for printing by the printing method according to the present invention.

In the figure, 1 is an input buffer for temporarily storing coded (for example, hexadecimal) character information sent from a host device such as an external computer and a control command for printing, and 2 is an input. A page memory 3 decodes character information and control commands stored in the buffer 1 by a central processing unit (not shown) and stores them as character data and control data. Reference numeral 3 is a character data stored in the page memory 2 which will be described later. The data converter 4 converts the start data of the character memory into the start address data of the character memory so that the character generator 6 can easily read out the dot data of the corresponding character. The start address data converted and output by the data converter 3 is a column. The character line buffer stored for each character is a lateral dot number of the character, which is one of the tropism information of each character that can be generated by the character generator 6. For example, of Arufuabetsuto "A"
The horizontal dot table has a ROM structure in which the number of horizontal dots of 28 is stored.

By the way, as shown in FIG. 2, the character generator 6 is provided with memories M _{1 to} M ₅ having a ROM configuration for storing a plurality (five types in this example) of character fonts A _{1 to} A ₅ , Each memory stores a character style at address 0, character pitch data at address 1, and character dot data at addresses thereafter. As an example of the letter font, for example, A ₁ is baika (10 pitch), A ₂ is courier (10 pitch), A ₃ is elite (12 pitch), A ₄ is gossyk (12 pitch), A ₅ is italic (proposio). The data of the character pitch is a value that is written in katsu as the number of characters per inch after each character style. Now, it is assumed that these five types of character fonts are prioritized in this order.

Referring again to FIG. 1, 7 is a character generator state table of RAM structure for storing character style and character pitch data which is attribute information of a plurality of character fonts A _{1 to} A ₆ stored in the character generator 6. Then, when the power of the printer is turned on, the attribute data is transferred from the character generator 6 and stored in the addresses 5000 to 5009 as shown in FIG. 8
Is an attribute line buffer for storing character style and character pitch data for one character font selected by the method described later and horizontal dot number data stored in the horizontal dot table 5 for each character of one line. The attribute line buffer 8 stores a variable space command and a space width (number of horizontal dots) included in the control data stored in the page memory 2 when the width of the character to be printed is desired to be wider or narrower than the standard width. It In addition, underline, character inversion (black and white), and data for instructing character size are also written.

Reference numeral 9 is a parallel-to-serial conversion circuit for converting the parallel character dot data read from the character generator 6 into a serial-format print signal, and 10 is an H counter for counting the dot clock CLK which also serves as a trigger clock of the parallel-to-parallel conversion circuit 9. 1
Reference numeral 1 is a comparison circuit for comparing the count value of the H counter 10 with the count value of the dot counter 12 for counting the horizontal dot counts of the characters read from the attribute line buffer 8 when they match (this is the horizontal dot for one character). The character end signal CE is output (meaning that the number has been read). Reference numeral 13 is a line buffer counter for counting the character end signal CE from the comparison circuit 11, and 14 is a printing section for printing with a video signal.

Next, the operation of the printer will be described.

When the power of the printer is turned on before the printing operation, the data of character styles and character pitches of a plurality of character fonts A _{1 to} A ₅ stored in the memories M _{1 to} M ₅ of the character generator 6 are displayed in the character generator state. It is transferred to the table 7 and stored as shown in FIG.

In this state, the encoded character information and the control command for printing are transmitted from the host device, and the printing operation is started. The control commands include a character pitch selection command and a character style selection command, and these commands are temporarily stored in the input buffer 1 together with the character information and other commands and then decoded and stored in the page memory 2. For example, assuming that the character pitch designated by the character pitch selection command is 12 pitches, the CPU (not shown) outputs data between the character pitch data of the character fonts A _{1 to} A ₆ stored in the character generator status table 7. Compare with. Assuming that the character fonts A _{1 to} A ₆ are selected as described above, the character font A ₃ (elite, 12 pitch) is selected because of the priority order. A flow chart of such a character font selection operation is shown in FIG. That is, in FIG. 4, when data for printing is received from the host device or the like (F-
1) It is determined whether the control command in the data includes a character font selection command (F-2). As a result, if the character font selection command is not included, the process proceeds to another selection (F-3), and if it is included, then it is determined whether or not there is a character style selection command (F-4). If a character style selection command is included here, the process proceeds to the character style selection routine (F-5), but in this case, it is not related to the present invention and will not be described further. If the character style selection command is not included as a result of the determination in step (F-4), then it is determined whether or not there is a character pitch selection command (F-6). If there is no character pitch selection command, live in another process (F-
7) If there is, then the designated character pitch is compared with the character pitch data stored in the character generator state table 7. If any of the character fonts matches as a result of the comparison (F-8), the matched character font is selected (F-9). If none of the character fonts match, the character pitch specified in the character generator 6 is changed. No processing is performed because there is no character font (F-10).

In the character font selecting operation, when there are two or more character fonts having the same character pitch, the character fonts are selected in a predetermined priority when the character fonts are set in the character generator 6. This priority order can be determined, for example, by the arrangement position when the IC storing character font data (character dot data, character pitch data, character style data, etc.) is mounted in the character generator 6.

Of course, the character font can be selected by a character style selection command. In this case, there is no problem because two or more character fonts cannot exist in the same character style. The character font data selected in this way is stored in the attribute line buffer 8 as attribute data.

The character data stored in the page memory 2 is converted by the data converter 3 into the start address data of the character corresponding to the character font already selected and stored in the character line buffer 4 for each digit (column). On the other hand, in the attribute line buffer 8, the horizontal dot number of the character, which is one of the attribute data of each character of the selected character font stored in the character line buffer 4, is read from the horizontal dot table 5 and written.

After the character data and the attribute data for one digit are written in the character buffer line 4 and the attribute buffer line 8 in this manner, both line buffers 4, 8 are sent by the signal VD from the printing unit 14 which indicates the vertical (sub-scanning) direction image effective area. The character data of the first digit from which the character data is read is the start address of the corresponding character generated from the character generator 6, whereby the character generator 6 causes the dot of the corresponding character of the selected character font. The data is output and sent to the parallel-serial conversion circuit 9. On the other hand, the horizontal dot number of the character corresponding to the digit (column) of the character line buffer 4 is read from the attribute line buffer 8 and counted by the dot counter 12.

The character dot data in the parallel-to-parallel conversion circuit 9 is read in synchronization with the dot clock CLK for printing in the printing section 14 and sent to the printing section 14 as a video signal. The dot clock CLK serves as a trigger clock for the parallel-to-serial conversion circuit 9 and is also input to the H counter 10 and counted.

The count value of the H counter 10 is compared with the count value of the dot counter 12 by the comparison circuit 11, and when they match, a character end signal CE is output from the comparison circuit 11 and sent to the line buffer counter 13. When the character end signal CE is input and the count value increases by 1, the line buffer counter 13 advances the addresses of the characters and the attribute line buffers 4 and 8 by one digit, and the start address data of the memory of the second digit is read. To do so.

In this way, it is possible to print with the desired character pitch and character style based on the character information and control commands transmitted from the host device.

In the above embodiment, the point of selecting the character font from the character style is not mentioned, but it goes without saying that the printer may be provided with such a function. Further, it is preferable that the priority order for selecting the character font from the character pitch can be arbitrarily changed.

(E) Effect of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, when a character pitch is designated and printed by a printer having a plurality of character fonts of different character styles with the same character pitch, the character font is prioritized in advance. Since the printing is performed in order of priority and printing is performed according to the priority, the desired print of the desired font can always be obtained with the specified character pitch.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an essential part of a printer for carrying out a printing method according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a storage state of character fonts in a character generator of the printer used in the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the data storage state of the character generator state table of the printer used in the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a flow chart of the character font selection operation in the printing method according to the present invention. 1 ... Input buffer, 2 ... Page memory 3 ... Data converter, 4 ... Character line buffer 5 ... Horizontal dot table, 6 ... Character generator 7 ... Character generator conversion table 8 ... Attribute line buffer 14 ...... Printing section

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printing method for a printer having a plurality of character fonts of the same character pitch and different character styles, wherein a plurality of character fonts of different character styles are provided for different character pitches, and the character fonts are selected. A printing method characterized by selecting a character font with a higher priority among character fonts with a specified character pitch and printing when there is a print command that prioritizes and only specifies the character pitch.