JPH10157219A - Apparatus for controlling printing density of printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain the same printed results with the use of a printer having a different printing density from that of input printing data to a printing control device of a printer as when a printer of the same printing density as that of the input printing data to the printing control device of the printer is used. SOLUTION: In order to print out input printing data having a printing density of (n) dots/inch by a printer of (m) times the printing density, one line of the printing data developed to a printing data-developing memory 152 in a memory part 15 of a printing density-controlling apparatus 1 is arranged into (m) lines of a printer transfer memory 153. When the printing data are to be output to a printer 2, the data on the printer transfer memory 153 are read out with a clock of the input printing data and output with (m) times the clock.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing density control apparatus for a printer which converts input print data having a printing density different from the printing density of a printer in a computer network or the like so that printing can be performed by the printer. It is about.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional printer control device inputs print data having a print density of n dots / inch, including character data, graphic data, and image data, and develops the data into dot-like drawing data. It was configured to output.

[0003]

Therefore, according to such a configuration, only input print data having the same print density as the print density held by the printer can be controlled, and print data having a certain print density cannot be controlled. It was impossible to print on different printers.

However, if there is print data having different print densities in a computer network or the like, it is necessary to prepare a printer for each print density.
A conventional printer control device cannot meet such a demand.

The present invention has been made to solve such a conventional problem. In order to enable input print data to be printed out by printers having different print densities, the print density of the printer is newly increased. It is an object to provide a control device.

[0006]

The present invention provides character data,
A print density control device of a printer which inputs print data having a print density of n dots / inch, including graphic data and image data, develops the data into dot-shaped drawing data, and outputs the data to a printer. A drawing data development memory for developing and storing dot-shaped character drawing data, graphic drawing data, and image drawing data; and a printing data development memory for developing and storing these drawing data by superimposing them as print data. A printer transfer memory for temporarily storing print data to be output to the printer, and a storage control unit for controlling these memories. The print data for each line developed in the print data Means for writing line by line to the printer transfer memory; and print data stored in the printer transfer memory. Means for reading data at a predetermined timing, and the print data to which the reading means has read, and having a storage control means for outputting to the printer m times the timing of the read timing.

According to the present invention, input print data can be printed out by a printer having a print density of m times.

[0008]

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a print density control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and the relationship between a network for inputting print data and a printer for outputting print data with converted print density. FIG.
In the figure, a print density control device 1 is connected to a network, receives print data having a print density of n dots / inch (hereinafter referred to as dpi), and outputs output print data to an nxmpi printer 2. Output.

In FIG. 1, a print density control device 1 interfaces with a network, controls communication with the network, and activates a main control unit 12 by receiving print data. A main control section 12 for controlling the entire control apparatus 1; a control program storage section 13 for storing a control program for the entire print density control apparatus 1; and character data for developing input character data into dot-like drawing data. A storage unit 15 having a function of storing the stored character data storage unit 14, drawing data, print data, and the like, and including a drawing data development memory 151, a print data development memory 152, and a printer transfer memory 153; Storage control section 16 for controlling section 15, printer status monitoring section 1 for monitoring printer status
7, a peripheral input / output control unit 18 for controlling input / output of peripheral devices such as the communication control unit 11 and the printer status monitoring unit 17.

In the control operation according to the present invention, n = 240, m
= 2, that is, a case where 240 dpi input print data is printed out by a laser beam printer having a print density of 480 dpi will be described.

In FIG. 1, 240d from the network
The communication control unit 11 that has received the pi print data causes the main control unit 12 to generate an interrupt through the peripheral input / output control unit 18. At this time, the main control unit 12 temporarily stores the input print data in the storage unit 15 through the storage control unit 16 according to the control program stored in the control program storage unit 13. At this stage, if there is character data in the print data, it is developed into dot-like character drawing data by the dot pattern of the character stored in the character data storage unit 14 and temporarily stored in the storage unit 15. If there is graphic drawing data and image drawing data, the main control unit 12 performs a drawing process and develops it in the storage unit 15 as dot-like drawing data.

As described above, the print data is sequentially stored in the storage unit 15.
When the main control unit 12 recognizes that all the data of the paper range to be accumulated and printed is accumulated, the main control unit 12
Causes the printer status monitoring unit 17 monitoring the status of the laser beam printer 2 to report the status of the printer 2 through the peripheral input / output control unit 18. If printing is possible, the main control unit 12 sets the transfer start position and the number of transfers in the storage control unit 16 and starts data transfer. As a result, the storage control unit 16 sends the information from the storage unit 15 to the laser beam printer 2.
Send print data to

When printing input print data having the same print density as that of the laser beam printer 2, a clock for extracting drawing data from the storage unit 15 and a clock for sending data to the printer are set as shown in FIG. By making the same, the drawing data and the output data to the printer have the same timing, and the dot arrangement of the output result of the laser beam printer 2 becomes as shown in FIG.

With such a configuration, for example, 480 dpi
Laser beam printer 2 with a print density of 240 dpi
When the input print data is printed, although the desired print result is shown in the upper part of FIG. 4, the actual print result is reduced to a quarter size as shown in the lower part of FIG. turn into.

Therefore, in order to obtain a desired printing result,
Twice the data is output in both the vertical and horizontal directions.
0 dpi input print data to a laser beam printer 2
It is necessary to output at a print density of 480 dpi. By doing so, the print result is as shown in the lower diagram of FIG.

A vertical process for doubling and outputting data will be described with reference to FIG. As described above, the input print data is converted into character drawing data, graphic drawing data, and image drawing data under the control of the main control unit 12, and is temporarily stored in the storage unit 15. These are stored in the rendering data development memory 151 inside the storage unit 15 as shown in FIG. 6, and are stored in the character rendering data development unit 154, the graphic rendering data development unit 155, and the image rendering data development unit 156, respectively. Has been deployed.

The character drawing data, the graphic drawing data, and the image drawing data are superimposed by the superimposing circuit OR 161 of the storage control unit 16 and are stored in the storage unit 15.
Is temporarily stored in the print data development memory 152 in the inside.

When all of the drawing data in the drawing data development memory 151 has been stored in the print data development memory 152, the storage control unit 16 transfers these data under the control of the main control unit 12 to the printer transfer memory 153. Start transferring to.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for processing the transfer from the print data development memory 152 to the printer transfer memory 153. In FIG. 7, when “start transfer process of printer transfer memory” indicated by 31 is started, one line is read from print data development memory 152 by “one line data read” indicated by 32 and “first time” indicated by 33 is performed. Is written to the printer transfer memory 153, and the one line data is written to the printer transfer memory 153.
Subsequently, the "second write to printer transfer memory" shown in 34 is performed, and the same data is written to the printer transfer memory 153 for another line. Thereby, the data in the vertical direction, that is, the number of lines can be doubled.
Although m = 2 in the embodiment described above, this writing is generally performed m times.

In the judgment of "is the last line?"
Determine whether it is the last line, and if it is not the last line, N
The determination of O is made, the process proceeds to the next line by the processing of “read line increment” shown in 36, returns to 32 in the flowchart, and repeats this processing. When the processing of the last line is completed, the determination of "is the last line?" Shown in 35 is YES, so that "drawing processing ends" shown in 37 and the processing is ended.

The processing in the horizontal direction will be described with reference to FIG.
When the processing for doubling the line in the vertical direction is completed, the print data is read from the printer transfer memory 153 to the storage control unit 16 at a clock corresponding to 240 dpi, and the laser beam printer is clocked at a double clock as shown in FIG. 2 to output the output data. This doubles the output data to the printer and doubles the number of dot data in the horizontal direction. Therefore, the printing result in the horizontal direction is as shown in FIG.
The input print data is printed two dots at a time, and is combined with the processing in the vertical direction to obtain the lower print result in FIG.

In this embodiment of the invention, 240 dpi
The case where the input print data having the print density of 480 dpi is printed out by the printer having the print density of 480 dpi has been described.
The present invention can be generalized to a printer having an input print density of ndpi and a print density of nxmpi. In the embodiment described here, a laser beam printer is used, but the present invention can be applied to any printer of a dot matrix type.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a case where print data is input from a network has been described. However, the present invention does not hinder application of a fixed line such as a dedicated line. It is clear.

[0024]

The local area network LAN
When a high-density laser beam printer and a computer that outputs print data of various print densities or a terminal device are connected, the output print of the computer can be performed by installing the print density control device of the present invention. Even if a printer is not prepared for each density, a high-density laser beam printer can also be used for printing low-density print data output, which has the effect of making the system economical.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of a print density control device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and also illustrates a relationship between a network that receives input print data and a printer that outputs print data.

FIG. 2 is a time chart showing a relationship between a clock and data in a known print control device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a printing result printed by a printer corresponding to an input printing density according to the time chart of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing print results obtained by printing with a printer corresponding to the input print density and a printer having a double print density according to the time chart of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example in which ndpi print input data is represented by ndpi.
The lower part of the figure shows the print result when printing with a printer having a print density of 2ndpi using the print density controller according to the present invention. It is a figure showing a result.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a data transfer process in a storage unit of the print density control device for doubling print data in the vertical direction.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a process for doubling print data in a vertical direction.

FIG. 8 is a time chart showing a relationship between a clock for extracting print data from a memory and a clock for outputting to a printer according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a printing result when printing is performed on a printer according to the time chart of FIG. 8;

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 print density control device 11 communication control unit 12 main control unit 13 control program storage unit 14 character data storage unit 15 storage unit 151 memory for drawing data development in storage unit 152 memory for printing data development 153 printer transfer memory 154 character drawing data Expansion unit 155 Graphic drawing data expansion unit 156 Image drawing data expansion unit 16 Storage control unit 161 Superposition circuit 17 Printer status monitoring unit 18 Peripheral input / output control unit 2 n × m dot / inch printer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A print density control device for a printer, which receives print data having a print density of n dots / inch, including character data, graphic data, and image data, develops the data into dot-like drawing data, and outputs the data to a printer. A drawing data development memory for developing and storing the input print data into dot-like character drawing data, graphic drawing data and image drawing data, and developing and storing these drawing data as superimposed print data. A print data development memory, a printer transfer memory for temporarily storing print data to be output to a printer, and m lines of print data for each line developed in the print data development memory. Means for writing to the transfer memory; and print data stored in the printer transfer memory Means for reading at the timing, the print data to which the reading means has read, and a storage control means for outputting to the printer m times the timing of the read timing, print density control device of the printer, characterized in that it comprises.