Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Memory
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-04
2004-05-11
Williams, Kimberly (Department: 2626)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Memory
C358S001160, C358S001900, C347S019000, C347S020000, C709S241000, C400S054000, C345S502000, C345S520000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06734986
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus, print data generating apparatus, print control method, print data generating method, and storage medium and, more particularly, a print control apparatus and print data generating method of controlling print modes and generating printer control commands in a system comprised of an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer and a printer.
Some conventional print systems have a plurality of print modes in printing operation using a printer. For example, the print modes include the raster graphics print mode of sending data rasterized by a host unit and printing the data, and the vector graphics print mode of sending vector data to the printer and making the printer rasterize the data and print it. In such a print system comprised of a host computer and a printer connected thereto, although a plurality of print modes can be executed, only the print mode selected by a user is used for printing.
A print system is available to select a method of generating printer control commands for controlling a printer from, for example, a method of generating intermediate code data first and then generating final printer control commands, and a method of directly generating printer control commands. In this print system, the printer control command generating method explicitly selected by the user is used.
In some print systems, when a printer control command is to be generated in accordance with a selected print mode, the printer control command is generated from a print instruction generated by a graphics engine prepared in an application or OS. In such a print system, a print instruction is generated by the graphics engine regardless of the selected print mode.
With regard to a printer control command generating method, a program (raster printer driver) is known, which can generate printer control commands while immediately converting (rasterizing) print instructions issued from various applications into print images in a host computer connected to a printer. However, a printer driver designed to perform such operation must temporarily store a page image in a memory in the form of image data before generating a printer control command. With an increase in printer resolution in recent years, a memory area on the order of several megabytes is required depending on circumstances.
With a printer driver designed to perform such operation, therefore, a page is divided into smaller rectangular areas called bands and pieces of information rasterized into print images are stored as pieces of information corresponding to the respective bands in a memory area (band memory). Similar storing operation is repeated for each of the divided areas to store rasterized information in units of pages. When the last print instruction from the application is processed for one band area, the band memory is divided into small areas to generate a printer control command, as needed. The above procedure is continued while page break processing and the like are performed, as needed, until all the bands constituting all print pages are completely processed.
FIG. 17
is a flow chart showing the contents of processing performed by a conventional raster printer driver. First of all, the printer driver receives a print instruction from an application (step S
1701
). The printer driver checks whether the print instruction indicates a print start (step S
1702
). If the printer driver determines that the instruction is a print start request (YES in step S
1702
), the printer driver ensures a memory area (band memory) for storing a rasterized print image in the RAM of a host computer, and initializes the area (step S
1703
). The printer driver receives a print instruction from the application again.
If the printer driver determines in step S
1702
that the print instruction received from the application does not indicate a print start (NO in step S
1702
), the printer driver checks whether the instruction indicates a print end (step S
1704
). Assume that the printer driver determines that the instruction does not indicate a print end (NO in step S
1704
). In this case, only when the instruction is a print request, the printer driver constructs (rasterizes) a print image corresponding to the contents of the request, and stores it in the band memory (step S
1705
). The processing in step S
1705
is repeated until it is determined that the last print instruction from the application is processed for the band area in process (step S
1706
). If the printer driver determines in step S
1706
that the last print instruction for the band area in process is processed (YES in step S
1706
), the flow advances to step S
1707
to properly divide the band area into small areas and generate printer control commands corresponding to the respective small areas (step S
1707
).
Note that after step S
1707
is processed, the printer driver initializes the band memory (step S
1708
) and starts receiving a print instruction corresponding to the new band area from the application. If the printer driver determines in step S
1704
that the print instruction received from the application indicates a print end (YES in step S
1704
), the printer driver releases the band memory from the RAM (step S
1709
), and terminates the processing.
The following four problems are posed in this print system.
The first problem is that print processing is executed by using the print mode selected by the user without any consideration of the print throughput of the printer, proper printing, and the like in spite of the fact that a plurality of print modes can be selected.
The second problem is that print processing is executed by using the printer control command generating method explicitly selected by the user without any consideration of the print throughput of the printer, proper printing, and the like in spite of the fact that a plurality of printer control command generating methods can be selected.
According to the third problem, even if a print mode is selected in consideration of the print throughput of the printer, proper printing, and the like, a print instruction is generated irrelevantly to the print mode, and a print instruction unsuited to the print mode may be generated.
With regard to the fourth problem, the conventional raster printer driver also generates a printer control command corresponding to a band area in which printing is not actually performed, and transmits it to the printer in step S
1707
in FIG.
17
. In addition, even when only a printer control command corresponding to each band area having undergone printing is to be generated, all the contents of the band memory must be checked one by one to check whether printing has been performed in each of the divided small areas.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made to solve the first problem, and has as its object to provide a print system, print control apparatus, and print control method which can select the optimal print mode for a preset condition, increase the print throughput of the printer, and obtain proper print results.
The present invention has been made to solve the second problem, and has as its object to provide a print system, print control apparatus, and print control method which can select the optimal printer control command generating method for a preset condition, increase the print throughput of the printer, and obtain proper print results.
The present invention has been made to solve the third problem, and has as its object to provide a print system, print control apparatus, and print control method which can receive print instructions in a form suited to a selected print mode.
The present invention has been made to solve the fourth problem, and has as its object to provide a print system, print control apparatus, and print control method which can reduce or eliminate printer control command generation corresponding to non-printed areas in a band area.
In order to achieve the above objects, a print control apparatus, print data generating apparatus,
Kuroi Yoshinobu
Nishikawa Satoshi
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Ebrahimi Saeid
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Williams Kimberly
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