JPH08276683A - Book binding system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To perform personal printing, on-demand printing, and easily change printing mode by providing a means for folding printed matters obtained by a plurality of printing means of different printing method for performing a predetermined printing without using a printing plate, a means for conveying the folded printed matters, and a means for binding the conveyed printed matters. CONSTITUTION: A preprocessing unit 5 is equipped with four preprocessing devices 20-1 to 20-4 . which converts a data format of an original digital printing data which is sent from a data creating device 2 through a communication circuit 3 and converts into the same mats of corresponding printing devices. A printing unit 6 comprises a first printer 21 of electrophotographic method using a powder toner capable of monochromatic printing, a second printer 22 of the same method using a liquid ink capable of color printing, a third printer 23 of the same method capable of the same printing, a fourth printer 24 of ink jet method having print heads H1 to H3 capable of monochromatic printing, and first, second, third folding machines 25-1 to 25-3 which are arranged at the back stages of the first, second, third printers 21 to 23 and fold the printed matters to be outputted from each printer.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a bookbinding system,
In particular, the present invention relates to a bookbinding system capable of digitizing print information and performing printing of a wide variety of products, small lots, bookbinding according to demand, and on-demand printing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Offset printing has been conventionally known as a printing method for bookbinding.

In offset printing, ink is directly printed from a plate.
This is a printing method in which the material is once transferred to a transfer material such as a rubber blanket without being printed on the material to be printed, and the material to be printed is printed from the transfer material.

Offset printing is suitable for multicolor printing because it allows delicate images to be printed clearly on almost any type of printed area, gives a soft tone. Furthermore, double-sided printing is possible with a rotary printing machine, and the printing speed is increased.

Due to the above-mentioned characteristics, the offset printing is suitable for printing a large lot of printed matter in which a large amount of the same printed matter (including a full-color printed portion) is produced, and is a printing method of a bookbinding system for binding. Was used.

[0006]

Since offset printing is a printing method suitable for printing large lots of printed matter, it is not possible to perform personal printing or on-demand printing for printing various kinds of small lots of printed matter according to demand. There was a problem.

Further, in order to perform offset printing, it is necessary to prepare a printing plate, and there is a problem that the printing plate once created cannot be greatly modified. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a bookbinding system capable of performing personal printing and on-demand printing and easily changing the printing mode.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 1 has a data format corresponding to each of them, and is based on input digital print data including at least print content information and layout information. A plurality of printing means having different printing methods for performing a predetermined printing process without using a printing plate, a plurality of folding means for folding the printed matter obtained by each of the printing means, and a printed matter folded by the folding means And a bookbinding means for carrying out bookbinding based on the printed matter corresponding to the plurality of printing means conveyed by the conveying means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, a data format for converting original digital print data input from the outside having a predetermined data format into a plurality of the input digital print data and outputting the plurality of input digital print data. A conversion means is provided and comprised.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect of the present invention, a print data generating means for generating and outputting the original digital print data based on one or a plurality of print information is provided.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the invention, the print data generating means is configured to be connected to the data format converting means via a communication line.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the bookbinding system according to the first to fourth aspects, a second printing unit for performing additional printing on the printed matter being conveyed by the conveying unit is provided.

[0013]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the plurality of printing means have a data format corresponding to each of them, and do not use the printing plate based on the input digital print data including at least the print content information and the layout information. Then, the predetermined printing process is performed, and the folding unit folds the printed matter obtained by each printing unit.

The conveying means conveys the printed matter folded by the folding means, and the bookbinding means performs bookbinding on the basis of the printed matter corresponding to the conveyed plural printing means. Therefore, since the printing means performs the printing process based on the input digital print data without using the printing plate, it is possible to easily change the input digital print data as necessary, and it is possible to change the input digital print data of a large variety, a small lot, or Can perform personal bookbinding.

Further, since the printing methods of the respective printing means are different from each other, it is possible to perform various bookbinding by combining the printed matter which each printing means is good at. According to the invention described in claim 2, in addition to the operation of the invention described in claim 1, the data format conversion means converts the original digital print data input from the outside having a predetermined data format into a plurality of input digital print data. And output to each printing means.

Therefore, since it is not necessary to generate the input digital print data corresponding to a plurality of data formats in advance, the process is simplified. According to the invention described in claim 3, in addition to the operation of the invention described in claim 2, the print data generating means generates the original digital print data based on one or a plurality of print information and outputs it to each printing means. .

Therefore, print content information, layout information,
Since the original digital print data having one format is generated by combining various print information such as image information, the data can be easily handled and the system can be easily constructed.

According to the invention described in claim 4, in addition to the operation of the invention described in claim 3, since the print data generating means is connected to the data format converting means via the communication line, the print data generating means is generated. By providing a plurality of means, it is possible to make effective use of resources, such as performing the actual printing and bookbinding intensively.

According to the invention of claim 5, in addition to the operation of the invention of claims 1 to 4, the second printing means performs additional printing on the printed matter being conveyed by the conveying means. Therefore, it is possible to perform more diverse printing.

[0020]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration diagram of the bookbinding system.

The bookbinding system 1 is roughly divided into a data creating device 2 for creating print data including layout information, and a main body device 4 connected to the data creating device 2 via a communication line 3. Is configured.

The main body device 4 includes a pre-processing unit 5 for performing pre-processing such as converting the data format of the original digital print data transmitted from the data creating device 2 into a data format corresponding to a printing unit described later, and a pre-processing unit 5. Based on the print data processed by the processing unit 5, each of the plurality of printing devices _6-1 to 6 prints in parallel.
A printing unit 6 having 6- _n for performing various kinds of printing, and a bookbinding unit 7 for performing various kinds of bookbinding processing by collecting printed materials obtained from a plurality of printing devices constituting the printing unit 6;
It is configured with.

FIG. 2 shows a more detailed block diagram of the data generating device 2. The data creation device 2 is provided from the customer system C via an information recording medium such as a flexible disk FD or a magnetic tape MT, or by the data processing devices C _{1 to} C ₃ configuring the customer system C via a communication line CC. Basic digital print data 1 such as character data, print content data, layout information data, number of copies information data, etc.
0 is input, a plurality of data processing devices 12 for performing format conversion and outputting as predetermined original digital print data 11, a high-resolution scanner 13 for reading image data at high resolution, and an image at medium and low resolutions. A flatbed scanner 14 for reading, a digital camera 15 for capturing a moving image, a data processing device C that constitutes a customer system C from a customer via an information recording medium such as a flexible disk FD or a magnetic tape MT. _The image data given by _{1 to} C ₃ via the communication circuit CC and the image data 16 acquired by the high resolution scanner 13, the flatbed scanner 14 and the digital camera 15 are processed to obtain the original digital print data (image data) 11. Image processing device 1 for outputting
7 is provided.

In this case, at least one of the plurality of data processing devices 12 and the image processing device 17 functions as a communication terminal device, and the obtained original digital print data (including image data) 11 is stored in the main body device 4. To the communication line 3.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the detailed structure of the main body device 4. In the following description, a case will be described in which four types of printing machines are used as the printing units 6 having different printing methods.

The preprocessing unit 5 converts the data format of the original digital print data 11 transmitted from the data creating apparatus 2 via the communication line 3 into the data format of the corresponding printing apparatus. It is configured to include four pretreatment devices 20 _{-1 to} 20 _-4 for performing the above.

The printing unit 6 includes a first printing machine 21 capable of monochrome printing by an electrophotographic method using powder toner,
A second printing machine 22 capable of full color printing by electrophotography using liquid ink, a third printing machine 23 capable of full color printing by electrophotography, and three print heads H _{1 to} H
_A fourth printing machine 24 having _three and capable of monochrome printing by an inkjet method, and first to third printing machines 21, 22, 23
Provided in the subsequent stage is configured to include first to third folding device 25 _-1 to 25 _-3 for folding a printed material output from the printing machine.

The fourth printing press 24 includes a control device 24A for controlling the entire fourth printing press 24 and print heads H ₁ to H ₁ .
A head control unit 24B for controlling H _3,
Is provided in the vicinity of the bookbinding unit 7 to perform additional printing while the printed matter is being conveyed.

The bookbinding unit 7 includes a transport unit 25 for transporting printed products folded by the first to third folding machines while stacking them as needed, a binding device 26 for binding the printed products transported by the transport unit 25, and a binding device. The matching inspection device 27 that performs a matching inspection of the printed matter, the trimming device 28 that trims the printed material that has finished the matching inspection, and the trimming are performed.
A stacker device 29 for stacking printed matter (completed books) whose printing has been completed on the cover portion by the third print head H ₃ of
It is configured with.

Next, the operation of the entire system will be described. When the basic digital print data 10 is given to the data creating device 2 from the customer system C via the information recording medium such as the flexible disk FD and the magnetic tape MT and the communication line CC, each data processing device 12 performs format conversion. To obtain predetermined original digital print data 11.

If necessary, in parallel with the processing of the data processing device 12, the high resolution scanner 13 reads image data at high resolution, and the flatbed scanner 14 reads medium,
The image is read in low resolution, and the digital camera 15
Capture moving images.

Further, the image processing device 17 is provided with image data provided by a customer via an information recording medium such as a flexible disk FD, a magnetic tape MT or the like, or via a communication line CC, a high resolution scanner 13 and a flatbed scanner 14. Then, the image data acquired by the digital camera 15 is processed to obtain the original digital print data (image data) 11.

After that, at least one of the plurality of data processing devices 12 and the image processing device 17 functions as a communication terminal device, and the obtained original digital print data (including image data) 11 is transmitted via the communication line 3. Output to the preprocessing unit 5 of the main body device 4.

Pretreatment devices 20 _-1 to 2 of the pretreatment unit 5
0 _-4, converts the data format of the original digital print data 11 transmitted via the communication line 3 from the data generating apparatus 2, the corresponding printing press 21,22,2
It is converted to the data format of 3, 24 and output to the corresponding printing machine.

More specifically, the first pretreatment device 20
_-1 converts the data format of the transmitted original digital print data 11 into the data format of the first printing machine 21 and outputs it to the first printing machine 21.

When the print data of the corresponding data format is input from the preprocessing devices 20 _{-1 to} 20 _-4 , the first to third printing machines 21, 22 and 23 respectively perform the print processing, and the obtained printed matter is obtained. Corresponding folding machine 25 _{-1 to} 25 _-3
Hand over to.

Each of the folding machines 25 _{-1 to} 25 _-3 folds the delivered printed matter in a predetermined manner and delivers it to the transport unit 25. As a result, the transport unit 25 causes the stacker device 29 to pass through the binding machine 26 while sequentially superposing the printed matter as needed.
To the side.

When the print data in the corresponding data format is input, the control device 24A of the fourth printing machine 24 controls the head control device 24B to carry out the first printing in parallel with the transportation of the printed matter by the transportation unit 25. Additional printing is performed on the print P being conveyed using the head H ₁ and the second print head H ₂ .

The additional printing in this case can be controlled so as to be different for each part of the printed matter or for each predetermined number of copies, so that it is possible to print an individual name or a department name. Easy to do.

The printed matter after the additional printing by the first print head H ₁ and the second print head H ₂ of the fourth printing machine 24 is further carried by the carrying unit 25 and reaches the binding machine 26.

The binding machine 26 binds the printed matter transported by the transport unit 25, and the matching inspection device 27 performs a matching inspection of the bound printed matter. Further, the trimming device 28 trims the printed matter that has completed the matching inspection, and the third printing head H of the fourth printing machine 24.
_{In step 3} , printing is performed on the cover portion to complete the printing process.

A printed matter (finished book) P on which printing has been completed
_{The Fs} are stacked by the stacker device 29, and the bookbinding process is completed. As described above, according to the present exemplary embodiment, the first to fourth printing machines 21 to 24 perform the printing process based on the input digital print data without using the printing plate. It is possible to easily change the input digital print data, bind a large number of products in small lots, and easily meet the demand for on-demand printing.

The first to fourth printing machines 21 to 24 are
Since the printing methods are different, it is possible to perform various bookbinding by combining printed materials that each printing machine is good at.
In the above embodiment, the data creation device 2 was connected to the main body device 4 via the communication line, but it may be configured to be directly connected.

Further, in the above description, the case where the number of the data creating apparatus 2 is one has been described, but it is also possible to connect a plurality of data creating apparatuses to one main unit 4 via the communication line. Is.

[0045]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the printing means performs the printing process based on the input digital print data without using the printing plate. Therefore, the input digital print data can be easily processed as necessary. It can be changed, and it can perform bookbinding for a wide variety of products and small lots.
It is possible to meet the demand for on-demand printing.

Further, since the printing methods of the respective printing means are different, it is possible to carry out various bookbinding by combining the printed materials which the respective printing means are good at. According to the second aspect of the invention, in addition to the effect of the first aspect of the invention, the data format conversion means converts the original digital print data having a predetermined data format from the outside into a plurality of input digital print data. Since it is converted to and output to each printing means, it is not necessary to generate input digital print data corresponding to a plurality of data formats in advance,
The process is simplified.

According to the invention described in claim 3, in addition to the effect of the invention described in claim 2, the print data generating means generates the original digital print data based on one or a plurality of print information, and each printing means. Since it is output to, the original digital print data having one format is generated by combining various print information such as print content information, layout information, image information, etc., so that the data can be easily handled and the system can be easily constructed. Becomes

According to the invention described in claim 4, in addition to the effect of the invention described in claim 3, since the print data generating means is connected to the data format converting means via the communication line, the print data generating means is generated. By providing a plurality of means, it is possible to make effective use of resources, such as performing the actual printing and bookbinding intensively.

According to the invention of claim 5, in addition to the effects of the invention of claims 1 to 4, the second printing means performs additional printing on the printed matter being conveyed by the conveying means. Therefore, it is possible to perform more diverse printing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration block diagram of a bookbinding system.

FIG. 2 is a detailed configuration block diagram of a data creation device.

FIG. 3 is a detailed configuration perspective view of a bookbinding system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Bookbinding system 2 ... Data creating device 3 ... Communication line 4 ... Main unit 5 ... Preprocessing unit 6 ... Printing unit 6 _{-1 to} 6 _-n ... Printing device 7 ... Bookbinding unit 10 ... Basic digital print data 11 ... Original digital print data 12 ... data processing unit 13 ... high-resolution scanner 14 ... flatbed scanner 15 ... digital camera 16 ... image data 17 ... image processing apparatus 20 _-1 to 20 _-4 ... pretreatment device 21 ... first printer 22 ... first 2 printing machine 23 ... 3rd printing machine 24 ... 4th printing machine 24A ... control device 24B ... head control device 25 ... conveyance unit 26 ... binding machine 27 ... matching device 28 ... trimming device 29 ... stacker device P ... printed matter P _F ... Printed matter (finished book)

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of printing systems each having a data format corresponding to each other and performing predetermined printing processing without using a printing plate based on input digital print data including at least print content information and layout information. Printing means, a plurality of folding means for folding the printed matter obtained by each of the printing means, a transport means for transporting the printed matter folded by the folding means, the plurality of transporting means by the transport means A bookbinding system comprising: bookbinding means for performing bookbinding based on a printed matter corresponding to the printing means. 2. The bookbinding system according to claim 1, further comprising a data format conversion means for converting original digital print data input from the outside having a predetermined data format into a plurality of the input digital print data and outputting the plurality of input digital print data. A bookbinding system characterized by that. 3. The bookbinding system according to claim 2, further comprising print data generating means for generating and outputting the original digital print data based on one or a plurality of print information. 4. The bookbinding system according to claim 3, wherein the print data generation unit is connected to the data format conversion unit via a communication line. 5. The bookbinding system according to claim 1, further comprising a second printing unit that performs additional printing on the printed material being conveyed by the conveying unit.