JPH10161824A - Printing controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing controller which can immediately start the processing to transfer a job to a printer after a printer fault, etc., is recovered. SOLUTION: In a normal mode, a process where the jobs are received by a document data reception means 1 and a job spooling means 2, a process where a rasterization means 3, a printing protocol conversion means 4 and a job storage means 5 operate, and a process of a jog transfer means 6 are carried out in parallel to each other. If a printer has a fault, a fault detection means 7 detects the fault and stops the function of the means 6 via a control means 8. Under such conditions, the device 3 carries on the image expansion processing and the processed jobs are stored in the means 5. When the fault is recovered, the function of the means 6 is started again. Then the jobs are read out of the means 5 and immediately transferred. Thus, the document data can be quickly printed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control apparatus, and more particularly, to a print control apparatus which is located between a client having a function of creating document data and a printer for actually printing document data on paper. The present invention relates to a print control apparatus that performs a print service in which a received job is converted into a format that can be accepted by a printer and transferred to the printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a print control apparatus for performing such a print service mainly has a function of receiving a job sent from a client via a network and a format conversion into data that can be received by a printer. And a function of transferring the converted job data to a printer via a network. The format conversion function includes a rasterizing process for expanding document data into an image in page units that can be printed by the printer, and a process for converting document attributes such as layout information into a print protocol that can be interpreted by the printer. These job accepting function, format conversion function, and transfer function operate asynchronously and independently in parallel. Therefore, if the received job has not been subjected to the rasterizing process and the protocol conversion process executed for the preceding job, the rasterizing process and the protocol conversion process are completed, and the transfer to the printer is started. As a result, spooling is performed until the next processing can be performed.

Since the print control apparatus transfers job data to a printer via a network, some kind of failure or intentional temporary stoppage (hereinafter referred to as a failure for convenience) may occur in the printer itself or the network. Then, the transfer processing of the job data fails. In such a case, the print control device continues to accept the job until the failure is recovered, but the format conversion process and the job data transfer process thereafter prohibit such operations. Generally, control is performed. Therefore, the document data is not subjected to processing such as document attribute analysis and rasterization until the failure is resolved, and the spooled document data is sequentially processed after the printer returns.

[0004]

As described above, when a failure occurs, a job is accepted, but a series of processes of the format conversion process and the job data transfer process are all stopped, and after the return, the format conversion process is performed. I'm trying to resume. However, in the print control apparatus, when a certain failure occurs, stopping a series of processing is easy to control, but the processing is resumed after returning from the format conversion processing, so that the transfer processing is started. It will take some time. Especially,
For the rasterization process of the format conversion process,
Since it is a very time-consuming process in the function of the print control device, it takes time to recover from a failure in the light printing market where a large amount of document data must be received regularly and printed out at high speed. That was a problem.

[0005] The present invention has been made in view of such a point, and even if a printer failure or the like occurs, a print control that can start a job transfer process to a printer immediately after the recovery from the failure. It is intended to provide a device.

[0006]

According to the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problem, a job received from a client is defined as:
A print control device that converts the received document data into a format that can be received by a printer and transfers the document data to the printer; a job spooling unit that spools the received document data; Rasterizing means for reading spooled document data and developing the image in page units; print protocol converting means for converting a document attribute of the document data specified by a user into a print protocol that can be interpreted by a printer; Job storage means for storing the image and document attributes after protocol conversion in document units, job transfer means for reading the job stored in the job storage means and transferring the job to a printer via a network;
A failure detecting unit that detects a failure or suspension of the printer and the network; and a control unit that controls a function of the job transfer unit to stop when the failure or the suspension is detected by the failure detection unit, and to resume the job after returning. And a print control device characterized by comprising:

According to such a print control device, when the printer is operating normally, job reception processing by the document data reception means and job spooling means, rasterization means, print protocol conversion means, and job storage The processing by the means and the processing by the job transfer means are executed in parallel. Here, if any trouble occurs in the printer, the trouble detecting means detects the trouble and notifies the control means. The control unit stops the function of the job transfer unit. At this time, the rasterizing process by the rasterizing means is continued and is not interrupted. When the failure on the printer side is restored, the failure detection unit notifies the failure recovery to the control unit, and the control unit restarts the function of the job transfer unit. Rasterized job data to be transferred at the time of occurrence of the failure and thereafter is stored in the job storage unit, so the job transfer unit immediately reads out the job storage unit and starts transfer. As a result, the document data can be printed immediately after the restoration from the failure.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the principle of a print control device according to the present invention. The print control device of the present invention includes:
Document data receiving means 1, job spooling means 2, rasterizing means 3, print protocol converting means 4, job storing means 5, job transferring means 6, failure detecting means, located between a client and a printer. 7
And control means 8.

The document data receiving means 1 receives the document data of the job sent from the client, and spools the received document data to the job spooling means 2. The rasterizing means 3 reads out the document data spooled by the job spooling means 2 and rasterizes it in page units. The print protocol conversion unit 4 converts a document attribute specified by a user into a print protocol that can be interpreted by a printer. The page image data rasterized by the rasterizing unit 3 and the document attributes subjected to the protocol conversion by the print protocol converting unit 4 are stored in the job storing unit 5 in document units. The job transfer unit 6 reads the job stored in the job storage unit 5 and transfers the job to the printer via the network. The fault detecting means 7 is configured to detect a fault in the printer and the network and notify the control means 8.

According to such a print control device, when the printer is operating normally, job reception processing by the document data reception means and job spooling means, rasterization means, print protocol conversion means, and job storage The processing by the means and the processing by the job transfer means are executed in parallel.

Here, for example, when an error signal is notified from the printer and the fault detecting means 7 detects that a fault has occurred in the printer, the fault detecting means 7 notifies the control means 8 of the fault occurrence. The control means 8 controls the job transfer means 6 to stop its transfer function. During the occurrence of the failure, the job being rasterized is continuously processed, and after protocol conversion is performed, the job is stored in the job storage unit 5. When the saving of the job is completed, the processing is assigned to the next job already spooled.

When the fault on the printer side is recovered, the fault detecting means 7 notifies the control means 8 of the recovery from the fault. The control unit 8 restarts the function of the job transfer unit 6. The job transfer means 6 immediately reads the job stored in the job storage means 5 and starts transferring the job to the printer.

Thus, the printer can quickly print the document data after the trouble is recovered. Next, a case where the embodiment of the present invention is applied to a print server on a network will be described as an example.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of the print server. The print server 10 is a network 31
Are connected to a personal computer 41 and a work station 42, for example. Each of the personal computer 41 and the workstation 42 has application software for creating a document, and is a client that requests printing of the created document data. The print server 10 is also connected to the printer 50 via the network 32. The printer 50 is capable of receiving a large amount of document data constantly and printing it out at high speed.

The print server 10 includes a network 31
A document data receiving unit 11 for receiving document data sent from a client via the server, a job spooling unit 12 for spooling the document data received by the document data receiving unit 11 to a hard disk 13, and an overall print server 10. A print control unit 14 that controls
A rasterizer 15 that develops image data of document data, a page buffer 16 that holds image data developed by the rasterizer 15 and forms image data in units of pages, and a document that analyzes a document attribute specified by a user from the document data An attribute analysis unit 17, a print protocol conversion unit 18 for converting the document attributes analyzed by the document attribute analysis unit 17 into a print protocol that can be interpreted by the printer 50, and image data and print of the page image developed by the rasterizer 15. A job data input / output unit 19 for storing the document attributes converted by the protocol conversion unit 18 on the hard disk 13 in document units, and a job transfer for reading the job stored on the hard disk 13 and transferring the read job to the printer 50 via the network 32 With the part 20 That. The print server 10 further includes
A job management table 21 for managing the processing status of each document data under control of the print control unit 14, a network failure detection unit 22 configured to detect a failure of the printer 50 and the network 32, and a capacity of the hard disk 13 are detected. An HD (hard disk) capacity detection unit 23 and an event notification unit 24 that notifies various events to the client are provided.

From any client to the network 31
When the document data is sent via the
1 receives the document data. The received document data is spooled on the hard disk 13 by the job spooling unit 12.

The print control unit 14 reads the document data spooled on the hard disk 13 via the job spooling unit 12 and supplies the read document data to the rasterizer 15 and the document attribute analysis unit 17. The rasterizer 15 expands the given document data into image data, and forms page-based image data in the page buffer 16.
On the other hand, the document attribute analysis unit 17 analyzes the document data and outputs the document attribute specified by the user, and the document attribute is converted by the print protocol conversion unit 18 into a print protocol that can be interpreted by the printer 50. The job data input / output unit 19 saves the image data and the print attribute-converted document attributes on the hard disk 13 in document units. The job stored in the hard disk 13 is read by the job data input / output unit 19 and transferred to the printer 50 via the network 32 by the job transfer unit 20.

Here, when the network failure detection unit 22 detects the occurrence of a failure in the printer 50, the print control unit 1
4 stops the transfer function of the job transfer unit 20. At this time, the rasterizing process in the rasterizer 15 is continued without being stopped. When the network failure detection unit 22 detects that the printer 50 has recovered from the failure, the print control unit 1
4 restarts the transfer function of the job transfer unit 20, reads out the job by the job data input / output unit 19,
Transfer to 0.

Next, the flow of the basic operation of the print server 10 will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the flow of the basic operation of the print server. First,
The print server 10 accepts and spools document data (step S1). Subsequently, the status of the job transfer unit 20 is checked (step S2). If the status of the job transfer unit 20 is stopped, a transfer request flag is set. That is, the transfer request flag in the job management table 21 for the job being processed is set to “TR”.
UE "(step S3). If it is determined in step S2 that the status of the job transfer unit 20 is operating, a change in the status of the job transfer unit 20 is checked (step S4). If there is a status change such that the job being transferred ends, the untransferred job stored in the hard disk 13 is read and transferred to the printer 50 (step S5). If there is no status change, the job is spooled. The rasterization process by the rasterizer 15 and the document attribute analysis process by the document attribute analysis unit 17 are performed on the document data of the next job (step S).
6). Subsequently, image data in page units is read from the page buffer 16 (step S7). At this time, the transfer request flag of the job management table 21 is referred to for the job of the read data (Step S).
8). Here, if the transfer request flag is not set for the job in the job management table 21, that is, if the transfer request flag is "FALSE", the job is transferred (step S9) or before the job. If the job waiting for transfer is stored in the hard disk 13 or if the job transfer unit 20 is currently performing the transfer process, the job is stored in the hard disk 13 (step S10). Also, in the determination of step S8,
If the transfer request flag is “TRUE”, the job is stored in the hard disk 13 because the job transfer unit 20 is stopped during the processing of the job. Then, "processing completed" is notified to the client as a job status through the event notification unit 24 (step S11).

Next, the flow of processing when the network failure detecting unit 22 detects a failure in the printer 50 will be described. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when a failure is detected. In this flowchart, first, it is determined whether a failure has been detected (step S2).
1). Here, if no failure is detected, normal processing is continued. If a failure is detected, the failure is notified to the print control unit 14 (step S22), and the status of the job transfer unit is set to "stopped" (step S2).
3). Next, it is determined whether there is a job being processed (step S24). If there is a job being processed, the communication connection for the job being transferred is safely terminated (step S25). Then, the transfer request flag of the job management table 21 relating to the job being processed is set to "TRUE" (step S26). Then, the job transfer function is terminated (step S27), and a failure event is notified to the event notification unit 24 (step S2).
8).

Next, the processing for each page relating to the processing of document data will be described. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing for each page of document data. First, it is determined whether the page buffer 16 is in a locked state (step S31). If the page buffer 16 is in the unlocked state, the page buffer 13 is locked (step S32), and then the rasterizing process by the rasterizer 15 and the document attribute analyzing process by the document attribute analyzing unit 17 are performed (step S32). S33). If it is determined in step S31 that the page buffer 16 is locked, a certain job is already being processed, and the processing up to step S33 is passed.

Subsequently, the free space of the hard disk 13 is detected by the HD capacity detecting section 23 (step S3).
4). It is determined whether or not the detected free space of the hard disk 13 is equal to or larger than the amount of image data for one page (step S35). Here, if the free space of the hard disk 13 is insufficient, the fact is notified to the print control unit 14 (step S36), and the event notification unit 24 is notified of the event of insufficient hard disk capacity (step S37). Then, step S3
Return to 1. Thus, if there is no free space in the hard disk 13, steps S31 to S37 are looped until free space is secured, and during that time, the image development process can be stopped.

If the capacity of the hard disk 13 is sufficient, page data is read from the page buffer 16 and
The data is stored in the hard disk 13 (step S38). Then, the page buffer 16 is released (step S3).
9), the number of pages to be processed in the job management table 21 is updated (step S40).

Next, an example in which the job management table 21 changes in accordance with the operation status of the print server 10 will be described. FIGS. 6A and 6B are diagrams showing an example of changes in the job management table when a failure occurs. FIG. 6A shows an example of the contents of the job management table before the occurrence of the failure, and FIG. 6B shows the contents of the job management table when the failure occurs. An example is shown, and (C) shows an example of the contents of the job management table at the start of the next job processing.

The job management table 21 includes items of a job identifier, a job name, a job status, the number of pages to be processed, and a transfer request flag. here,
For example, four jobs have been accepted, and
It is assumed that the rasterizing process has already progressed halfway. That is, as shown in FIG. 6A, it is assumed that two jobs have already completed processing, a third job is being processed, and a fourth job is waiting for processing. In this case, the transfer request flags of all the jobs are not set, and “FALS
E ".

If a failure occurs during the image development processing of the third job, as shown in FIG. 6B, the transfer request flag of the job management table 21 for the job is set to "TRUE", and The job image development process continues. When the image development processing of the third job is completed, the job status is updated to “processing completed” and the number of processed pages is updated to the last processed page, as shown in FIG. Subsequently, after storing the completed job in the hard disk 13, the image developing process is started for the next job already spooled, that is, the fourth job. At this time,
The job status is updated from “waiting for processing” to “under processing”, and since the job transfer unit 20 is still stopped, the transfer request flag of this job is set to “TRUE”.

Thereafter, when the failure is resolved, the print control unit 14 refers to the transfer request flag in the job management table 21 to identify the job whose transfer request flag is “TRUE”, and the job is in the process of image development. If not, the job data input / output unit 19 reads the stored job from the hard disk 13 and transfers it to the printer 50 through the job transfer unit 20. Set the transfer request flag to "TRU
With regard to the job in which the image development process is being performed by setting the process to "E", the transfer is started after the completion of the job processing and the completion of the storage.

Next, an example of display of information notified by the event notification unit 24 on the client side will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a display example of an event notified to the client side. The illustrated example shows a job list screen 41a displayed on a display device of, for example, a personal computer 41 that has issued two jobs having job names “test 1” and “test 2”. Job list screen 41
In a, a job name, a processing page, and a job status are displayed. In this display example, the printer 50 or the network 32
Indicates that some error has occurred and a transfer error is currently occurring.

According to such a print server 10, regardless of the operation of the transfer function of the job transfer unit 20,
Document data can be received and rasterized. By utilizing this characteristic, the printer 50
However, if the printer must be stopped during the night, for example, jobs received after the printer is stopped can be processed after image development and saved during the night. As soon as the printout is possible, the job can be transferred immediately, and the operation efficiency of the printer can be improved.

Normally, the transfer function of the job transfer unit 20 is controlled so as to be invalidated, and the print time zone can be designated as one of the document attributes. Can be controlled so that the transfer function of the job transfer unit 20 is enabled by reading the stored job in a designated time zone. As a result, it is possible to collectively print out at the time intended by the user.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention, when a failure occurs in a printer or the like or when the printer is temporarily stopped, only the job transfer means is stopped, and
The rasterizing means is configured to continue the processing as it is. As a result, when returning from a failure or the like, since the job to be transferred has been rasterized,
Job transfer can be started immediately, and printout can be performed promptly after recovery.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the principle of a print control device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a print server.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a basic operation of the print server.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing when a failure is detected.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing for each page of document data.

6A and 6B are diagrams showing an example of changes in the job management table when a failure occurs, wherein FIG. 6A shows an example of the contents of the job management table before the occurrence of the failure, and FIG. FIG. 11C is a diagram illustrating an example of the contents of a job management table at the start of the next job processing.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a display example of an event notified to a client.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 document data receiving means 2 job spooling means 3 rasterizing means 4 print protocol converting means 5 job storing means 6 job transferring means 7 failure detecting means 8 control means 10 print server 11 document data receiving section 12 job spooling section 13 hard disk 14 print control section Reference Signs List 15 Rasterizer 16 Page buffer 17 Document attribute analysis unit 18 Print protocol conversion unit 19 Job data input / output unit 20 Job transfer unit 21 Job management table 22 Network failure detection unit 23 HD (hard disk) capacity detection unit 24 Event notification unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A job received from a client,
A print control device that converts the received document data into a format that can be received by a printer and transfers the document data to the printer; a job data spooling unit that spools the received document data; Rasterizing means for reading spooled document data and developing an image in page units; print protocol converting means for converting a document attribute of the document data specified by a user into a print protocol that can be interpreted by a printer; A job storage unit for storing image and document attributes after protocol conversion in document units; a job transfer unit for reading a job stored in the job storage unit and transferring the read job to a printer via a network; And failure detection means for detecting a failure or suspension of the network, and when the failure detection means detects a failure or suspension,
Control means for stopping the function of the job transfer means and controlling to resume after returning.