Storage medium storing support program, information processing device and printing method

Abstract

The present invention provides a technology for causing a printer to perform copy-by-copy printing in an information processing device installed with an OS standard printing program in a manner that does not impose a load on the printer. In a case where there is a print instruction output from an editing application (43) to cause a printer (2) to print an image relative to a general print program (41) installed in an OS (21), and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer (2) performs copy-by-copy printing of a plurality of pages of images as a range of print objects as one copy and sequentially prints N copies one by one, an auxiliary program (42) causes a CPU (11) of a PC (1) to obtain a copy of print data obtained by rasterizing the plurality of pages of images, and causes the PC (1) to send the N copies of the obtained copy of print data one by one to the printer (2) as a sending destination.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The technical field disclosed in this specification relates to a support program, an information processing device, and a printing method that support control of a printer. Background Art

[0002] As a technology for controlling a printer by an information processing device such as a personal computer, for example, as disclosed in Patent Document 1, there is known a configuration in which a collation job is input to the printer via a printer driver, in which a setting is set for printing multiple copies of a multi-page document one by one in sequence.

[0003] Prior art literature

[0004] Patent Literature

[0005] Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-77158 Summary of the invention

[0006] Problems to be solved by the invention

[0007] In recent years, a technology for controlling a printer by a print program standardly installed in an operating system (hereinafter referred to as "OS") without using the above-mentioned printer driver has become practical. In this technology, the OS associates the printer with the OS standard print program, and then, when a print instruction to the printer is received, printing based on the OS standard print program can be performed without using a printer driver.

[0008] However, in printing based on the OS standard universal printing program, the setting items that can be selected when selecting printing parameters are generally registered in the OS standard printing program. Therefore, there is a possibility that collation printing is not supported, which causes inconvenience to the user. In addition, collation printing can also be performed by processing on the printer side, but in this case, a load is imposed on the printer, such as an increase in the storage capacity mounted on the printer.

[0009] This specification discloses a technique for causing a printer to perform collation printing without placing a load on the printer in an information processing device in which an OS-compliant print program is installed.

[0010] Technical solutions to solve problems

[0011] A support program for the purpose of solving the above-mentioned problems is a support program corresponding to a printer connected to an information processing device and can be executed by a computer of the information processing device, and is characterized in that, when there is a print instruction output from an application installed in the information processing device to cause the printer to print an image relative to a general print program in an operating system pre-installed in the information processing device, and in a job based on the print instruction, when the printer is caused to perform sequential printing of a plurality of pages of images as a range of print objects as one copy and N copies are printed one by one, the computer is caused to perform the following processing: a first acquisition processing of acquiring the one copy of print data obtained by rasterizing the multi-page images; and a first output processing of outputting the N copies of the one copy of the print data obtained in the first acquisition processing in a manner of sending the N copies from the information processing device with the printer as the sending destination, wherein N is a natural number greater than 2.

[0012] The support program disclosed in this specification causes the information processing device to obtain print data of one copy obtained by rasterizing a multi-page image and send N copies to the printer one by one when a print instruction is output from an application to a universal printing program and the printer is caused to perform collation printing in a job based on the print instruction. Thus, even when the universal printing program does not support collation printing, the printer can be caused to perform collation printing.

[0013] An information processing device installed with the above-mentioned program, a computer-readable storage medium storing the program, and a control method for realizing the functions of the program are also novel and useful.

[0014] Effects of the Invention

[0015] According to the technology disclosed in this specification, a technology is realized that allows a printer to perform collation printing without placing a load on the printer in an information processing device in which an OS-compliant print program is installed. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016] Figure 1 It is a block diagram showing the electrical structure of PC1.

[0017] Figure 2 This is a sequence diagram showing an example of the operation procedure of the first embodiment.

[0018] Figure 3 This is a sequence diagram showing an example of the operation procedure of the first embodiment.

[0019] Figure 4 This is a sequence diagram showing an example of the operation procedure of the second embodiment.

[0020] Figure 5 This is a sequence diagram showing an example of the operation procedure of the third embodiment.

[0021] Figure 6 This is a sequence diagram showing an example of the operation sequence in the case of non-collated printing. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0022] Hereinafter, a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as "PC") using a program of the first embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. This embodiment discloses an embodiment in which a program executed by a PC connected to a printer having a printing function is embodied.

[0023] For example, Figure 1 As shown, the PC 1 of this embodiment includes a controller 10, a user interface (hereinafter referred to as "UI") 20, and a communication interface (hereinafter referred to as "communication IF") 30. The UI 20 and the communication IF 30 are electrically connected to the controller 10. The PC 1 is an example of an information processing device. The printer 2 is a device having a printing function, and is connected to the PC 1 via local communication or network communication.

[0024] The UI 20 includes hardware that displays various information and accepts user input instructions. The UI 20 may be a touch panel having both display and input acceptance functions, or a combination of a display having a display function and a keyboard or mouse having an input acceptance function.

[0025] The communication IF30 includes hardware for communicating with external devices such as the printer 2 and hardware for accessing the Internet. The communication IF30 may also include a plurality of interfaces with different communication methods. As the communication method, there are, for example, network communication and USB communication. In addition, it may be either wired communication or wireless communication.

[0026] The controller 10 includes a CPU 11 and a memory 12. The CPU 11 is an example of a computer. The memory 12 includes a ROM, a RAM, and a nonvolatile memory, and stores programs such as various application programs (hereinafter referred to as "applications"), various data, etc. The CPU 11 executes various processes according to the programs read from the memory 12 and based on the instructions of the user. In addition, Figure 1 The controller 10 in the description is a general term for hardware and software for controlling the PC 1 , and does not necessarily refer to a single piece of hardware actually present in the PC 1 .

[0027] An example of the memory 12 may be a computer-readable storage medium. The so-called computer-readable storage medium refers to a non-transitory medium. In addition to the above examples, non-transitory media also include recording media such as CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. In addition, non-transitory media may also be tangible media. On the other hand, an electrical signal that transmits a program downloaded from a server on the Internet is a computer-readable signal medium that is a type of computer-readable medium, but is not included in the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium.

[0028] For example, Figure 1 As shown, the memory 12 stores an OS 21 including a universal printing program 41, an auxiliary program 42, and an editing application 43. The auxiliary program 42 is an example of a support program. The editing application 43 is an example of an application program. The OS 21 is, for example, Microsoft Windows (registered trademark), MacOS (registered trademark), and Linux (registered trademark). In addition to the contents shown in the figure, the memory 12 also stores various data including information on the connected printer 2, various programs such as a browser, etc.

[0029] The universal print program 41 is an OS-compliant program for causing various printers such as the printer 2 to execute printing in accordance with instructions from the PC 1. The universal print program 41 of this embodiment is a program having a function of generating print data used by a corresponding printer for printing based on image data to be printed.

[0030] The universal print program 41 supports functions that can be used in common by various printer models provided by various printer vendors. The universal print program 41 does not support all functions inherent to various printers, and supports only common functions.

[0031] The auxiliary program 42 is a program or a program group that executes processing based on instructions from the OS 21 in conjunction with the processing of the universal printing program 41, and is an application that supports the control of the target hardware. The auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment corresponds to the model of the printer 2 connected to the PC 1, and is started from the universal printing program 41, for example, when an instruction to use the universal printing program 41 to make the printer 2 execute printing is accepted. The auxiliary program 42 is called, for example, a hardware support application (abbreviated as HSA).

[0032] The auxiliary program 42 receives various commands from the universal printing program 41 and executes various processes based on the received commands. The auxiliary program 42 can execute different processes according to the contents of the execution commands from the universal printing program 41. In addition, the auxiliary program 42 may be a combination of a plurality of programs that receive execution commands respectively, or may be a single program that can execute different processes according to the commands respectively.

[0033] In addition, the auxiliary program may be a program prepared by the supplier of the printer according to the type of printer. For example, an auxiliary program for inkjet printers and an auxiliary program for laser printers are prepared. The supplier of the printer registers the auxiliary program 42 to the platform provided by the supplier of OS21 according to the process specified by the supplier of OS21. When the printer is newly connected to PC1 and the auxiliary program corresponding to the printer has been registered to the platform, OS21 downloads the auxiliary program from the server where the auxiliary program is stored and installs it to PC1. Then, OS21 stores the identification information of the installed auxiliary program in the memory 12 corresponding to the printer information of the newly connected printer. Not limited to the type of printer, there may be auxiliary programs prepared by printer model or by a series of printer models.

[0034] The editing application 43 is, for example, an application for creating and editing image data or document data. The editing application 43 is, for example, Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. The editing application 43 may also be an application provided by a vendor such as the printer 2. The editing application 43 accepts user operations including instructions for causing the printer 2 to perform a predetermined action. Specifically, the editing application 43 accepts, for example, a print instruction for causing the printer 2 to execute printing, via the UI 20.

[0035] In addition, the processing in the embodiment and each processing step of the flowchart basically represent the processing of the CPU 11 according to the command written in the auxiliary program 42 or the like. That is, the processing such as "judgment", "extraction", "selection", "calculation", "determination", "determination", "obtaining", "acceptance", "control" in the following description represent the processing of the CPU 11. The processing of the CPU 11 also includes the hardware control using the API (Application Programming Interface) of the OS 21. In this specification, the detailed description of the OS 21 is omitted to illustrate the actions of each program. That is, in the following description, the description of the meaning of "Program B controls hardware C" can also refer to the case of "Program B uses the API of the OS 21 to control hardware C". In addition, sometimes the processing of the CPU 11 according to the command written in the program is recorded with omitted sentences. For example, sometimes the program is omitted such as "CPU 11 performs". In addition, sometimes the processing of the CPU 11 according to the command written in the program is recorded with omitted sentences such as "Program A performs".

[0036] In addition, "obtain" is used in the concept that a request is not necessarily made. That is, the process of CPU11 receiving data without making a request is also included in the concept of "CPU11 obtaining data". In addition, the "data" in this manual is represented by a bit string that can be read by a computer. In addition, data with the same essential meaning but different formats are processed as the same data. The same applies to "information" in this manual. In addition, the so-called "making a request" and "making an instruction" are concepts that indicate outputting requested information and indicated information to an object. In addition, the requested information and indicated information are also simply recorded as "requests" and "instructions".

[0037] In addition, the process of determining whether information A indicates event B by CPU 11 is sometimes conceptually described as "determining whether it is event B based on information A". The process of determining whether information A indicates event B or event C by CPU 11 is sometimes conceptually described as "determining whether it is event B or event C based on information A".

[0038] Next, refer to Figure 2 The sequence diagram of the printing process including the actions of the auxiliary program 42 of the present method is explained. In the case of printing multiple copies of an image of a print object consisting of multiple pages, there are collation printing and non-collation printing. Collation printing is a printing method that regards a printed material including one page from the first page to the last page as one copy, and prints the specified number of copies one by one. Non-collation printing is a printing method that prints each page from the first page to the last page in succession in the specified number of copies. For example, when printing three copies of an image of three pages, the printing order is "123123123" in collation printing and "111222333" in non-collation printing. PC1 of the present method can enable printer 2 to implement collation printing by using the auxiliary program 42.

[0039] The universal printing program 41 of this method may not correspond to the print setting of multiple copies, or may only support the configuration of non-collated printing in the print setting of multiple copies. In addition, the printer 2 of this method may not have the function of processing multiple copies in this device, or may only support the configuration of non-collated printing in the print setting of multiple copies.

[0040] First, the editing application 43 receives the designation of the image to be printed and the input of the instruction to execute printing (arrow A) via the UI 20. For example, the editing application 43 receives the instruction to use a document edited by the editing application 43 or a photo read by the editing application 43 as the image to be printed. Then, the editing application 43 that has received the printing instruction transmits a printing execution notification indicating the content of the received printing instruction to the OS 21. Figure 2 In FIG. 1 , the operation of OS 21 is omitted.

[0041] When receiving the print execution notification using the universal print program 41, the OS 21 causes the universal print program 41 to be executed, and transmits the print execution notification (arrow B) to the universal print program 41. The universal print program 41 can obtain various information included in the print instruction, such as information indicating the printer to be printed, information indicating the print settings set by the editing application 43, and information indicating the image data to be printed, through the print execution notification.

[0042] The universal printing program 41 determines the printer designated as the device to execute printing based on the information included in the print execution notification. If the designated printer is the printer 2, since the auxiliary program 42 corresponding to the printer 2 is stored in the memory 12, the universal printing program 41 outputs an execution command for the processing of the auxiliary program 42 to cause the auxiliary program 42 to operate (arrow C). That is, the universal printing program 41 outputs an execution command for the auxiliary program 42 when the universal printing program 41 detects the print execution notification.

[0043] The auxiliary program 42 executes various processes based on the contents of the execution command from the universal print program 41. In the execution command of arrow C, the universal print program 41 transfers the print setting accepted by the editing application 43 to the auxiliary program 42, and requests verification of the print setting.

[0044] The auxiliary program 42 verifies the print settings (arrow D) based on the execution command of arrow C. The auxiliary program 42 determines whether the accepted print settings are suitable for the functions of the printer 2, and if, for example, an inappropriate print setting is included, such as selecting a paper size not set in the printer 2, the print setting is invalidated.

[0045] The auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment can accept changes or additional settings of print settings during the execution of the process of arrow D. In this embodiment, a case is described in which the image range designated as the print target is a multi-page image, and the auxiliary program 42 accepts a designation of printing N copies (N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2) by collation printing. That is, the print settings transmitted by arrow C do not include settings for printing multiple copies by collation printing, and the print settings at the end of the process of arrow D include settings for printing N copies by collation printing.

[0046] In addition, when the editing application 43 can accept the setting of multiple printing and the designation of collation printing, the setting of multiple printing and the designation of collation printing can also be included in the print setting transmitted to the auxiliary program 42 through the arrow C. For example, when the universal print program 41 supports collation printing, the print setting including the setting of multiple printing and the designation of collation printing can be transmitted through the arrow C. Alternatively, even when the universal print program 41 does not support collation printing, the setting of multiple printing and the designation of collation printing can be transmitted from the editing application 43 to the auxiliary program 42 via a storage area that can be used in common by the editing application 43 and the auxiliary program 42, for example.

[0047] After completing the print setting verification process, the auxiliary program 42 transmits a completion notification to the universal print program 41 (arrow E). The auxiliary program 42 deletes the setting of multiple copies and the designation of collation from the print setting, and transmits the completion notification to the universal print program 41 along with arrow E.

[0048] In response to receiving the end notification indicating the end of verification of the print setting from the auxiliary program 42, the universal print program 41 converts the form of the image data included in the print execution notification of arrow B into the form of intermediate data for printing, thereby creating intermediate data, and generates a print job including the intermediate data (arrow F). The image data specified by the editing application 43 is various types of data, and the universal print program 41 converts the received image data into intermediate data suitable for generating print data. In addition, if the image data included in the print execution notification is data suitable for generating print data, the generation of intermediate data can also be omitted, and the image data can be directly used as intermediate data. The intermediate data is, for example, XPS data.

[0049] After generating the intermediate data, the universal printing program 41 transfers the generated intermediate data and print settings to the auxiliary program 42, outputs an execution command for the auxiliary program 42 to execute the processing, and causes the auxiliary program 42 to operate (arrow G).

[0050] Based on the received intermediate data, the auxiliary program 42 generates one page of print data from the first page of the intermediate data (arrow H). The process of arrow H is an example of the first acquisition process. In arrow H, the auxiliary program 42 rasterizes the intermediate data to generate print data. The print data generated by arrow H is data in a format that can be used by the printer 2 in printing, such as PDL data dedicated to the model of printer 2. By using the auxiliary program 42 to perform rasterization, the degree of freedom is greater than that of using the general printing program 41 to perform rasterization, and the possibility of generating print data suitable for printing by printer 2 is higher. In addition, the print data generated by arrow H can also be data in a format that can be used in printing by printers other than the model of printer 2.

[0051] Furthermore, the auxiliary program 42 temporarily stores the generated print data in the memory 12 (arrow I). Then, the auxiliary program 42 transmits the generated print data for one page and a request to send the print data to the printer 2 to the universal print program 41 (arrow J). Based on the request of arrow J, the universal print program 41 sends the received print data and print command to the printer 2 (arrow K). Since the print data is sent to the printer 2 by the request of arrow J, the process of arrow J is an example of the first output process.

[0052] The printer 2 that has received the print command prints the first one-page image based on the received one-page print data. By sending the print data for one page to the printer 2 each time it is generated, the waiting time until the first page is printed is shortened compared to the case where the print data for all pages is sent after being generated.

[0053] Furthermore, since the print settings received by arrow E do not include the setting for multiple copy printing, the universal print program 41 sends the print data by arrow K with the print settings not including the setting for multiple copy printing. Thus, even if the printer 2 is a device capable of performing multiple copy printing processing by the device itself, there is no possibility that the printer 2 will further perform multiple copy printing.

[0054] The auxiliary program 42 is consistent with the sending timing of the print data to the printer 2. For example, after transmitting the sending request of arrow J to the universal print program 41, the auxiliary program 42 periodically sends a signal to inquire about the status to the printer 2. In response to the inquiry, the printer 2 responds to the status, and when the reception of the print data is completed, a reception completion notification indicating that the reception is completed is sent to the auxiliary program 42 (arrow L). The reception completion notification is a notification indicating that the reception is completed, and the printing may not be completed. In addition, the reception completion notification can also be sent to the universal print program 41.

[0055] When receiving the reception completion notification sent from the printer 2, the auxiliary program 42 requests the universal printing program 41 to send the execution command of the auxiliary program 42 (arrow M). As a result, the universal printing program 41 transmits the execution command to the auxiliary program 42 (arrow N). The auxiliary program 42 receives the execution command from the universal printing program 41 and generates the print data for the next page through arrow H. In addition, when the reception completion notification of arrow L is sent to the universal printing program 41, the execution command request (arrow M) can be omitted, and the universal printing program 41 transmits the execution command (arrow N) to the auxiliary program 42 in response to the reception completion notification.

[0056] The universal printing program 41 and the auxiliary program 42 repeat arrows H to N for all pages in the range of the printing target. The auxiliary program 42 also receives information indicating the number of pages of the image to be printed, for example, through arrow G, and repeatedly generates and stores the print data until the number of times of processing of arrow H reaches the number of pages. In arrow I, the print data of the next page is stored following the stored print data of the previous page. Thus, each time the print data of each page is obtained, the first set of print data is sent to the printer 2, and the print data of all pages is stored in the memory 12.

[0057] In addition, if the auxiliary program 42 can start generating print data by receiving the notification of arrow L even if it does not receive the execution command, the interaction of arrows M and N is not necessary. In addition, if the universal printing program 41 is configured to transmit intermediate data page by page, the auxiliary program 42 only needs to request the intermediate data of the next page through arrow M and receive the intermediate data of one page through arrow N. In this case, when transmitting the intermediate data of the last page of the range of the printing object, it is preferable that the universal printing program 41 transmits information indicating that it is the last page to the auxiliary program 42.

[0058] When the auxiliary program 42 receives the execution command of arrow N after the generation and transmission of the print data of all pages are completed, it obtains the stored print data of all pages, that is, the print data of the first copy, from the memory 12 and transmits it to the universal printing program 41 together with the transmission request (arrow O). The universal printing program 41 transmits the received print data and the print command to the printer 2 (arrow P) based on the request of arrow O. Since the print data is transmitted to the printer 2 by the request of arrow O, the processing of arrow O is an example of the first output processing. Thus, the printer 2 that has received the print command executes the printing of the second copy of all pages based on the print data of all pages attached to the print command.

[0059] The auxiliary program 42 receives the reception completion notification (arrow Q) from the printer 2 in the same manner as arrow L, and transmits the next copy sending request to the universal printing program 41 (arrow O). In addition, if the auxiliary program 42 is configured to request and receive the execution command in order to execute the next step, as in the processing of the first copy, it is preferable to perform the same interaction as arrows M and N after arrow Q. The auxiliary program 42 repeats the sending request of arrow O a number of times less than the specified number of copies. In this way, the specified N copies are printed in accordance with the printing of the first copy based on the sending request of arrow J.

[0060] After executing the sending request of arrow O (N-1) times, if the auxiliary program 42 receives the reception completion notification through arrow Q, it transmits the end notification (arrow R) to the universal printing program 41 and ends the processing of the job. As a result, the universal printing program 41 ends the processing of the print execution notification received through arrow B from the editing application 43.

[0061] In addition, the reception completion notification of arrow Q may also be sent from the printer 2 to the universal printing program 41. In this case, the universal printing program 41 may request the auxiliary program 42 to print data in response to the reception completion notification. In addition, when the auxiliary program 42 sends the print data through arrow O, it may also include information indicating whether there is subsequent print data. Alternatively, the auxiliary program 42 may copy the print data to generate (N-1) copies of the print data, and transmit the (N-1) copies of the print data to the universal printing program 41 in a batch through a single sending request of arrow O.

[0062] As described in detail above, according to the auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment, when there is a print instruction to the universal printing program 41 and the printer 2 is caused to perform multiple-copy printing by collation based on the print instruction, the PC 1 obtains print data of one copy based on the image of multiple pages as the range of the printing object through the auxiliary program 42, and outputs the N copies of the print data in a form of collation to the printer 2. Thus, even when the universal printing program 41 does not support collation, the printer 2 can be caused to perform collation.

[0063] In the first mode, the auxiliary program 42 transmits the print data and the request to the universal print program 41 through arrows J and O, and the universal print program 41 sends the print data to the printer 2. Figure 3 As shown, the auxiliary program 42 may also send print data to the printer 2. That is, it may replace Figure 2 After the generation and storage of the print data are completed, the auxiliary program 42 sends the generated print data for one page to the printer 2 (arrow Ka). Figure 2 The auxiliary program 42 sends the print data of all pages to the printer 2 (arrow Pa) as indicated by arrows O and P. In this case, the processing indicated by arrows Ka and Pa is an example of the first output processing.

[0064] In this case, the reception completion notifications of arrows L and Q may be sent from the printer 2 to the universal print program 41. The universal print program 41 may transmit a transmission command to the auxiliary program 42 in response to the reception completion notification, and the auxiliary program 42 may transmit the next print data.

[0065] Even so, the first copy of the print data is sent to the printer 2 each time a page is generated, and the time until the first page is printed is short. In addition, when the auxiliary program 42 sends the print data to the printer 2, after sending the print data, it is also possible to receive, for example, whether the print data is sent successfully and a response (normal end or error signal) from the printer and transmit them to the OS 21.

[0066] Next, refer to Figure 4 The sequence diagram of FIG. 4 illustrates the printing process including the operation of the auxiliary program 42 of the second method. The process of generating and sending the print data of this method is different from that of the first method. Figure 4 In the following description, the same reference numerals are used for the same processes as those in the first embodiment, and the description thereof is omitted. In addition, reference numerals with lowercase letter suffixes are used for processes that are similar to but different from those in the first embodiment, and the differences from the first embodiment are described.

[0067] In this embodiment, the processing of arrows A to G is first executed as in the first embodiment. In this embodiment, the auxiliary program 42 receives the intermediate data of all pages of the printing range through the execution command of arrow G, and generates the print data of all pages (arrow Ha). The processing of arrow Ha is an example of the first acquisition processing. In addition, the auxiliary program 42 temporarily stores the generated print data of all pages in the memory 12 (arrow Ia).

[0068] After the generation and storage of the print data for all pages are completed, the auxiliary program 42 transmits a completion notification to the universal printing program 41 (arrow S). The universal printing program 41 receives the completion notification and transmits an execution command to the auxiliary program 42 (arrow N).

[0069] In addition, in this embodiment, the generated print data for all pages is repeatedly sent to the printer 2 N times as the designated number of copies. That is, the auxiliary program 42 transmits the print data for all pages and the sending request to the universal printing program 41 (arrow O), and the universal printing program 41 collectively sends the print data for all pages to the printer 2 (arrow P). The processing of arrow O is an example of the first output processing. After receiving the reception completion notification from the printer 2 (arrow Q), the auxiliary program 42 transmits the print data for all pages of the next copy and the sending request to the universal printing program 41.

[0070] By repeating the process from arrow O to arrow Q N times, the printer 2 prints N copies. After receiving the Nth reception completion notification, the auxiliary program 42 sends an end notification (arrow R) to the universal printing program 41 to end the processing of the job. In addition, in this embodiment, arrows O and P may be replaced by arrows such as Figure 3As shown in the arrow Pa, the auxiliary program 42 is sent to the printer 2.

[0071] In addition, in this embodiment, the reception completion notification of arrow Q can be sent from the printer 2 to the universal printing program 41. In this case, the universal printing program 41 can request the subsequent printing data from the auxiliary program 42 in response to the reception completion notification. In addition, when the auxiliary program 42 sends the printing data through arrow O, it can also include information indicating whether there is subsequent printing data. Alternatively, the auxiliary program 42 can copy the printing data to generate N copies of the printing data, and transmit the N copies of the printing data to the universal printing program 41 in a batch through a sending request of arrow O.

[0072] As described in detail above, the auxiliary program 42 of this method also realizes multiple copies by copy-by-copy printing. In this embodiment, since the print data of all pages are sent to the printer 2 in batches after being generated, the number of interactions between the auxiliary program 42 and the universal print program 41 is small, and the processing of the auxiliary program 42 becomes simple, so that the design man-hours can be reduced. In addition, the number of communications between the PC 1 and the printer 2 is also small.

[0073] Next, refer to Figure 5 The sequence diagram of FIG. 4 illustrates the printing process including the actions of the auxiliary program 42 of the third method. The process of generating and sending the print data of this method is different from that of the first method. Figure 5 In the following description, the same reference numerals are used for the same processes as those in the first embodiment, and the description thereof is omitted. In addition, reference numerals with lowercase letter suffixes are used for processes that are similar to but different from those in the first embodiment, and the differences from the first embodiment are described.

[0074] In this embodiment, the processing of arrows A to G is first executed similarly to the first embodiment. In this embodiment, the auxiliary program 42 receives the intermediate data of all pages of the print target range through the execution command of arrow G, and stores the received intermediate data in the memory 12 (arrow T). Furthermore, the auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment obtains the intermediate data of all pages stored in the memory 12 (arrow U), and transmits the obtained intermediate data of all pages and the end notification to the universal printing program 41 (arrow V).

[0075] The universal printing program 41 rasterizes the received intermediate data for all pages and generates print data for all pages (arrow W). In addition, the process of generating print data by the universal printing program 41 is different from the process of generating print data by the auxiliary program 42 in the first mode and the second mode. The print data generated by the universal printing program 41 is data in a format that can be used by various printers including the printer 2 for printing, such as PWGRaster data and PDF data. If rasterization is performed by the universal printing program 41, the auxiliary program 42 has less processing to perform, and the design man-hours of the auxiliary program 42 can be reduced.

[0076] Furthermore, the universal printing program 41 transmits an execution command to the auxiliary program 42 (arrow N). In response to the execution command, the auxiliary program 42 transmits a transmission request to the universal printing program 41 (arrow Oa). Since the universal printing program 41 generates the print data, it is not necessary to transmit the print data in the process of arrow Oa. The universal printing program 41 transmits the print data of all pages generated by arrow W to the printer 2 (arrow P). Thus, the printer 2 executes printing and a printed product can be created.

[0077] In this embodiment, the process of arrow V is an example of the second output process because print data is generated and sent to the printer 2. In addition, when the configuration is such that the print data is generated and sent by the end notification of arrow V, the execution command of arrow N and the sending request of arrow Oa are not required.

[0078] When receiving the reception completion notification from the printer 2 (arrow Q), the auxiliary program 42 sends an execution command request (arrow X) to the universal printing program 41. In response to the request of arrow X, the universal printing program 41 transmits the execution command (arrow Y) to the auxiliary program 42. After receiving the execution command, the auxiliary program 42 returns to arrow U, obtains the intermediate data for the second printing from the memory 12, and transmits it to the universal printing program 41. In this method, N copies of the printed product are created by repeating the process from arrow U to arrow Y as many times as the specified number of copies. In addition, instead of repeating the process of transmitting the intermediate data N times, it is also possible to configure the auxiliary program 42 to generate a copy of the intermediate data, and transmit the intermediate data of all pages of the N copies to the universal printing program 41 in a batch through arrow V.

[0079] After transmitting the N-th intermediate data to the universal print program 41 , if the assist program 42 further receives an execution command (arrow Y) from the universal print program 41 , it transmits an end notification (arrow R) to the universal print program 41 , and ends the processing of the job.

[0080] As described in detail above, the auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment also realizes multiple copy printing by collation. In this embodiment, by making the general print program 41 generate and send print data, the auxiliary program 42 is simple to process and requires less design time.

[0081] In addition, in each of the above embodiments, the collation printing is described, but the auxiliary program 42 of this embodiment also accepts the designation of multiple copy printing by non-collation printing. Figure 2 When the print setting accepted by the arrow D is a setting for printing M copies (M is a natural number greater than 2) using non-collated printing, the operation process of the auxiliary program 42 is as follows, for example. Figure 6 shown.

[0082] The auxiliary program 42 receives the intermediate data from the universal print program 41 (arrow G), and generates one page of print data (arrow H). Then, the auxiliary program 42 transmits the generated one page of print data and a transmission request to the universal print program 41 (arrow J), and the universal print program 41 transmits the one page of print data to the printer 2 (arrow K). As in the case of collation printing, the auxiliary program 42 receives a reception completion notification from the printer 2 (arrow L), transmits an execution command request (arrow M) to the universal print program 41, and thereby receives an execution command (arrow N) from the universal print program 41. By repeating arrows J to N as the designated number of copies M times, the print data of the first page is continuously sent to the printer 2 M times.

[0083] In response to the execution command using arrow N after sending the print data in the number of copies, the auxiliary program 42 returns to arrow H and generates the print data of the next page. Then, the auxiliary program 42 causes the universal print program 41 to repeatedly send the generated next page in the number of copies. Repeating the processing from arrow H to arrow N is an example of non-collating processing.

[0084] In the case of non-collated printing, there are of course many variations. For example, the generation of print data may be performed by the general print program 41. In addition, the sending of print data to the printer 2 may be performed by the auxiliary program 42.

[0085] The auxiliary program 42 of this method accepts a print instruction for printing multiple copies of an image with a range of multiple pages as the print object, and accepts either a designation of printing in batches or a designation of printing in non-batch. Then, according to the accepted designation, the following is executed: Figure 2 to Figure 5 Any of the processing or Figure 6 By also supporting non-collated printing, the degree of freedom of print settings becomes higher.

[0086] In addition, the embodiments disclosed in this specification are merely illustrative and do not limit the present invention in any way. Therefore, the technology disclosed in this specification can of course be improved and deformed in various ways within the scope of its purpose. For example, the device connected to PC1 is not limited to a printer, as long as it is a device with a printing function, such as a multifunction machine, a copier, a fax device, etc. In addition, there can be more than two printers connected to PC1.

[0087] In addition, for print settings other than multiple copy printing, the universal print program 41 may process print settings that can be processed by the universal print program 41, and the auxiliary program 42 may process print settings that cannot be processed by the universal print program 41. In each embodiment, only the processing related to multiple copy printing is described as the operation of the auxiliary program 42, but the auxiliary program 42 may also have other functions.

[0088] In the first or second embodiment, the auxiliary program 42 generates print data, but the print data may be generated by the universal print program 41. For example, the auxiliary program 42 may receive the print data of all pages generated by the universal print program 41, store it in the memory 12, and send it to the printer 2 one by one.

[0089] In addition, in this embodiment, a designation of non-collated printing is also accepted, but it is not necessary to accept it. For example, when a print instruction to print a plurality of copies of a plurality of pages of images is received, collated printing may be performed.

[0090] The auxiliary program 42 may be any program that receives instructions from the OS 21 or the universal print program 41 when printing is performed using the universal print program 41. For example, it may be a print workflow application (Printworkflow) standardized and released by Microsoft Corporation.

[0091] In the embodiment, the auxiliary program 42 is executed by outputting an execution command of the auxiliary program 42 from the universal printing program 41, but the execution timing of the auxiliary program 42 is not limited to this. For example, the auxiliary program 42 may be executed by direct instruction from the OS 21, or the auxiliary program 42 may be a resident auxiliary program. In the case of being resident, the auxiliary program 42 only needs to receive the execution command to perform the above-mentioned operation.

[0092] Furthermore, in any flowchart disclosed in the embodiment, a plurality of processes in any plurality of steps can be arbitrarily changed in execution order or can be executed in parallel within a range where there is no contradiction in the process contents.

[0093] The processes disclosed in the embodiments may be executed by hardware such as a single CPU, multiple CPUs, ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), or a combination thereof. The processes disclosed in the embodiments may be implemented in various ways such as a recording medium or method that records a program for executing the processes.

[0094] Description of symbols

[0095] 1 PC

[0096] 2 Printer

[0097] 11 CPU

[0098] 21 OS

[0099] 41 Universal Printing Program

[0100] 42 Auxiliary programs

[0101] 43 Edit Application

Claims

1. A storage medium storing a support program, wherein the support program is an application executable by a computer of an information processing device and corresponding to a printer connected to the information processing device, characterized in that: A universal printing program is pre-installed in the operating system of the information processing device, and the universal printing program can control the printer to print without using a printer driver. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. When there is a print instruction output from an application program installed in the information processing apparatus to cause the printer to print an image in response to the universal print program, and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy and N copies are sequentially printed one by one, the support program causes the computer to perform the following processing: A first acquisition process is to acquire the print data of the copy obtained by rasterizing the images of the plurality of pages; and a first output process of outputting the N copies one by one in a manner of sending the print data of the one copy acquired in the first acquisition process from the information processing apparatus to the printer as a destination; Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

2. The storage medium storing the support program according to claim 1, characterized in that: In the first output process, the copy of the print data acquired in the first acquisition process is repeatedly transferred N times to the universal printing program, and the universal printing program sends the transferred print data to the printer.

3. The storage medium storing the support program according to claim 1, characterized in that: In the first output process, the copy of the print data acquired in the first acquisition process is repeatedly sent to the printer N times.

4. The storage medium storing the support program according to claim 1, characterized in that: In the first acquisition process, the print data obtained by rasterizing each page is acquired. In the first output process, with respect to the first copy of the print data, the print data is output every time the print data of each page is acquired.

5. The storage medium storing the support program according to claim 1, characterized in that: In the first output process, after the acquisition of the print data of the copy is completed by the first acquisition process, the output of the print data is started.

6. A storage medium storing a support program, wherein the support program is an application executable by a computer of an information processing device and corresponding to a printer connected to the information processing device, characterized in that: A universal printing program is pre-installed in the operating system of the information processing device, and the universal printing program can control the printer to print without using a printer driver. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. In a case where there is a print instruction outputted from an application program installed in the information processing apparatus to cause the printer to print an image in relation to the universal print program, and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy and N copies are sequentially printed one by one, the support program causes the computer to perform the following second output processing: receiving intermediate printing data based on the images of the plurality of pages from the universal printing program, and transmitting the received intermediate printing data to the universal printing program one by one for the N copies, whereby the print data of the N copies is outputted in a manner of being sent from the information processing device with the printer as a sending destination, Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

7. The storage medium storing the support program according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that: When the printing instruction is issued to the universal printing program, and in a job based on the printing instruction, the printer is caused to execute non-collated printing of printing a plurality of pages of images as a range to be printed one by one continuously M times, the support program causes the computer to execute the following non-collated transmission processing: The printing data obtained by rasterizing the images of the plurality of pages is continuously sent to the printer M times page by page for all pages. Here, M is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

8. An information processing device comprising a computer, characterized in that: The operating system of the information processing device has a universal print program as a pre-installed program, The information processing device has installed therein a support program corresponding to an application of a printer connected to the information processing device and an application program capable of inputting a print instruction for causing the printer to print an image via the universal print program. The universal printing program can control the printer to print without using a printer driver. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. When there is the print instruction output from the application program, and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy and N copies are sequentially printed one by one, the computer performs the following processing through the support program: A first acquisition process is to acquire the print data of the copy obtained by rasterizing the images of the plurality of pages; and a first output process of outputting the N copies one by one in a manner of sending the print data of the one copy acquired in the first acquisition process from the information processing apparatus to the printer as a destination; Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

9. An information processing device comprising a computer, characterized in that: The operating system of the information processing device has a universal print program as a pre-installed program, The information processing device has installed therein a support program corresponding to an application of a printer connected to the information processing device and an application program capable of inputting a print instruction for causing the printer to print an image via the universal print program. The universal printing program can control the printer to print without using a printer driver. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. When there is the print instruction output from the application program, and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which N copies of images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy, the computer performs the following second output processing through the support program: receiving intermediate printing data based on the images of the plurality of pages from the universal printing program, and transmitting the received intermediate printing data to the universal printing program one by one for the N copies, whereby the print data of the N copies is outputted in a manner of being sent from the information processing device with the printer as a sending destination, Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

10. A printing method, A printer is connected to the information processing device. The operating system of the information processing device has a universal printing program as a pre-installed program, and the universal printing program can control the printer to perform printing without using a printer driver. The information processing device has installed therein a support program corresponding to an application of the printer connected to the information processing device and an application program capable of inputting a print instruction for causing the printer to print an image via the universal print program. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. The printing method causes the printer to execute printing based on the print data generated by the information processing device, characterized in that: In the case where the print instruction output from the application exists and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy and N copies are printed one by one, The support program is used to obtain the print data of the copy obtained by rasterizing the images of the plurality of pages. The support program outputs the N copies of the obtained print data one by one in a manner of sending the obtained print data from the information processing device to the printer as a sending destination. Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

11. A printing method, A printer is connected to the information processing device. The operating system of the information processing device has a universal printing program as a pre-installed program, and the universal printing program can control the printer to perform printing without using a printer driver. The information processing device has installed therein a support program corresponding to an application of the printer connected to the information processing device and an application program capable of inputting a print instruction for causing the printer to print an image via the universal print program. The support program receives commands from the universal printing program and executes various processes based on the received commands. The printing method causes the printer to execute printing based on the print data generated by the information processing device, characterized in that: In the case where the print instruction output from the application exists and in a job based on the print instruction, the printer is caused to perform collation printing in which images of a plurality of pages as a range to be printed are printed as one copy and N copies are printed one by one, By means of the support program, intermediate printing data based on the images of the plurality of pages are received from the universal printing program, and the received intermediate printing data are transmitted to the universal printing program one by one for the N copies, whereby the print data of the N copies are outputted in a manner of being sent from the information processing device with the printer as the sending destination, Here, N is a natural number greater than or equal to 2.

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