A method, system and device for electronic presentation of printed content

Abstract

This invention relates to the fields of computer software printing technology and information display technology, and in particular to a method, system, and device for electronically presenting printed content. The method includes: organizing the content to be printed in the printing program of an application; the printed content is document data that has been typeset, paginated, and formatted, and is distinct from the real-time screen display; directly outputting the printed content to an electronic display device, or processing the printed content before outputting it to an electronic display device; and the electronic display device receiving and displaying the printed content. This invention supports outputting different pages of a multi-page document to different electronic display devices or different display areas of the same device, and can also simultaneously output to a physical printer or a virtual printer. Optionally, it can write relevant data of the printed content into an RFID electronic tag. This invention achieves a "content-to-screen" effect, distinct from existing screen mirroring technologies that produce "screen-to-screen" results, where the data source is the printed content rather than a real-time screen mirror.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the fields of computer software printing technology and information display technology, and in particular to a method, system and device for electronically presenting printed content. Background Technology

[0002] In enterprise information systems, printing is a common function across all business modules. Whether it's a large system like ERP, WMS, or OA, or a simple inventory management tool, all are equipped with printing functionality for outputting business data, documents, reports, and notices. When writing printing programs, software engineers use their programming language to call the printing interface provided by the operating system, organize the content to be printed, send the data to a physical printer for paper output, or use a virtual printer to output electronic files such as PDFs.

[0003] However, the output of traditional printing technology has always been limited to paper or documents. With the advancement of paperless office concepts and the widespread use of electronic display devices, displaying printed content directly on electronic screens has become a new demand. While existing "screen mirroring" technology can display screen content on another display device, its essence is "screen-to-screen"—that is, a complete mirror copy of the current screen's content to another screen. This method has the following fundamental limitations: First, screen mirroring transmits the real-time screen display, not the printed content organized within the application. The current screen display typically includes interface elements unrelated to the printed content, such as toolbars, menus, status bars, and cursors, while printed content is document data that has undergone specialized typesetting, pagination, and formatting. The two are fundamentally different in terms of data source and content composition.

[0004] Second, screen mirroring cannot display different pages of a multi-page document independently. When a document contains multiple pages, screen mirroring can only display the page currently displayed on the screen. It cannot send different pages to different display devices for independent presentation, nor can it display multiple pages simultaneously on the same display device.

[0005] Third, screen mirroring can only output a real-time mirror of the current screen and cannot process the printed data before generating the display content, such as format conversion, data extraction, watermark addition, etc.

[0006] In summary, there is a lack of technical solutions in this field that enable software development engineers to actively output the organized printed content directly to an electronic display device for presentation when writing printing programs, achieving a "content-to-screen" technical effect that is different from "screen-to-screen" projection. Summary of the Invention

[0007] In order to overcome the above-mentioned defects of the prior art, the present invention provides a method, system and device for electronic presentation of printed content, so as to solve the problems existing in the background art.

[0008] This invention provides the following technical solution: a method for electronically presenting printed content, comprising the following steps: In the application's printing program, the content to be printed is organized. The content to be printed is document data that has been typed, paginated, and formatted, and is different from the real-time screen display. The printed content can be directly output to an electronic display device, or the printed content can be processed and then output to an electronic display device. The electronic display device receives and displays the printed content.

[0009] Furthermore, the printed content includes any of the following forms: original printed content, printed content after format conversion, printed content after data extraction, and printed content after image rendering; the printed content includes all or part of the data it contains, and the processing includes, but is not limited to: OCR recognition and rearrangement, key data extraction and overlay printing, format optimization, layout adaptation, adding watermarks, adding headers and footers, and storing printed content. The core feature of this type of electronic output is that its visual content comes from the software's print data stream, rather than a real-time mirror displayed on the current screen.

[0010] Furthermore, the electronic display devices include, but are not limited to, fixed display devices, mobile display devices, handheld devices, browser windows, application interfaces, e-ink screens, LCD screens, LED screens, OLED screens, tablet computers, smartphones, video walls, and smart TVs.

[0011] Furthermore, the ways in which users trigger printing operations include, but are not limited to: clicking the "Print" button, the "Print Preview" button, the "Export" button, the "Publish" button, the "Generate Report" button, or any user operation that triggers the generation of print data.

[0012] Furthermore, the method also includes simultaneously outputting the printed content to a physical printer or a virtual printer.

[0013] Furthermore, it also includes outputting the printed content or processed printed content to the RFID read / write module for writing to the RFID electronic tag physically associated with the electronic display device.

[0014] Furthermore, different pages of the printed content can be output to different electronic display devices, or different pages can be output to different display areas of the same electronic display device.

[0015] An electronic presentation system for printed content, comprising: The print content organization module is used to organize the print content to be output in the application's printing program. The print content is document data that has been typed, paginated, and formatted, and is different from the real-time screen display. The output module is used to directly output the printed content to an electronic display device, or to process the printed content and then output it to an electronic display device. An electronic display device for receiving and presenting the printed content.

[0016] Furthermore, the output module is also used to output different pages of the printed content to different electronic display devices, or to output different pages to different display areas of the same electronic display device.

[0017] Furthermore, when the computer program is executed by the processor, it implements the method as described in any one of the above statements.

[0018] The technical effects and advantages of this invention are as follows: This invention directly outputs printed content to an electronic display device. The data source is document data that has been formatted, paginated, and structured within the application, rather than a real-time mirror of the current screen, thus avoiding interference from irrelevant elements such as toolbars and menus in the projected image. It supports outputting different pages of a multi-page document to different display devices or different display areas of the same device, achieving a multi-page independent presentation function that existing projection technologies cannot achieve. Software engineers can actively select the output target when writing the printing program, enabling the software itself to have the ability to electronically present printed content, unlike the post-processing mirroring of projection technologies.

[0019] From the perspective of various front-line operators, warehouse managers no longer need to carry paper documents and move between shelves; they can see real-time inventory data on the screen, and the document information is automatically refreshed as the system updates. Workshop supervisors no longer need to repeatedly print and replace paper boards; the screen automatically synchronizes when production tasks change. Finance personnel no longer need to print a large number of reports for review; leaders can view them directly on the screen, reducing paper waste while improving information transmission efficiency. Attached Figure Description

[0020] Figure 1 This is a flowchart of a method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0021] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the system architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0022] To make the objectives, technical solutions, and advantages of this invention clearer, the invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be noted that the following embodiments are only for explaining the invention and are not intended to limit the scope of protection of the invention.

[0023] The core concept of this invention lies in the fact that, during the software development phase, software engineers proactively add a path to output printed content to an electronic display device when writing the printing program, achieving the technical effect of "content to screen." The "printing program" mentioned below refers to the program module within the application responsible for organizing the printed content and calling the operating system's printing interface to execute the printing task. The "printed content" mentioned below refers to the document data organized internally by the application and sent to the printing subsystem, which has undergone typesetting, pagination, and formatting, and is distinct from the real-time image currently displayed on the screen.

[0024] Example 1 This embodiment is based on "Gold Printer". "Gold Printer" is a printing control developed using the C# programming language, providing functions for organizing, formatting, paginating, and rendering printed content, and supporting output to a physical printer. In this embodiment, the developers added the function of outputting printed content to an electronic display device based on the "Gold Printer" source code.

[0025] The specific implementation is as follows: A "Output to Screen" checkbox control is added to the print dialog box of "Gold Printer". When the user checks this option and clicks the print button, after organizing the print content, the program utilizes "Gold Printer's" existing print content rendering capabilities to render each page of print content as a PNG image file. The rendering process calls the Graphics class under the System.Drawing namespace of the .NET Framework to create a Bitmap object proportional to the print page, drawing text, table lines, images, and other print elements page by page onto the bitmap, and saving it as a PNG file.

[0026] After generating the image file, the program uses the HttpClient class under the System.Net.Http namespace to encapsulate the PNG image data into an HTTP POST request and sends it to the electronic display device at the specified IP address. In this embodiment, the electronic display device is a 13.3-inch e-ink screen device connected to the same local area network via WiFi, with a built-in lightweight HTTP server program listening on a specified port for data reception. Upon receiving the image data, the display device calls the onboard image decoder to render the PNG data onto the screen for display.

[0027] When a user clicks the print button, the printed content is simultaneously sent to the physical printer to output a paper receipt, and then to the e-ink screen for display. Warehouse managers no longer need to hold the paper documents; they can simply look up and see the receipt content on the screen, achieving a "content-to-screen" effect. This is fundamentally different from existing "screen mirroring" technology: screen mirroring completely copies the software interface (including menu bars, toolbars, cursors, etc.) displayed on the current computer screen to another screen, while this embodiment outputs clean, formatted, printed content to the display device, with only the document itself displayed on the screen, without any interface interference elements.

[0028] The developers added minimal code to the existing "Gold Printer," primarily by calling existing print content rendering interfaces to obtain bitmap data for each page and then adding network sending functionality. This demonstrates the practicality and ease of implementation of the invention's technical solution.

[0029] Example 2 This example demonstrates various methods for processing printed content before output. After generating each page's PNG image in "Gold Printer," the developers added an optional processing pipeline before sending it to the electronic display device.

[0030] One processing method involves layout redesign and screen adaptation. Since e-ink screens are typically smaller than regular printing paper (such as A4), directly scaling the entire page content can result in fonts that are too small to read. The program intelligently analyzes the rendered bitmap, identifies table and text areas on the page, extracts the table data, and re-layouts it according to the smaller screen size, generating a simplified layout suitable for reading on e-ink screens.

[0031] The second processing method involves extracting and structuring key business data. The program uses an OCR engine to recognize text content in the bitmap, extracting key fields such as document number, product name, quantity, amount, and date using regular expressions. The extracted structured data is then sent to the display device in JSON format, where it is re-rendered based on a preset template. This method transmits lightweight structured data rather than a complete image, saving network bandwidth and display device processing resources.

[0032] The third processing method involves adding watermarks or QR codes. The program overlays watermark text such as "Internal Document" or "Print Time: 2024-01-15 14:30" onto the bitmap, or generates a QR code containing document traceability information in the corner of the page. The recipient can quickly retrieve the complete information of the document by scanning the QR code.

[0033] The fourth processing method is data desensitization. When the printed content is sent to a display device that is not fully controlled, the program automatically identifies sensitive information such as mobile phone numbers and ID card numbers in the bitmap, blurs or partially masks them before sending.

[0034] The fifth processing method involves image compression and encrypted transmission. For scenarios with limited network bandwidth, the program converts PNG images to JPEG format and adjusts the compression ratio to reduce file size. For sensitive scenarios, the program encrypts the image data using the AES algorithm before transmission, and the display device decrypts it using a preset key before displaying it.

[0035] Regardless of the processing performed on the printed content as described above, as long as the content ultimately presented on the electronic display device originates from the printed content organized and output by the application program through the printing program, it falls within the protection scope of this invention, and others may not claim that it does not constitute infringement on the grounds of "additional processing".

[0036] Example 3 This example demonstrates the function of outputting different pages of a multi-page document to different electronic display devices. A manufacturing company uses production management software developed based on "Golden Printer" and needs to display a multi-page work order report simultaneously on screens in different workshops: page 1 is the production task list for the final assembly workshop, page 2 is the production task list for the painting workshop, and page 3 is the production task list for the packaging workshop.

[0037] The developers added page allocation logic to the printing program: After each page of print content is rendered, the program sends the PNG image of page 1 to the display device in the final assembly workshop (IP address 192.168.1.101), page 2 to the display device in the painting workshop (IP address 192.168.1.102), and page 3 to the display device in the packaging workshop (IP address 192.168.1.103) according to a preset page allocation configuration table. Each workshop's display device independently receives and displays its own task list page, allowing workshop workers to see their workshop's production tasks without leaving their workstations.

[0038] In another application scenario, a four-page sales report needs to be displayed simultaneously on a video wall in a showroom. The video wall consists of four independent LCD display units arranged in a 2x2 matrix. Developers configure the page allocation scheme in the printing program: page 1 is sent to the top-left display unit, page 2 to the top-right display unit, page 3 to the bottom-left display unit, and page 4 to the bottom-right display unit. Each of the four display units receives and displays the content of its respective page, allowing viewers to see all pages of the report simultaneously on the video wall. This ability to allocate different pages to different display terminals or different display areas of the same terminal is something existing projection technology cannot achieve—projection can only copy the page currently displayed on the screen and cannot independently send different pages to different targets.

[0039] Example 4 This embodiment demonstrates several ways to trigger the output of printed content to an electronic display device. Besides clicking the "Print" button in the toolbar, users can also trigger it in the following ways: clicking the "Send to Screen" button in the print preview interface, using the "File → Export to Screen" option in the menu bar, using a keyboard shortcut, or selecting the "Send to Display Device" option from the right-click menu. In scheduled task scenarios, the program can also be configured to automatically trigger report generation and send the printed content to a designated display device at a fixed time each day, without manual operation.

[0040] Example 5 This embodiment demonstrates an optional RFID writing extension function. In an enterprise equipment asset management scenario, each electronic display device has an RFID tag affixed to its casing. While the printing program outputs the printed content to the electronic display device, it extracts key information from the printed content (such as device number, asset name, printing time, and operator), calls the SDK interface of an RFID reader / writer connected to the computer via USB, and writes this information into the RFID tag affixed to the display device. Subsequently, asset management personnel can use a handheld RFID reader to scan the tag on the display device to quickly query the source and update time of the currently displayed content, realizing the electronic tag asset management function. This function is an optional extension of the present invention and does not affect the core "content-to-screen" technical solution.

[0041] In terms of system deployment, the print content organization module and the output module are integrated into the application code as part of the application. Developers incorporate the logic for outputting to the electronic display device into the printing function module during the software development phase. When the application is deployed to the user's computer and the user performs a print operation, the system automatically completes the entire process of organizing the print content, performing optional processing, and sending it to the display device. Each display device can be fixedly installed in its corresponding physical location and communicates with the computer running the application via wired or wireless network.

[0042] Regarding computer-readable storage media, the program code of the method described in this invention is stored in a computer-readable storage medium, which includes, but is not limited to, a computer internal hard disk, a solid-state drive, a USB flash drive, an SD memory card, an optical disk, or a network storage device. When the program is executed by a processor, it implements all the above method steps.

[0043] The above are merely specific embodiments of this application. The specific parameters and device models used in the embodiments are merely illustrative examples and are not intended to limit the scope of this invention. The scope of protection of this invention is not limited thereto. Equivalent variations or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the scope of the technical concept disclosed in this application should all be included within the scope of protection of this invention.

[0044] It is particularly important to clarify that the "electronic presentation of printed content" described in this invention is fundamentally different from existing "screen projection" technology: screen projection completely mirrors the content displayed on the current screen to another screen, with its data source being the real-time screen image, essentially a "screen-to-screen" copy; this invention outputs the printed content organized and sent to the printing subsystem by the application to an electronic display device, with its data source being document data that has been typeset, paginated, and formatted, essentially a "content-to-screen" copy. Regardless of whether the display device is an e-ink screen, LCD screen, LED screen, tablet computer, smartphone, browser window, or application interface, as long as the presented data originates from the printed content of the application rather than the current screen image, it falls within the protection scope of this invention.

[0045] Furthermore, regardless of whether the printed content is output as is or processed through format conversion, data extraction, image rendering, watermark addition, compression and encryption before output, as long as the final content is derived from the printed content organized and output by the application, it falls within the protection scope of this invention. Others may not claim that they have not infringed on the grounds that "additional processing was carried out" or "only some data was extracted".

[0046] In summary, the scope of protection of this application shall be determined by the scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of electronically presenting printed content, characterized by, Includes the following steps: In the application's printing program, the content to be printed is organized. The content to be printed is document data that has been typed, paginated, and formatted, and is different from the real-time screen display. The printed content can be directly output to an electronic display device, or the printed content can be processed and then output to an electronic display device. The electronic display device receives and displays the printed content.

2. A method of electronic presentation of printed content according to claim 1, characterized in that: The printed content includes any of the following forms: original printed content, printed content after format conversion, printed content after data extraction, and printed content after image rendering; the printed content includes all or part of the data it contains, and the processing includes, but is not limited to: OCR recognition and rearrangement, key data extraction and overlay printing, format optimization, layout adaptation, adding watermarks, adding headers and footers, and storing printed content. The core feature of this type of electronic output is that its visual content comes from the software's print data stream, rather than a real-time mirror displayed on the current screen.

3. A method for electronic presentation of printed content according to claim 1, characterized in that: The electronic display devices include, but are not limited to, fixed display devices, mobile display devices, handheld devices, browser windows, application interfaces, e-ink screens, LCD screens, LED screens, OLED screens, tablet computers, smartphones, video walls, and smart TVs.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein: Users can trigger printing operations in ways including but not limited to: clicking the "Print" button, the "Print Preview" button, the "Export" button, the "Publish" button, the "Generate Report" button, or any user action that triggers the generation of print data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein: The method also includes simultaneously outputting the printed content to a physical printer or a virtual printer.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein: During the process of the application's printing program outputting the printed content to the electronic display device, it also includes outputting the printed content or the processed printed content to the RFID read / write module for writing to the RFID electronic tag associated with the electronic display device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein: The different pages of the printed content can be output to different electronic display devices, or the different pages can be output to different display areas of the same electronic display device.

8. A print content electronic presentation system characterized by, include: The print content organization module is used to organize the print content to be output in the application's printing program. The print content is document data that has been typed, paginated, and formatted, and is different from the real-time screen display. The output module is used to directly output the printed content to an electronic display device, or to process the printed content and then output it to an electronic display device. An electronic display device for receiving and presenting the printed content.

9. A print content electronic presentation system according to claim 8, wherein: The output module is also used to output different pages of the printed content to different electronic display devices, or to output different pages to different display areas of the same electronic display device.

10. A computer-readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon, characterized in that, When the computer program is executed by a processor, it implements the method as described in any one of claims 1 to 7.

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