Print control device, print control method, and program

Abstract

To solve the problem that consideration given to timing of specifying print settings to a printer driver in applications with print preview has been insufficient, which leads to a risk of mismatch between a print preview and a printed result depending on a design of an application.SOLUTION: An image processing device disclosed herein is configured to display a preview of a print result in advance and perform printing by issuing a print instruction to a printer driver, and comprises setting means for setting print settings that affect drawing capability information of the print driver and preview display of the image processing device on the printer driver before displaying a preview.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to a print control device, a print control method, and a program.

Background Art

[0002] Among applications, there are those that specify various print settings to a printer driver and preview on the screen how the print paper will be printed before executing the print. As a prior art related to print preview, Patent Document 1 discloses a technique related to preview of double-sided printing.

Prior Art Documents

Patent Documents

[0003]

Patent Document 1

Summary of the Invention

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

[0004] However, in the prior art until now, the timing of print specification to the printer driver has not been particularly considered. Therefore, for example, when a print setting that changes the print resolution is made immediately before executing the print, there is a risk that a problem may occur in which the preview result displayed until then and the print execution result change.

[0005] An object of the present invention is to provide a print control device capable of surely suppressing a problem in which the print preview and the print result are different in an application that specifies a print setting related to drawing such as print resolution to a printer driver.

Means for Solving the Problems

[0006] In order to solve the above problems, one aspect of the printing system of the present invention is an image processing apparatus that previews a printing result and executes printing by giving a printing instruction to a printer driver, and includes setting means for setting the drawing ability information of the printer driver and the printing settings that affect the preview display of the image processing apparatus in the printer driver at a timing prior to performing the preview display.

Advantages of the Invention

[0007] According to the present invention, in an application that designates printing settings related to drawing such as print resolution to a printer driver, it is possible to surely suppress the problem that the print preview and the print result are different.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0008]

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Modes for Carrying Out the Invention

[0009] Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Note that the following embodiments do not limit the present invention according to the claims, and not all combinations of the features described in the present embodiments are essential for the solution means of the present invention.

[0010] <<Embodiment 1>> <Hardware Configuration of the Printing System> FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of a printing system. In this figure, host computer 101 is an example of an information processing apparatus, and has an input interface 110, a CPU 111, a ROM 112, a RAM 113, an external storage device 114, an output interface 115, and an input / output interface 116. Further, input devices such as a keyboard 118 and a pointing device 117 are connected to the input interface 110, and a display device such as a display unit 119 is connected to the output interface 115.

[0011] An initialization program is stored in the ROM 112, and an application program group, an operating system (OS), a printer driver, and various other data are stored in the external storage device 114. The RAM 113 is used as a work memory or the like when executing various programs stored in the external storage device 114.

[0012] In this embodiment, the CPU 111 executes the functions described below in the host computer 101 and the processes according to the flowchart described below by performing processing according to the procedures of the programs stored in the ROM 112. The printing device 102, which is a device, is connected to the host computer 101 via the input / output interface 116. Here, the host computer 101 and the printing device 102 are configured separately, but they may be configured as one information processing apparatus. Note that, although the printing device will be described by taking an inkjet printer that prints by ejecting ink onto a paper surface as an example, printing may be executed by other methods (for example, an electrophotographic method). Further, the host computer 101 may be a desktop personal computer, a smartphone, or a notebook personal computer.

[0013] <Configuration of the printing system> FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing the configuration of the printing system in this embodiment. In the following description, it is assumed that Windows is installed in the OS 201 as an aspect of this embodiment.

[0014] The application 202 is software that can layout image data for printing and execute printing.

[0015] On the application 202, after creating the data for printing, the user makes various printing settings for the printer driver 203 provided by the printer device vendor. The screen for making printing settings is displayed by the user interface unit 204 called from the application 202 via the OS 201. The user can make various settings required for printing, such as specifying the paper type and paper size, on the printing settings screen. Note that the application 202 can also receive an instruction from the user to change the printing settings directly on the application screen without displaying the above-mentioned printing settings screen by using functions of the OS such as PrintTicket and PrintCapabilities.

[0016] After completing the printing settings, the user instructs the application 202 to execute printing by pressing the print button on the application 202. In response to the printing instruction from the user, the application 202 creates print data and passes the print data to the graphics processing unit 205 of the printer driver 203 via the OS 201.

[0017] The graphics processing unit 205 performs color processing, rendering, etc. on the print data, then converts it into a data format interpretable by the printing device 102, and transmits the print data to the printing device 102 via the communication unit 206.

[0018] Thereafter, ink is ejected from the recording head onto the recording medium fed into the printing device 102, and an image is formed.

[0019] <An example of the application screen> FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a screen of an application 202 that can freely arrange and print an image on printing paper. Although not particularly illustrated, for example, there are a method in which the user opens an explorer from the file menu of the application 202 to input an image and a method in which the image is input by directly dragging and dropping the image into the application 202. Also, the format of the image may be any format that the application 202 can interpret. For example, image formats such as Bitmap and Tiff are conceivable. Also, a vector format such as XPS (XML Paper Specification) or EMF (Enhanced Metafile) may be used.

[0020] The preview area 301 is an area for displaying the paper area 302 and the image 303 laid out by the user. While checking the preview, the user can, for example, operate the margin setting 308 described later to adjust the size, position, and margin area 304 of the image 303.

[0021] The printer setting 305 is a combo box for receiving the designation of the printer driver 203 to be used for printing. The paper size setting 306 is a combo box for receiving the designation of the paper size to be used for printing, and the print orientation setting 307 is a combo box for receiving the designation of the print orientation. The application 202 can acquire the capability information that can be set in the paper size setting 306 and the print orientation setting 307 by using the functions of the OS such as PrintCapabilities for the printer driver 203 selected by the user in the printer setting 305. According to the values set in 306 and 307, the application 202 determines the size and orientation of the paper area 302.

[0022] The margin setting 308 is a control for specifying the size of the margin area 304. The user can adjust the size of the margin area 304 on the paper area 302 by adjusting the sliders for the top, bottom, left, and right respectively. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the image 303 is arranged in a state of fitting the printing area excluding this margin area 304. Note that a configuration may be adopted in which the user directly moves the image 303 using a pointing device or the like, and the size of the margin area 304 is automatically determined.

[0023] The copy number setting 309 is a numeric input control for accepting the specification of the number of copies to be printed. The user can specify the number of copies to be printed here.

[0024] The print button 310 is a button for sending the print setting information set in 306, 307, 309 and the layout information (image drawing information) of the paper area 302 edited by the user to the printer driver 203 specified in 305. In the example of FIG. 3, an image in landscape orientation with A4 size will be printed 20 copies.

[0025] <Print setting reflection timing> Next, with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4, the timing at which the application 202 in this embodiment designates print settings to the printer driver 203 will be described. This flowchart starts immediately after the application 202 is launched, at the timing when the printer driver to be printed is changed in the printer settings 305, or at the timing when the print settings are changed. Although the application 202 is described as the main body of this process, in reality, the corresponding functions are realized by the CPU 111 executing the corresponding program.

[0026] First, in S401, the application 202 checks whether there is a print setting related to drawing. If it exists, the process proceeds to S402, and if it does not exist, the process proceeds to S403.

[0027] Here, the print settings related to drawing are the print settings that should be specified for the printer driver 203 that affects the drawing in the preview area 301. In this embodiment, the paper size setting 306 and the print orientation setting 307 are applicable. Note that the margin setting 308 affects the preview area 301, but since it is not a setting specified for the printer driver 203, it is excluded. In addition to the settings directly specified by the user, there are also print settings implicitly set by the application 202 for the printer driver 203. For example, for an application that wants to print an image beautifully at a high resolution, there is one that specifies a high-resolution print setting for the printer driver 203. The printer driver 203 may sometimes deliberately lower the print resolution to allow the application to print without a load so that it can accept printing from any application without failure. The printer driver 203 releases the print resolution up to 1200 dpi, which is normally only allowed up to 600 dpi, only when a high-resolution specification is received. Since the high-resolution setting affects the number of pixels that can be drawn, in S401, it is determined as a print setting related to drawing.

[0028] In S402, the application 202 performs print settings related to drawing on the printer driver 203 and transfers the process to S403. In this embodiment, the paper size setting 306, the print orientation setting 307, the high-resolution setting described above, etc. are applicable. As a method of setting the printer driver 203, it may be set using a PrintTicket or the like provided by the OS, or it may be set using an SDK (Software Development Kit) prepared by the vendor that provides the printer driver.

[0029] In S403, if the application 202 has printing settings that should preferably be set in advance to the printer driver 203 other than the printing settings set in S402, the settings are made and the process proceeds to S404. For example, although not shown in FIG. 3, for an application that can set the paper feeding method, the paper feeding method is set here in advance. Depending on the type of paper feeding method, there may be restrictions on the paper sizes that can be selected in the paper size setting 306. By setting the paper feeding method in the printer driver 203 in advance, the user can appropriately select only the printable paper sizes. It is desirable to set in advance in the printer driver 203 such printing settings that affect the setting values of other printing settings.

[0030] In S404, the application 202 acquires various capability information from the printer driver 203 and the process proceeds to S405. The acquisition of the capability information can be performed using APIs such as PrintCapabilities and GetDeviceCaps provided by the OS. Here, the application 202 acquires the necessary drawing information (such as the number of pixels in the vertical and horizontal directions of the printable area and the physical margin information around the paper) for the preview area 301.

[0031] In S405, the application 202 displays a preview image representing the print result in the preview area 301 based on the drawing information acquired in S404, the setting information set in 305 to 308, and the image 303, and ends this process.

[0032] Note that when the user changes the settings in 305 to 307, the application 202 executes the flowchart in FIG. 4 again. At this time, it is also possible to skip the setting operation for the printing settings that have already been set in the printer driver 203. Note that since the margin setting 308 and the number of copies setting 309 are not settings that affect the capability information of the printer driver 203, it is not necessary to re-execute the flowchart in FIG. 4 even if the values are changed by the user.

[0033] After the user makes various settings, the user presses the print button 310. When the print button 310 is pressed, the application 202 reflects the print settings (for example, the number of copies setting 309) that have not been set in the printer driver 203 until now to the printer driver 203 and then executes printing to the printer driver 203.

[0034] By the above processing, the application 202 can surely specify the print settings related to drawing to the printer driver before the preview display. For example, if a high-resolution setting is made at the timing when the print button 310 is pressed, it will also affect the printable area and physical margins that can be drawn at the printing timing. Depending on how the application 202 is made, there is a risk that the position and size of the image 303 will shift slightly because the drawing information has changed, the value of the margin setting 308 will return to the initial value, etc., and the print result will be different from the previous preview result. By using the present invention, the user can surely execute printing as per the print preview.

[0035] Note that it is also possible to avoid the above problem by reflecting all the print settings, including the print settings related to drawing, to the printer driver before the preview display. However, depending on the target printer driver and print settings, there is a concern that the performance will deteriorate if the print settings are reflected again every time the user changes the setting value. Therefore, for print settings that are sufficient when set at the time of printing execution, it is preferable to set them before printing.

[0036] <<Embodiment 2>> The above-described embodiments can also be implemented by executing the following processes. That is, a recording medium storing program codes of software that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied to a system or an apparatus. Then, a computer (or a CPU or an MPU) of the system or the apparatus reads and executes the program codes stored in the recording medium. Thereby, the above-described object can be achieved. In this case, the program codes themselves read from the storage medium realize the functions of the above-described embodiments, and the storage medium storing the program codes constitutes the present invention.

[0037] As the recording medium for supplying the program codes, for example, a flexible disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory card, a ROM, a DVD, or the like can be used.

[0038] Further, by executing the program codes read by the computer, not only are the functions of the above-described embodiments realized. Based on the instructions of the program codes, an OS or the like running on the computer performs part or all of the actual processing, and the case where the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing is also included.

[0039] Furthermore, the program codes read from the recording medium may be written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer. Then, based on the instructions of the program codes, a CPU or the like provided in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit may perform part or all of the actual processing. The functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

Explanation of Signs

[0040] 101 Host computer 102 Printing apparatus 201 OS 202 Application 203 Printer driver 204 User interface unit 205 Graphics processing unit 206 Communication unit

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus that executes printing by previewing a print result in advance and giving a print instruction to a printer driver, comprising: setting means for setting, in the printer driver, drawing ability information of the printer driver and print settings that affect preview display of the image processing apparatus at a timing prior to performing the preview display. The image processing apparatus is characterized by this.

2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print setting is a setting for changing an upper limit of a print resolution of the printer driver.

3. The image processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 2, characterized in that not only print settings are specified to the printer driver prior to preview display, but also for print settings that do not affect drawing, the print settings are specified to the printer driver immediately before print execution.

Images