One touch printing

• US 20040184099A1
• Filed: 03/18/2004
• Published: 09/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Zamtec Limited (Memjet Limited)
• Original Assignee: Silverbrook Research Pty Limited
• Inventors: Silverbrook, Kia, Lapstun, Paul
• Application Number:
  US10/803,079
• Publication Number:
  US 20040184099A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.15
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/01 Ink jet
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/14427 Structure of ink jet print heads with thermal bend detached actuators
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/175 Ink supply systems ; Circuit parts therefor
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2002/14435 Moving nozzle made of thermal bend detached actuator
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 3/28 for printing downwardly on flat surfaces, e.g. of books, drawings, boxes , envelopes, e.g. flat-bed ink-jet printers
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 3/445 Printers integrated in other types of apparatus, e.g. printers integrated in cameras
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1601 Constructional details related to the housing of computer displays, e.g. of CRT monitors, of flat displays constructional details related to flat displays integrated in a portable computer, e.g. laptop, handheld computer G06F1/1637; constructional details related to television receivers H04N5/64

Abstract

A printer configured to receive documents to be printed from a computer system, the printer including an interface, and being configured to: receive, via the interface, input from a user indicative of a print command; send, from the printer to the computer system, a print request; receive, from the computer system and in response to the print request, a document to be printed; and print the document.

Claims

1. A printer configured to receive documents to be printed from a computer system, the printer including an interface, and being configured to:

receive, via the interface, input from a user indicative of a print command;

send, from the printer to the computer system, a print request;

receive, from the computer system and in response to the print request, a document to be printed; and

print the document.

2. A printer according to claim 1, wherein the document received from the computer system is a current active document being displayed by the computer system.

3. A printer according to claim 1, wherein the printer is housed in a housing that includes a display for displaying a graphical user interface.

4. A printer according to claim 3, wherein the display has a viewable area that measures at least 40 cm on the diagonal.

5. A printer according to claim 4, wherein the display is a flat panel display.

6. A printer according to claim 4, wherein the flat panel display defines a plane, the printer including a paper path that includes component that is substantially planar parallel to the plane.

7. A printer according to claim 1, wherein the interface includes a “

print”

button.

8. A printer according to claim 7, configured to interpret a single press of the “

print”

button as the input.

9. A printer according to claim 2, wherein the computer system is configured and programmed to display a graphical user interface (GUI) having one or more windows, of which one is the focus window at any given time, the active document being that window that is the focus at the time the print request is received.

10. A printing system including a printer according to claim 1 and a computer system, the computer system running a print control program and at least one application program capable of displaying or generating the document to a user, wherein the application program exposes a print function that can be invoked by the print control program, the computer system being configured and programmed such that, in response to receiving the print request, the print control program invokes the exposed print function of the application program, thereby causing the document to be sent to the printer for printing.

11. A printing system according to claim 10, wherein:

the computer system displays a graphical user interface (GUI) having one or more windows, each of which is associated with an application program, and wherein only one of the windows is a focus window at any given time; and

the print control program is configured to determine which of one or more of the plurality of application programs is associated with the focus window, and to invoke the exposed print function of that application program.

12. A printer according to claim 11, wherein a record of each of a plurality of the application programs running on the computer is stored in a table, the print control program being configured to perform the determination of which of the application programs is associated with the focus window by consulting the table.

13. A printer according to claim 12, wherein the table is a Running Object Table.

14. A printer according to claim 12 or 13, wherein multiple documents of at least one of the applications can simultaneously be run on the computer system, each of the documents having its own window, the print control program being configured to determine which of the multiple documents of the application, or which application, is associated with the focus window.

15. A printer according to claim 11, wherein the exposed print function is an Automation interface function.

28. A method according to claim 10, wherein the exposed print function is an Automation interface function.

47. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including a flat panel display for displaying images from a computer;

and, the printer including a printhead for printing onto paper.

48. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including:

a flat panel display for displaying images from a computer, a stand for holding the flat panel display in an operative position; and

the printer including a printhead for printing onto paper, wherein the stand includes at least one receptacle configured to accept at least one replaceable ink cartridge for supplying ink to the printer.

49. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including a data connection for receiving print data from a computer;

a flat panel display for displaying images received from a computer; and

the printer including a printhead for printing onto paper on the basis of the print data; and

a data connection hub configured to allow connection of at least one data-receiving device to the printing and display device, enabling the data-receiving device to receive data from the computer.

50. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including:

a flat panel display; and

the printer, including a printhead for printing onto paper;

the device being configured such that, during printing, the paper being printed passes between the flat panel display and the printhead, or passes behind the flat panel display and the printhead relative to a viewing position of the flat panel display.

51. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including:

a flat panel display;

the printer, including a printhead for printing onto paper;

a multi-sheet paper holder;

a paper sheet separator configured to separate a single paper sheet from the paper in the paper holder for supply to the printhead.

52. A printing and display device incorporating a printer as claimed in claim 1, the printing and display device including:

a flat panel display for displaying images from a computer; and

the printer including at least two the printheads, the printheads being disposed on either side of a path through which print media is fed for printing, thereby enabling substantially simultaneous printing of both sides of the print media.

16. A peripheral device connected to a computer system via an interface, the computer system also being configured to send print data to a printer to be printed in response to receiving a print request from the peripheral device, the peripheral device including an interface and being configured to:

receive, via the interface, input from a user indicative of a print command;

send, from the peripheral device to the computer system, a print request for causing printing of print data from a currently active program running on the computer system.

17. A method of causing printing of a document by a printer that is remotely connected to a computer system, the printer including an interface, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, via the interface, input from a user indicative of a print command;

sending, from the printer to the computer system, a print request;

receiving, from the computer system and in response to the print request, a document to be printed; and

printing the document at the printer.

18. A method according to claim 17, wherein the document received from the computer system is a current active document being displayed by the computer system.

19. A method according to claim 17, wherein the interface includes a “

print”

button, and the step of receiving input from the user consists of determining that the “

print”

button has been pressed.

20. A method according to claim 19, wherein the step of receiving input from the user consists of determining that the “

print”

button has been pressed a single time.

21. A method according to claim 17, wherein the computer system displays a graphical user interface (GUI) having one or more windows, of which one is the focus window at any given time, the active document being that window that is the focus at the time the print request is received.

22. A method according to claim 17, wherein the computer system is configured to run a print control program and at least one application program capable of displaying or generating the document and the application program exposes a print function that can be invoked by the print control program, the computer system being configured and programmed such that, in response to receiving the print request, the print control program invokes the exposed print function of the application program, thereby causing the document to be sent to the printer for printing.

23. A method according to claim 22, wherein:

the computer is capable of simultaneously running a plurality of the application programs, one or more of which is a focus at any given time; and

the print control program is configured to determine which of one or more of the plurality of application programs is the focus, and to invoke the exposed print function of that application program.

24. A method according to claim 24, wherein the operating system is configured such that only one of the application programs can be the focus at any given time.

25. A method according to claim 24, wherein a record of each of a plurality of the application programs running on the computer is stored in a table, the print control program being configured to perform the determination of which of the application programs is the focus window by consulting the table.

26. A method according to claim 25, wherein the table is a Running Object Table.

27. A method according to claim 25 or 26, wherein multiple documents of at least one of the applications can be run on the computer system, each of the documents having its own window, the method including the step of the print control program determining which of the multiple documents of the application, or which application, with the focus.

29. A printer including an interface, the printer being configured to:

receive, via the interface, input from a user indicative of a print command;

send, from the printer to a computer system, a print request;

receive, from the computer system and in response to the print request, a document to be printed; and

print the document, wherein the document is printed in response to the input, without a dialog box requiring further input from the user being displayed by the computer system or the printer.

30. A printer according to claim 29, the printer storing an identity associated with the interface and being configured to sent the identity to the computer system in response to the input.

31. A printer according to claim 30, configured to include the identity with the print request.

32. A printer according to claim 30, wherein the identity is an address of the printer, and the document sent from the computer system is addressed with the address.

33. A printing system including a computer system and the printer of claim 29, wherein the computer system is configured to display a graphical user interface (GUI) having one or more windows, one of which is the focus window at any given time, the document sent to the printer being that associated with the window that is the focus window at the time the print request is received.

34. A printing system according to claim 33, the printer storing an identity associated with the interface, and wherein the identity is sent to the computer system in response to the user input.

35. A printing system according to claim 34, wherein the printer is configured to include the identity with the print request.

36. A printing system according to claim 34, wherein the identity is an address of the printer, and the computer system is configured to send the document to the address.

37. A printing system according to claim 33, the computer system being configured to run a print control program and at least one application program capable of generating the document, wherein at least one of the application programs the computer system can run exposes a print function that can be invoked by the print control program, the computer system being configured and programmed such that, in response to receiving the print request, the print control program invokes the exposed print function of the application program associated with the focus window in the event that that application program exposes the print function, thereby causing the document to be sent to the printer for printing.

38. A printing system according to claim 37, configured to, in the event the application program associated with the focus window does not expose the print function, send the document for printing via some other mechanism.

39. A printing system according to claim 38, wherein the mechanism includes simulating a keyboard sequence comprising a print dialog request and a carriage return, thereby resulting in the document being sent for printing without any input from the user other than the input via the user interface.

40. A printing system according to claim 29, wherein the printer is not a default printer of the computer system.

41. A printing system according to claim 37, wherein the computer system stores a look-up table comprising a list of applications running on the computer and a print method by which each of the applications can be caused to send the document for printing without requiring further input from the user.

42. A printing system according to claim 41, wherein the table is indexed by application name.

43. A printing system according to claim 33, wherein the printer interface has an identity associated with it, and the print control program is configured to store a relationship between the identity and a name of the printer associated with that identity, the printer being configured to send the print request and the identity to the computer system upon receipt of the input.

44. A printing system according to claim 43, wherein the print control program is configured to, upon receipt of the print request, identify the name of the printer from the identity and the relationship, the computer system being configured to send the document to the named printer.

45. A printing system according to claim 44, wherein the computer system stores a plurality of the relationships between the interface identities and corresponding printer names.

46. A printing system according to claim 41 or 42, wherein the print method of at least some of the applications is selected from the group comprising:

simulating a key sequence;

simulating a key sequence including a carriage return; and

invoking an exposed print function of the application.