Printer driving method for fast release of control privilege

• US 20050206940A1
• Filed: 02/07/2005
• Published: 09/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lite-On Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Lite-On Technology Corporation
• Inventors: Lin, Albert
• Application Number:
  US11/050,859
• Publication Number:
  US 20050206940A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.130
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1211 Improving printing performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/122 with regard to computing resources, e.g. memory, CPU
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1224 Client or server resources management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1247 by conversion to printer ready format
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1284 Local printer device

Abstract

A printer driving method for fast release of control privilege provides a printer processor processing a render module and a filter module in the background. After processing the print command by an application program, a printer driver converts the print command of an output object into a particular meta file using a kind of printer language. Meanwhile, the meta file is submitted to the printer processor in the background and the control privilege is released to the application program at the same time. Thereby, the operation system has enhanced efficiency since the application program will not be suspended during the printing process.

Claims

1. A printer driving method for fast release of control privilege, the method being used under a Windows operation system when a print command is output from an application program, the method comprising the steps of:

submitting the control privilege from the application program to a printer driver;

executing a graphics device interface (GDI), and outputting a print data to a driver module;

releasing the control privilege to the operation system; and

processing a print job by a printer processor in the background.

2. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 1, wherein the operation system is Windows 9X, Windows 2K, Windows XP Windows NT or the like.

3. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of executing the graphics device interface (GDI) is to retrieve the GDI for the printer from a system registry database.

4. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 1, wherein in the step of outputting the print data to the driver module, the driver module includes an image module, a text module, a graphics module, and an input/output module, a graphics user interface (GUI) retrieves the text, image or input/output file of a resource file, and an output converter converts the GDI and the print data into a memory or a buffer.

5. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of processing the print job by the printer processor in the background is executed by scheduling the background printing process of the printer processor by a process controller.

6. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of processing the print job by the printer processor in the background, a path selector is used to retrieve a file converted from the GDI and the print data in a memory or a buffer, and submits the file to a corresponding paths as the request for a image printing, a text printing or a graphics printing, then a render module transforms the file in each corresponding path into a 24-bit R.G.B. data unit.

7. The printer driving method for fast release of control privilege as recited in claim 6, wherein the step of processing the print job by the printer processor in the background further includes processes of color matching, filtering and arranging the 24-bit R.G.B. data unit with a filter module, and then printing out from a printer.