PRINT PROCESSING METHOD AND INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS IMPLEMENTING THE METHOD

• US 20090086265A1
• Filed: 09/24/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Kikuchi, Hiroshi, Toda, Masanari, Hirakawa, Satoshi
• Granted Patent: US 8,625,125 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.150
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1215 achieving increased printing speed, i.e. reducing the time between printing start and printing end
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/122 with regard to computing resources, e.g. memory, CPU
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1244 Job translation or job parsing, e.g. page banding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1284 Local printer device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1298 Printer language recognition, e.g. programme control language, page description language
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1867 Post-processing of the composed and rasterized print image scanning, transmission or reproduction of documents H04N1/00

Abstract

A printer driver for generating print job data to be transferred to a printer in response to a drawing instruction determines, based on combining condition, whether the received drawing instruction can be combined with another drawing instruction. If the printer driver determines that the received drawing instruction can be combined, the printer driver stores the received drawing instruction as intermediate data. If the printer driver determines that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined, the printer driver combines intermediate data of already stored drawing instructions into a single item of print job data and outputs the print job data to the printer. The combining condition is that the received drawing instruction meets all of three conditions.

Claims

1. A print processing method performed by a printer driver of receiving drawing instructions and generating print job data to a printer, comprising the steps of:

receiving a drawing instruction;

determining whether or not the received drawing instruction can be combined with drawing instructions already stored, based on combining condition;

storing the received drawing instruction as intermediate data when it is determined that the received drawing instruction can be combined; and

combining intermediate data of the drawing instructions already stored into a single item of print job data and outputting the combined single item of print job data to the printer, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined.

2. The print processing method according to claim 1, further comprising a control step of, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined based on the combining condition but the received drawing instruction meets a condition that combining the received drawing instruction with another drawing instruction reduces printing time, storing the received drawing instruction as intermediate data after the combined intermediate data of the drawing instructions already stored has been output at the outputting step, and, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined based on the combining condition and the received drawing instruction does not meet the condition that combining the received drawing instruction with another drawing instruction reduces printing time, outputting the received drawing instruction to the printer as a single item of print job data after the combined intermediate data of the drawing instruction already stored has been output at the outputting step.

3. The print processing method according to claim 1, wherein the combining condition are that the drawing instruction meets all of conditions that:

predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is combined with already stored intermediate data is shorter than predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is not combined with the already stored intermediate data;

the received drawing instruction is of the same type as the already stored intermediate data; and

the received drawing instruction does not use a background or the intermediate data of the received drawing instruction does not overlap the already stored intermediate data.

4. The print processing method according to claim 3, wherein the condition that predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is combined with already stored intermediate data is shorter than predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is not combined with already stored intermediate data is when an amount of data of an image drawn by the received drawing instruction is smaller than a first threshold and an ratio of the amount of data of a combined image to an area of the combined image is greater than a second threshold.

5. The print processing method according to claim 1, wherein the print job data is a PDL drawing command.

6. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer-executable program included in a printer driver for causing a computer to perform the steps of the print processing method according to claim 1.

7. A print processing method of receiving drawing instructions and generating print job data to a printer, comprising the steps of:

receiving a drawing instruction;

determining whether or not the received drawing instruction should be combined with another drawing instruction;

storing the received drawing instruction when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should be combined; and

combining drawing instructions already stored in the storing step to create a combined drawing instruction and outputting the combined drawing instruction to the printer when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined,

wherein, in the determining step, it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when an attribute of the received drawing instruction is the same as an attribute of another drawing instruction and a ratio of an image to an area resulting from combining the received drawing instruction with the another drawing instruction is smaller than a first threshold.

8. The print processing method according to claim 7, wherein, in the determining step, it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when a size of the image of the received drawing instruction is smaller than a second threshold and an attribute of the received drawing instruction is the same as an attribute of another drawing instruction and the ratio of the image to the area resulting from combining the received drawing instruction with the another drawing instruction is smaller than the first threshold.

9. The print processing method according to claim 7, wherein, in the determining step, it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when the received drawing instruction uses a background and overlaps the already stored drawing instructions.

10. The print processing method according to claim 7, wherein, in the output step, the drawing instructions already stored by the storing step are combined to create a combined drawing instruction and the combined drawing instruction and a mask pattern of the combined drawing instruction are output to the printer, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined.

11. A computer-readable storage medium storing a computer-executable program included in a printer driver for causing a computer to perform the steps of the print processing method according to claim 7.

12. An information processing apparatus including a printer driver for generating print job data to be transferred to a printer in response to a drawing instruction, comprising:

a receiving unit adapted to receive a drawing instruction;

a determination unit adapted to determine whether or not the received drawing instruction can be combined with drawing instructions already stored, based on combining condition;

a storage unit adapted to store the received drawing instruction as intermediate data in a memory when the determination unit determines that the received drawing instruction can be combined; and

an output unit adapted to combine intermediate data of the drawing instructions already stored in the memory into a single item of print job data and output the combined single item of print job data to the printer.

13. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising a control unit adapted to, when the determination unit determines that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined based on the combining condition but the received drawing instruction meets a condition that combining the received drawing instruction with another drawing instruction reduces printing time, storing the received drawing instruction as intermediate data after the combined intermediate data of the already stored drawing instruction has been output by the output unit, and when it is determined that the received drawing instruction cannot be combined based on the combining condition and the received drawing instruction does not meet the condition that combining the received drawing instruction with another drawing instruction reduces printing time, outputting the received drawing instruction to the printer as a single item of print job data after the stored intermediate data of the already stored drawing instruction has been output by the output unit.

14. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the combining condition is that the drawing instruction meets all of conditions that:

predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is combined with already stored intermediate data is shorter than predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is not combined with the already stored intermediate data;

the received drawing instruction is of the same type as stored intermediate data; and

the received drawing instruction does not use a background or the intermediate data of the received drawing instruction does not overlap the already stored intermediate data.

15. The information processing apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the condition that predicted printing time required when the received drawing instruction is combined with the already stored intermediate data is shorter than predicted printing time required when the receiving drawing instruction is not combined with the already stored intermediate data is when an amount of data of an image drawn by the received drawing instruction is smaller than a first threshold and a ratio of the amount of data of a combined image to an area of the combined image is greater than a second threshold.

16. The information processing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the print job data is a PDL drawing command.

17. An information processing apparatus which generates print job data to printer in response to a drawing instruction, comprising:

a receiving unit adapted to receive a drawing instruction;

a determination unit adapted to determine whether or not the received drawing instruction should be combined with another drawing instruction;

a storage unit adapted to, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should be combined, store the received drawing instruction; and

an output unit adapted to, when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined, combine drawing instructions already stored by the storage unit to create a combined drawing instruction and output the combined drawing instruction to the printer;

wherein the determination unit determines that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when an attribute of the received drawing instruction is the same as an attribute of another drawing instruction and a ratio of an image to an area resulting from combining the received drawing instruction with the another drawing instruction is smaller than a first threshold.

18. The information processing apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the determination unit determines that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when a size of an image of the received drawing instruction is smaller than a second threshold and an attribute of the received drawing instruction is the same as an attribute of the another drawing instruction and the ratio of the image to an area resulting from combining the received drawing instruction with the another drawing instruction is smaller than the first threshold.

19. The information processing apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the determination unit determines that the received drawing instruction should not be combined when the received drawing instruction uses a background and overlaps already stored drawing instructions.

20. The information processing apparatus according to claim 17, wherein when it is determined that the received drawing instruction should not be combined, the output unit combines the drawing instructions already stored by the storage unit to create a combined drawing instruction and outputs the combined drawing instruction and a mask pattern of the combined drawing instruction to the printer.