Abstract:
An information processing apparatus connectable with an external printer, includes communicating unit for communication with the external printer; notifying unit for notifying the external printer of pre-print notification through the communicating unit when execution of printing is instructed; generating unit for processing, after the notifying unit executes the notification, data to be printed to generate print data; sending unit for the sending the print data generated by the generating unit to the external printer through the communicating unit.

Description:
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/449,968, filed Nov. 26, 1999, now abandoned, the contents of which is incorporated herein by reference. 

   FIELD OF THE INVENTION AND RELATED ART 
   The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a printing system which involve a preparatory operation for printing and a control method therefor. 
   Some types of printers require a predetermined preparatory operation to be executed prior to start of the printing operation. 
   For example, an ink jet printer is provided with a head cleaning mechanism to prevent dried ink plugs a nozzle. In order to maintain the print quality of the print, a head cleaning operation for head maintenance is carried out at predetermined intervals. The timing of the such a head cleaning operation is automatically determined on the basis of the timing of the start of the printing action of the printer. 
   Relatively long time is required from the instructions of start of printing by the user to the actual printing action in order to carry out various data processing operation for enabling the actual printing. The above-described head maintenance operation is carried out after the p˜int data is converted and supplied into a buffer, thus establishing the condition for the very start of printing. 
   Therefore, the time to the start of the printing is the time for the data processing plus the cleaning time duration for the head maintenance with the result of long printing time from the printing instruction by the user to the completion of the printing. 
   Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. SHO 64-53850 discloses a printing apparatus of an electrophotographic type wherein drum driving is instructed prior to sending of the print data to speed up printing operation. With such a system, the drum can be accelerated concurrently with the pre-process of the printing operation in a printing apparatus such as a print data receiving process. 
   However, when the time required for acceleration of the drum is longer than the time required for the processing prior to the printing operation, the printing time is still long. 
   Additionally, the printing apparatus does not do any action while the host apparatus is processing the data to be sent to the printing apparatus, after the host apparatus is instructed for printing by the user, and therefore, the user feels anxiety. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a printing system wherein the printing time from the instructions of the printing by the user to the completion of the printing can be reduced. 
   It is another object of the present invention to provide a printing system in which the print preparing operation carried out prior to the actual printing operation does not influence the printing time. 
   According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus connectable with an external printer, comprising: communicating means for communication with said external printer; notifying means for notifying said external printer of pre-print notification through said communicating means when execution of printing is instructed; generating means for processing, after said notifying means executes the notification, data to be printed to generate print data; sending means for said sending the print data generated by said generating means to said external printer through said communicating means. 
   According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printer comprising: analyzing means for analyzing the signal received from external means; preparation means for executing preparation to be executed prior to printing action when a result of analysis by said analyzing means indicates that signal is instructions of the preparation; printing means for executing, when a result of analysis by said analyzing means indicates that signal is print data, printing process on the basis of the print data. 
   According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing system including an information processing apparatus and an external printer which are communicatably connected through communicating means, comprising: notifying means for effecting pre-print notification to said external printer through said communicating means when execution of printing is instructed; generating means for processing, after the pre-print notification of said notifying means, data to be printed to generate print data; sending means for sending the print data generated by said generating means to said external printer through said communicating means, said external printer including: preparation means for executing, in response to pre-print notification provided by said communicating means, preparation to be executed prior to printing action; and printing means for executing printing process on the basis of print data sent by said sending means. 
   According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of processing printing information to be supplied through communicating means to an external printer, said method comprising: a notification step of notifying said external printer of pre-print notification through said communicating means when execution of printing is instructed; a generating step of processing, after the pre-print notification of said notification step, data to be printed to generate print data; a sending step of sending the print data generated by said generating step to said external printer through said communicating means. 
   According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method comprising: an analyzing step of analyzing a signal received from outside; a preparation step of executing preparation to be executed prior to printing when the signal is indicative of instructions of preparation prior to the printing as a result of analysis of said analyzing step; and a printing step of execution printing process on the basis of the print data when the signal is indicative of print data. 
   According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control method for a printing system including a information processing apparatus and an external printer connectable with each other for communication through communicating means, comprising: a notification step of notifying said external printer of pre-print notification through said communicating means when execution of printing is instructed; a preparation step of executing preparation to be executed prior to printing in said external printer in accordance with the pre-print notification of said notification step; a generating step of processing, after the pre-print notification of said notifying step, data to be printed; a sending step of sending the print data generated by said generating step to said external printer through said communicating means; a printing step of executing printing process in accordance with print data sent by said sending step. 
   According to a further aspect of the present invention, a memory medium for storing a control program for operating a computer of an information processing apparatus connected through communicating means with an external printer, wherein said control program comprising: a code of a notification process of notifying said external printer of pre-print notification through said communicating means when execution of printing is instructed; a code of a generating process of processing, after the pre-print notification of said notifying process, data to be printed to generate print data; and a code of a sending process of sending the print data generated by said generating process to said external printer through said communicating means. 
   These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent upon a consideration of the following description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a flow of a process from instructions of execution of printing in an application by a user to actual printing operation. 
       FIG. 2  illustrates printing process time in a conventional example. 
       FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating process steps carried out by a printer driver according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 4  is a flow chart illustrating operations in a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 5  illustrates a type of a series of command employed in this embodiment. 
       FIG. 6  illustrates printing process time duration according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 7  is a schematic view of an outer appearance of an ink jet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 8  shows an example of a pre-print notification using a Centronics signal which is an ordinary interface signal. 
   

   DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   The description will be made as to preferred embodiments of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
   Embodiment 1 
     FIG. 7  is a schematic view of an ink jet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The ink jet recording apparatus will be called hereinafter printer  200 . 
   In  FIG. 7 , a lead screw  5005  is rotated through driving force transmission gears  5011 ,  5009  in interrelation with forward and backward rotation of a driving motor  5013 . A carriage HC is provided with a pin (unshown) engaged with a spiral groove  5005  of the lead screw  5004 . The carriage HC carries an ink jet cartridge IC. Decimated by  5002  is a sheet confining plate to press a sheet against a platen  5000  over a proper distance in the moving direction of the carriage. Elements  5007 ,  5008  constitute to a photo-sensor functioning as a home position detecting means for detecting presence of the lever  5006  of the carriage to switch the rotational direction of the motor  5013  and so on. Designated by  5016  is a supporting member for supporting a capping member  5022  for capping a front side of the recording head. Decimated by  5015  is suction means for sucking inside of the cap to effect suction recovery of the recording head through a cap opening  5023 . Designated by  501  is a cleaning blade more wiping an ejection outlet side surface of the recording head, and  5019  is a member for moving the blade in the front-rear direction. In this embodiment, they are supported on a main assembly supporting plate  5018 . Any other known cleaning blades are usable in place thereof. Designated by  5021  is a lever for starting sucking operation of the suction recovery system, and it moves with the movement of the cam  5020  engaged with the carriage under the control of a known transmitting means such as a clutch mechanism for controlling the transmission of the driving force from the driving motor. 
   The capping, wiping and suction recovery actions are so constructed that when the carriage comes to a predetermined region adjacent the home position, they are operated by the lead screw  5004 . 
   The description will be made as to the flow of processing from the instructions of the extension of printing in an application by the user to the actual printing action, referring to  FIG. 1 . 
   In the case that host  100  is a Windows95 (trademark) system, when the printing is instructed, the application  101  requests device context (DC) to GGDIGraphocalk/Devicek/ Interface)  102  using the File ( ) API (Application Programming Insterface) and produce an extended meta file (EMF)  103 . The thus produced extended meta file  103  is interpreted by a spooler  104 , and is sent to a printer driver  105  as a printing job. The printer driver  105  carries out color processing, rasterization, binarization and so on the convert the extended meta file  103  to printer command which is then send to the printer  200 . 
   The printer  200  stores the data supplied from the host  100  in a receive buffer  201  through an interface in the form of a parallel cable or the like. The data interpreter  202  takes the data out of the receive buffer  201  and interprets the data, and send the data to the respective processors. When the data are print data, the data are sent to a print data development portion  203  and are converted to image data. The converted image data are stored in a printing buffer  204 , and when a band of the data enough for one can is stored, the printing portion  206  starts sheet feeding and printing operations. On the other hand, when the data are control command, the data are sent to a printer controller  205  to control various parts of the printing portion  206 . 
   The printer  200  of the type shown in  FIG. 7  requires head cleaning operation at regular intervals in order to maintain the head performance and therefore the print quality. Usually, in the external printer  200 , a timer is referred to for the purpose of the head maintenance at the time when an amount of the image data necessary for one for this can is stored in the printing buffer  20 , that is, at the timing of start of the printing operation, and the pre-process operation such as head cleaning is carried out as decided. 
     FIG. 2  shows printing process time when the pre-print processing is carried out at the conventional print start timing. In an ordinary printing process, at the table when the image data processed by the print data processing portion  207  (receive buffer  201 -printing buffer  204  in Figure I) is stored in the printing buffer, that is, at the time of start of printing operation, the pre-print preparation  208  such as cleaning operation is carried out. Therefore, as shown in  FIG. 2 , the time T 3  for the pre-print preparation is simply added to the printing duration, and the time T from the reception of the data by the printer driver to the completion of the printing operation by the printer is
   T=TI+T   2 + T   3 + T   4 . 
where TI is a length of processing time of the printer driver  105 , T 2  is a length of processing time of the print data processing portion  207 , and T 4  is a length of printing time.
 
   It has been noted that printer does not carry out any action for the period of time TI in which the printer driver  105  executes the data processing. According to an aspect of the present invention, the pre-print preparation such as cleaning is carried out utilizing the time period, by which the length of time T 3  can be shortened. 
     FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating process steps of a printer driver according to an embodiment of the present invention. In step s 11 , the printing job is supplied from the application  101  through the spooler  104 , and then the process goes to step s 12  where a pre-print notification is sent to the printer  200 . The printer  200  having received in the pre-print notification executes the pre-print preparation (a flow chart of  FIG. 4  which will be described hereinafter). 
   Then, in step s 13 , various data processing operations are carried out for the printing job to produce print data. At step s 14 , the thus produced printing data our center to the printer  200 . 
     FIG. 4  is a flow chart illustrating process of operations in the printer according to the embodiment of the present invention. At step s 21 , the discrimination is made as to whether to receive the command from the host computer  100 . The command received from the host computer  100  is in the form shown in  FIG. 5 , and therefore, it can be discriminated whether it is a pre-print notification or a printing execution command by the header (control command identifier) of the command. 
   More particularly, the header (control command identifier)  01  is indicative of the pre-print notification in embodiment. The data interpreter  202  of the printer shown in  FIG. 2  discriminates the received series of command, and supplies the corresponding command to the printer controller  205 . In this embodiment, “02” is indicative of execution command including print data for the like, and “03” is indicative of setting command for a sheet feeding cassette or like. 
   When the pre-print notification command is received at step s 12  in  FIG. 3 , the command has a header ( 01 ) indicative of the pre-print notification. Therefore, the printer recognizes it as a pre-print notification command by the header, and therefore, the process goes from step s 22  to step s 23  to carry out pre-print preparation. 
   The command sent with the print data at step s 14  is a execution command, so that when it is received, the process goes from step s 24  to step s 25 , by which the printing operation is executed. 
   If the received the command is neither of the above, the process proceeds to step s 26  to execute the process corresponding to the command. 
   In this embodiment, the printing process is carried out as shown in  FIG. 6  under the above described control. As described above, the printer driver  105  is provided with the pre-print notifying portion  105   a  and the data processor  105   b , and the pre-print notifying portion  105   a  send the pre-print notification to the printer  200  at the time when it receives the printing job ( 812 , in  FIG. 3 ). 
   On the other hand, the printer  200  having received in the notification, carries out the preparation  208   a  before the start of the printing operation to place the printer in condition for immediate start of the printing operation when it receives the print data (s 22  and s 23 , in  FIG. 4 ). 
   Because of the flow of the process shown in  FIG. 6 , the time T 3  for the pre-print preparation  208   a  is within the time T 1  for the print data processing (generally, the required time for the pre-print preparation is shorter than the data processing duration executed by the data processor  105   b  in the printer driver  105 ). Therefore, the time period T from the reception of the data by the printer driver to the completion of the printing operation of the printer is
 
 T=TI+T   2 + T   4 .
 
   In this embodiment, the description has been made as to an example in which the means for sending the pre-print notification uses command sending, but the present invention is not limited to this example, and the use can be made with an interface signal. For example, as shown in  FIG. 8 , the nSelectIn of Centronics signal is used such that nSelectIn which is at a High level is indicative of the pre-print notification. At this time, other signal line exhibits no change. The printer receiving the High of the nSelectIn starts the pre-print preparation. The pre-print notification can be accomplished using another signal line or a plurality of signal lines. 
   In this embodiment, the ink jet printer is taken as an exemplary printer in which the pre-print preparation is the cleaning process as an example, but the present invention is applicable to a printer of another type. For example, in the case of an electrophotographic type printer, the heat-up operation of the fixing device may be the object of the pre-print preparation, by which the printing duration shortened. Alternatively, the acceleration of the drum rotation may be the object of the pre-print preparation. 
   As described in the foregoing, according to the present invention, the pre-print notification is sent to the printer prior to the processing of the data received from the spooler by the printer driver. In response to the notification, the printer carries out a process other than the printing action (pre-print preparation) such as printing head maintenance or like using the time period in which the printer driver is processing of the data. 
   Accordingly, the preparatory operation for printing operation which has been sequentially carried out prior to the printing operation by the printer, can be executed concurrently with the data processing operation being executed by the printer driver, so that printing time shortened. For example, the head cleaning operation or the like for the printing head maintenance which has been carried out immediately before the printing operation in the prior art, is carried out simultaneously with the production of the print data by the printer driver, so that total period of time required for the printing can be shortened. 
   The present invention is applicable to the system including a plurality of devices (a host computer, interface equipment, a reader, a printer and so on) or to a single device (a copying machine, facsimile machine or the like). 
   The interface is not limited to the above described parallel cable, but made in network connection such as LAV, and the communication may be wire type or wireless type. 
   In an embodiment of the present invention, a memory medium storing program code of software accomplishing the function described above is loaded into the system or device, by which the computer (CPU or MPu) of the system or the device reads out the program code stored in the memory medium to execute the program. 
   In this case, the program code per se read out from the memory medium accomplishes the function of the above described embodiment, and therefore, the memory medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. 
   The memory medium for supplying the program code may be a floppy disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, CD-R, magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory memory card, ROM or the like. By executing the program code read out by the computer, the above-described functions may be carried out. 
   Alternatively a part or all of the actual processing may be executed by the OS (operating system) which is working in the computer, and then, on the basis of the processing of the OS, the above-described functions may be carried out. 
   Further alternatively, the program code read out of the memory medium is written in memory provided in a function expanding board inserted in the computer or a function expanding unit connected with the computer, and then a part or all of the actual processing is carried out by the CPU or the like provided in the function expanding board or the function expanding unit in accordance with the instructions of the program code to effect the above-described functions. 
   As described in the foregoing, according to the present invention, the preparatory operation or operations to be executed prior to the start of the actual printing operation can be executed concurrently or in parallelism with the data processing for the printing, so that total printing speed is increased. 
   While the invention has been described with reference to the structures disclosed herein, it is not confined to the details set forth and this application is intended to cover such modifications or changes as may come within the purposes of the improvements or the scope of the following claims.