Patent Publication Number: US-2005134883-A1

Title: Image forming apparatus having a graphic-LCD and a method thereof

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
      This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(a) of Korean Patent Application No. 2003-77849, filed Nov. 5, 2003, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the entire content of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      1. Field of the Invention  
      The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a graphic-liquid crystal display (graphic-LCD) and a method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to an inkjet printer or an image forming apparatus having the functions of an inkjet printer, which has a graphic-LCD to convert a font for use in the inkjet printer to a form displayable on the graphic-LCD.  
      2. Description of the Related Art  
      Generally, an image forming apparatus records an image corresponding to an image data, on a recording media such as a paper. The image forming apparatus may include an inkjet printer, and an office machine having functions of an inkjet printer.  
      Image forming apparatuses are mass-produced, have diverse functions, and employ a display.  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram showing a conventional image forming apparatus having a graphic-LCD which comprises a control unit  10 , a graphic-LCD module  20 , and a printer module  30 .  
      The control unit  10  controls the graphic-LCD module  20  according to a user&#39;s input command to display text on a graphic-LCD  28 , and controls the printer module  30  to perform a print job.  
      The graphic-LCD module  20  displays text on the graphic-LCD, corresponding to a graphic-LCD text display command which is received from a predetermined inputting means (not shown). The graphic-LCD module  20  comprises an image font storage unit  22 , a display control unit  24 , an image buffer  26 , and the graphic-LCD  28 .  
      The image font storage unit  22  stores image font for the graphic-LCD. A display such as an LCD can display font using ASCII code corresponding to the font. However, the graphic-LCD requires extra memory for storing the image fonts having Red, Green, Blue (RGB) values.  
      The display control unit  24  controls the stored RGB data of the graphic-LCD image font, adjusts color, and controls the size of the font. The image buffer  26  stores the image font which is controlled in color and size. The graphic-LCD displays the image font stored in the image buffer  24 .  
      The printer module  30  performs printing, and comprises a binary font storage unit  32 , an image generator  34 , a print buffer  36 , and a print engine  38 .  
      The binary font storage unit  32  stores the binary font for the inkjet printer of the binary data system rotated clockwise by 270° according to features of an inkjet printing system, in which an area to be printed is defined as “ 1 ”, and an area not to be printed is defined as “ 0 ”.  
      The image generator  34  converts the binary font for the inkjet printer to be printed to image data. The print buffer  26  stores the image data processed at the image generator  34 , and the print engine  38  prints the image data stored in the print buffer  36 .  
      As described above, the conventional image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD has both the graphic-LCD image font, and the binary font for the printer with respect to one font. Therefore, the manufacturing cost increases.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      The present invention has been made to overcome the above-mentioned problems of the prior art. Accordingly, it is an aspect of the present invention to provide an image forming apparatus having a graphic-liquid crystal display (graphic-LCD) which displays a text on the graphic-LCD using an inkjet printer font in order to save memory and reduce manufacturing costs, and the method of the same.  
      In order to achieve the above-described aspects of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD, which comprises a printer module for storing a binary font for use in an inkjet printer, and converting the inkjet printer binary font which corresponds to an input data to an image data to print out; and a graphic-LCD module for displaying a state of the printer module on a screen, converting the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font, and displaying text on the screen.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, the printer module comprises a binary font storage for storing the inkjet printer binary font, an image generator for converting the inkjet printer binary font to the image data, and a print engine for printing out the image data on a paper.  
      The graphic-LCD module comprises a font format conversion unit for converting the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font, a display control unit for controlling color and size of the converted graphic-LCD image font, and a graphic-LCD for displaying the controlled graphic-LCD image font.  
      The font format conversion unit comprises a rotation conversion unit for rotating the inkjet printer binary font being displayed to a correct position, and an image conversion unit for converting the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font having a RGB value.  
      The image forming apparatus is an office machine combined with at least one of a facsimile, a copier, a printer, and a scanner, and the graphic-LCD module displays a state of the office machine.  
      According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for a graphic-LCD of an image forming apparatus which prints out text using a binary font for an inkjet printer, comprises the steps of reading the binary font for the inkjet printer, and graphic-LCD processing in which the read inkjet printer binary font is converted to a graphic-LCD image font, and the text based on the converted graphic-LCD image font is displayed.  
      The graphic-LCD processing comprises the steps of font format converting which converts the read inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font, controlling the display in order to control the color and size of the converted graphic-LCD image font, and displaying the controlled graphic-LCD image font on a screen.  
      The font format converting comprises the steps of rotation converting which rotates the inkjet printer binary font being displayed to a correct position, and image converting which converts the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font having a RGB value.  
      In an embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the steps of image generating which converts the inkjet printer binary font to the image data, and printing out the image data on a paper.  
      The image forming apparatus is an office machine combined with at least one of a facsimile, a copier, a printer, and a scanner, and the graphic-LCD module displays a state of the office machine.  
      A graphic-LCD which displays text using a font for an inkjet printer, comprises a binary font storage unit for storing the binary font for the inkjet printer, a font format conversion unit for converting the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font, a display control unit for controlling color and size of the converted graphic-LCD image font, and a graphic-LCD for displaying the controlled graphic-LCD image font.  
      The font format conversion unit comprises a rotation conversion unit for rotating the inkjet printer binary font being displayed to a correct position, and an image conversion unit for converting the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font having a RGB value.  
      According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for a graphic-LCD which displays text using a font for an inkjet printer, comprises the steps of storing a binary font for the inkjet printer, font format converting which converts the read inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font, display controlling which controls color and size of the converted graphic-LCD image font, and graphic-LCD displaying which displays the controlled graphic-LCD image font on a screen.  
      The font format converting comprises the steps of rotation converting which rotates the inkjet printer binary font being displayed to a correct position, and image converting which converts the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font having a RGB value. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram showing a conventional image forming apparatus having a graphic-liquid crystal display (graphic-LCD);  
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of an image forming apparatus having a graphic-LCD according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD according to an embodiment of the present invention; and  
       FIGS. 4A  to  4 C are drawings illustrating the operation of the image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS  
      Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.  
      In the following description, the same drawing reference numerals are used for the same elements in different drawings. The matters defined in the description such as a detailed construction and elements are provided as examples to assist in understanding of the invention. Thus, it is apparent that the present invention can be carried out without those defined matters. Also, well-known functions or constructions are not described in detail since they would obscure the invention in unnecessary detail.  
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of an image forming apparatus having a graphic-LCD according to an embodiment the present invention, which comprises a control unit  100 , a graphic-LCD module  200 , and a printer module  300 .  
      The control unit  100  controls the printer module  300  for a print job, and controls the graphic-LCD  200  for displaying on the graphic-LCD data corresponding to an operating state and other information of the image forming apparatus. For the graphic-LCD, a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) is commonly used. In particular, when displaying text on the graphic-LCD, the control unit  100  transmits inkjet printer binary font data which is stored in the printer module  300  corresponding to the text to be displayed, to the graphic-LCD module  200  according to a predetermined graphic-LCD text display command.  
      The graphic-LCD module  200  displays image and text on the graphic-LCD. Particularly when displaying the text, the graphic-LCD module  200  converts the inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font. The graphic-LCD module  200  comprises a font format conversion unit  210 , a display control unit  230 , an image buffer  250 , and the graphic-LCD  270 .  
      The font format conversion unit  210  comprises a rotation conversion unit  214 , and an image conversion unit  216  to convert the received inkjet printer binary font to the graphic-LCD image font by the control unit  100 .  
      Generally, the inkjet printer binary font is stored rotated clockwise by 270° C. due to the features of an inkjet printer which uses a nozzle. Accordingly, the rotation conversion unit  214  rotates the inkjet printer binary font counterclockwise to the correct position. Depending on the situation, a symmetrical conversion may be performed.  
      The image conversion unit  216  converts the binary font, in which an area to be printed is defined as “ 1 ”, and an area not to be printed is defined as “ 0 ”, to an image font having the RGB value. That is, “ 1 ”, which is the area to be printed, is converted to a RGB value (0, 0, 0) representing black, and “ 0 ”, which is the area not to be printed is converted to a RGB value  (255, 255, 255 ) representing white. Thus, the binary font is converted to the graphic-LCD image font.  
      The display control unit  230  controls the RGB data of the converted graphic-LCD image font, adjusts color, and controls size. The image buffer  250  stores the graphic-LCD image font which is adjusted at the display control unit  230 , and the graphic-LCD  270  displays the graphic-LCD image font stored in the image buffer  270 .  
      The printer module  300  performs the printing. The printer module  300  comprises a binary font storage unit  310 , an image generator  330 , a print buffer  350 , and a print engine  370 .  
      The binary font storage unit  310  stores the inkjet printer binary data font rotated clockwise by 270° C. according to the features of the inkjet printer system. The inkjet printer binary data font defines an area to be printed as “ 1 ”, and an area to be not printed as “ 0 ”. The binary font is transmitted to the font format conversion unit  210  by the control unit  100  corresponding to the graphic-LCD text display command.  
      The image generator  330  receives from the binary font storage unit  310  the inkjet printer binary font for printing, and converts the received binary font to the image data. The print buffer  350  stores the image data processed at the image generator  350 . The print engine  370  prints the image data of the print buffer  350 .  
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD according to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to  FIGS. 2 and 3 , the control unit  100  receives the graphic-LCD text display command from a predetermined inputting means at step S 400 , and transmits the font of the text to be printed, from the binary font storage unit  310  of the printer module  300  to the font format conversion unit  210 , corresponding to the graphic-LCD text display command.  
      The font format conversion unit  210  converts the inkjet printer binary font data to the graphic-LCD image data font at step S 410 . More specifically, the font format conversion unit  210  rotates the inkjet printer binary font to the correct position for display at step S 414 , and converts the rotated binary font to the image font having the RGB values at step S 418 .  
      Next, the color and size of the converted graphic-LCD image font is controlled at step S 430 , and the graphic-LCD image font is displayed at step S 450 .  
       FIGS. 4A  to  4 C are drawings illustrating the operation of the image forming apparatus having the graphic-LCD according to an embodiment the present invention.  FIG. 4A  shows a data form of the inkjet printer binary font,  FIG. 4B  shows a data form of the rotated inkjet printer binary font, and  FIG. 4C  shows a data form of the graphic-LCD image font.  
      In  FIG. 4A , the data form of the inkjet printer binary font is stored in the binary font storage unit  310 . The font is rotated according to the printing system of the inkjet printer. In addition, “ 1 ” represents the area to be printed, and “ 0 ” represents the area not to be printed.  
       FIG. 4B  shows the data form of the font which is processed by the rotation conversion unit  214  of the font format conversion unit  210 . The rotation conversion unit  214  rotates or symmetrically moves the rotated inkjet printer binary font which is stored in the binary font storage unit  310  to the correct position for display.  
       FIG. 4C  shows the data form of the graphic-LCD image font which is converted by the image conversion unit  216  of the font format conversion unit  210 . The image conversion unit  216  converts the area to be printed to the RGB value (0, 0, 0) corresponding to black, and the area not to be printed to the RGB value (255, 255, 255) corresponding to white.  
      According to the above, the inkjet printer binary font is converted to the graphic-LCD image font, and therefore, a memory space for storing the graphic-LCD image font can be saved.  
      As described above, according to embodiments of the present invention, the image forming apparatus does not have to have an extra memory for storing the font for the graphic-LCD. Therefore, the manufacturing cost of the image forming apparatus is saved. Further, a variety of font forms that the image forming apparatus applies are also applicable to the graphic-LCD.  
      Although the present invention has been shown and described with reference to certain exemplary embodiments thereof, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.