Print control device and non-transitory computer readable medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9785871-B2
Application number	US-201213485065-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 31, 2012
Priority date	Sep 20, 2011
Publication date	Oct 10, 2017
Grant date	Oct 10, 2017

Abstract

A print control device includes drawing processing units, a sending unit, and a delivery unit. The drawing processing units perform a drawing process on a print instruction written in a page description language. The sending unit sends the entirety of a print instruction constituted by plural pages, to the drawing processing units. The delivery unit sequentially delivers processing requests each specifying a page to the drawing processing units. Each drawing processing unit performs a drawing process by converting the print instruction for a page specified by a delivered processing request into image data, and again performs, when processing requests are delivered in descending order of page, processing of the sent print instruction from the first page. The delivery unit delivers a processing request to a drawing processing unit to which processing requests are deliverable in ascending order of page.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A print control device, comprising:
at least one hardware processor configured to implement:
a plurality of drawing processing units configured to perform a drawing process on a print instruction written in a page description language;
a sending unit configured to send the entirety of a print instruction constituted by a plurality of pages, to the plurality of drawing processing units; and
a delivery unit configured to sequentially deliver processing requests to the plurality of drawing processing units, the processing requests each specifying which page in the print instruction is to be subjected to a drawing process and each being delivered from the delivery unit to the plurality of drawing processing units in any of ascending and descending order of page numbers of the plurality of pages,

wherein each of the plurality of drawing processing units is further configured to perform a drawing process by converting the print instruction for a page specified by a processing request delivered by the delivery unit into image data, and again to perform, in response to processing requests being delivered in descending page number order such that a page number specified by a current processing request is a page number preceding a page specified by a last processing request, processing of the sent print instruction from the first page, and
wherein the delivery unit is further configured to deliver a processing request to a drawing processing unit to which processing requests are deliverable in ascending page number order such that a page number specified by the processing request that is to be delivered next time is a page number following a page specified by a processing request that was delivered last time and such that a difference between the page number of a page that is to be delivered next time and the page number of the page specified by the processing request that was delivered last time to the drawing processing unit is less than a difference between the page number of the page that is to be delivered next time and another page number of another page most recently delivered to another one of the plurality of drawing processing units.

2. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the delivery unit is further configured, in response to there being no drawing processing unit to which processing requests are deliverable in ascending page number order, to deliver a processing request to a drawing processing unit in which a processed page has been proceeded most.

3. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the plurality of drawing processing units are further configured to perform a drawing process for pages specified by processing requests delivered by the delivery unit, by using a page skip function of executing only a command that is in data of the print instruction for each page and that affects a print setting of a following page.

4. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the delivery unit is further configured to deliver processing requests to the plurality of drawing processing units by using information on the number of pages of the entirety of the print instruction, the information being obtained by executing only a command regarding page division by using the drawing processing unit.

5. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one hardware processor is further configured to implement:
a conversion unit configured to convert a print instruction written in a page-independent page description language into a print instruction written in a non-page-independent page description language,
wherein the sending unit is further configured to send the entirety of the print instruction resulting from the conversion by the conversion unit, to the plurality of drawing processing units.

6. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the delivery unit is further configured to deliver the page having the page number specified by the processing request that is to be delivered next time according to a determination that the difference, between the page number of the page that is to be delivered next time and the page number of the page specified by the processing request that was delivered last time to the drawing processing unit, is less than any of a plurality of differences between page numbers of the page that is to be delivered next time and respective other page numbers of other pages most recently delivered to other ones of the plurality of drawing processing units,
the other page numbers comprising the another page number,
the other pages comprising the another page, and
the other ones of the plurality of drawing processing units comprising the another one of the plurality of drawing processing units.

7. The print control device according to claim 1 , wherein the another page most recently delivered to the another one of the plurality of drawing processing units is one of the pages of the print instruction.

8. A print control device, comprising:
at least one hardware processor configured to implement:
a plurality of drawing processing units configured to perform a drawing process on a print instruction written in a page description language;
a sending unit configured to send the entirety of a print instruction constituted by a plurality of pages, to the plurality of drawing processing units; and
a delivery unit configured to sequentially deliver processing requests to the plurality of drawing processing units, the processing requests each specifying which page in the print instruction is to be subjected to a drawing process and each being delivered from the delivery unit to the plurality of drawing processing units in any of ascending and descending order of page numbers of the plurality of pages,

wherein each of the plurality of drawing processing units is further configured to perform a drawing process by converting the print instruction for a page specified by a processing request delivered by the delivery unit into image data, and
wherein the delivery unit is further configured to deliver a processing request to a drawing processing unit to which processing requests are deliverable in ascending order of page such that a page specified by the processing request that is to be delivered next time is a page following a page specified by a processing request that was delivered last time, and
wherein the delivery unit is further configured, in response to there being a plurality of drawing processing units to which processing requests are deliverable in ascending order of page, to deliver a processing request to a drawing processing unit such that a difference between a page number of the page that is to be delivered next time and a page number of the page specified by a processing request that was delivered last time to the drawing processing unit is less than a difference between the page number of the page that is to be delivered next time and another page number of another page most recently delivered to another one of the plurality of drawing processing units.

9. A print control device, comprising:
at least one hardware processor configured to implement:
a plurality of drawing processing units configured to perform a drawing process on a print instruction written in a page description language;
a sending unit configured to send the entirety of a print instruction constituted by a plurality of pages, to the plurality of drawing processing units; and
a delivery unit configured to sequentially deliver processing requests to the plurality of drawing processing units, the processing requests each specifying which page in the print instruction is to be subjected to a drawing process and each being delivered from the delivery uni

Assignees

• Torii Takeshi
• Fuji Xerox Co Ltd

Inventors

• Torii Takeshi

Classifications

• G06F3/124

  Parallel printing or parallel ripping · CPC title

• G06F3/1211

  Improving printing performance · CPC title

• G06K2215/0088

  Collated printing · CPC title

• G06K15/1856

  characterized by its workflow · CPC title

• G06K15/1857

  involving parallel processing in the same printing apparatus · CPC title