KR100694109B1 - Method and apparatus of printing image data stored external storage device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an image forming method and apparatus for directly receiving image data from an external storage medium such as a USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory stick and printing without using a personal computer (PC). The method includes the steps of receiving a file storing image data to be printed from an external storage device; Displaying print page information of image data stored in a file; Receiving a page to be printed among the displayed pages; And printing the image data corresponding to the input page among the image data.

According to the present invention, in case of printing by directly receiving a file storing image data such as a document to be printed from an external storage medium, it is possible to select and print an area or a part of a page corresponding to a part of the table of contents. It can reduce the waste of paper due to the printing of unwanted pages and can provide the user with convenience in printing.

Description

An image forming method and apparatus for receiving image data from an external storage device and printing the same. {Method and apparatus of printing image data stored external storage device}

1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an image forming apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of the controller of FIG. 1.

3 is a flowchart illustrating an image forming method of receiving image data from an external storage device according to the present invention and printing the same.

4 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of an operation of the controller of FIG. 1.

The present invention receives and prints a file such as Portable Document Format (PDF) or Post Script (PS), etc., in which image data is stored, directly from an external storage medium such as a USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory stick without using a personal computer (PC). The present invention relates to an image forming method and an apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming method and an apparatus for selecting and printing an area or a part of a page stored in an input file corresponding to a partial table of contents.

An image forming apparatus generally has a function of converting a document created by an application through an application program or an image photographed by a user using a digital camera or the like into encoded data and outputting the data to the media in a form that can be viewed by the user.

In recent years, a direct connection with a digital camera and a universal serial bus (USB), which store image data in a memory card such as a smart card, without connecting to a host such as a personal computer (PC), Background Art [0002] Image forming apparatuses that receive image data to be directly printed by making a memory card or the like storing image data detachable have been commercialized.

When printing images by printing commands to the image forming apparatus through a PC, some areas of the entire document could be selected and printed by using the print area setting menu on the application program, but the external memory such as a memory card or a USB storage device may be printed. When the image data is directly connected to the medium and the image data is input, the desired area of the entire document cannot be selected and printed. Therefore, even if only some pages are desired to be printed, the entire page has to be printed.

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to solve the above problems in receiving and printing image data directly from an external storage medium, an area or part of a page corresponding to some contents of a document of a file input from an external storage device. It is to provide an image forming method and apparatus for selecting and printing.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of forming an image, the method including: receiving a file storing image data to be printed from the external storage device; Displaying print page information of image data stored in the file; Receiving a page to be printed among the displayed pages; And printing image data corresponding to the input page among the image data.

Preferably, the input file is any one of a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Postscript file, and a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file.

In the displaying of the page information, the printing page information of the image data may be detected and displayed from the index information included in the input file. In such a case, the printing step may be performed by using the index information. Extracting image data corresponding to the input page to be printed from among image data stored in the file; Converting the image data corresponding to the extracted page to be printed into printable print data; And printing the converted print data.

Preferably, the displaying of the page information may include converting image data stored in the input file into printable print data; Detecting print page information from the converted print data; And displaying the extracted print page information. In such a case, the printing step may include extracting print data corresponding to the input page to be printed from the converted print data; And printing the converted print data.

The detecting of the print page information may include extracting table of contents information of the image data and page information corresponding to each table of contents. In such a case, the step of receiving the page to be printed is to print out of the image data from a user. It is desirable to receive a table of contents.

An image forming apparatus according to the present invention for solving the above technical problem, the interface unit for receiving a file storing the image data to be printed from the external storage device; A display unit for displaying print page information of image data stored in the file; A user input unit which receives a page to be printed among the displayed pages; A control unit which detects print page information of image data stored from the input file and outputs the print page information to the display unit, and converts image data corresponding to the input page to be printed among the image data into printable print data; And a printing unit for printing the converted print data.

Preferably, the input file is any one of a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Postscript file, and a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file.

The control unit may include a page information detection unit that detects print page information of the image data from index information included in the input file; And a rendering unit which extracts image data corresponding to a page to be printed input from the user input unit from the image data stored in the file and converts the image data into printable print data using the index information.

Preferably, the control unit comprises a rendering unit for converting the image data stored in the input file into printable print data; A page information detection unit for detecting print page information from the converted print data; And a print data extracting unit extracting print data corresponding to a page to be printed input from the user input unit among the converted print data.

The controller determines whether index information is included in the input file, detects print page information of the image data from the index information if index information is included, and if the index information is not included. It is preferable to convert the image data stored in the input file into printable print data to detect the print page information from the converted print data.

The image forming method according to the present invention may preferably be implemented as a computer readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for execution on a computer.

Hereinafter, an image forming method and apparatus for receiving and printing image data from an external memory device according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus 100 according to the present invention, and the illustrated apparatus includes an interface unit 120, a controller 130, a display unit 140, a user input unit 150, and a printing unit. It includes a portion 160. The operation of the image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 1 will be described in conjunction with the flowchart showing the image forming method according to the present invention shown in FIG.

The interface unit 120 receives a file storing image data to be printed from the external memory device 110 (step 300). The external memory device 110 may include a memory card such as a smart card that is detachable to the interface unit 110 of the image forming apparatus 100, a digital camera having a USB storage device or memory connected via USB, It is preferably a digital camcorder, a mobile phone, a DVD player, or the like. In addition, the format of the file in which the image data input to the image forming apparatus 100 is stored is preferably a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Postscript file, or a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file.

The controller 130 receives a file storing image data from the interface unit 120 and detects page information of the document to be printed using the file (step 310). The controller 130 preferably detects page information of a document and table of contents information corresponding to the page by using the file.

The display unit 140 receives page information of a document to be printed from the control unit 130 and displays it on the LCD screen for the user to view (step 320). The user checks page information of the document stored in the file by using the information displayed on the display unit 140, and the user input unit 150 receives a page to be printed among the document pages from the user (step 330). ). In operation 320, when the display unit 140 displays table of contents information, the user may select a shepherd to print among the displayed contents.

The controller 130 receives a page to be printed by the user from the user input unit 150, extracts image data corresponding to the page to be printed from the image data input from the interface unit 120, and prints the page. In step 160, the data is converted into print data in a printable format (step 340). The printing unit 160 receives the converted print data from the control unit 130 and performs printing (step 350).

The information extracting unit 120 extracts table of contents information and page information corresponding to each table of contents to be printed using the index included in the input PDF file (step 210), and the display unit 130 In operation 220, the extracted table of contents information and the page information are displayed.

The user input unit 140 receives, from the user, a table of contents or a page to be printed from among the displayed list of documents as a print area (step 230). The data conversion unit 150 extracts data corresponding to the print area input from the user among the image data input from the interface unit 110, and enables the print unit 160 to print data of the print area. The data is converted into data (step 240). The printing unit 160 receives the converted print area data and prints it (step 250).

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of the controller 130 of FIG. 1, and includes an index checker 200, a page information detector 210, a renderer 220, and a print data extractor 230. It is done by The operation of the controller 130 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. 4.

Among the file formats input from the external storage device 110, PDF is a format developed to solve document compatibility problems occurring between various platforms, and documents created by various applications are not related to the platform and the application. This file format is independent from other devices because users can open and view the typeface and image information in the document. In addition, in a PDF document, hyperlink information such as index and URL and bookmark information for moving a page can be included in a file, so that a document having a large number of pages can be easily and conveniently searched and moved. However, since the PDF file may not include an index having the page information of the document as described above, when the PDF file includes the index, the controller 130 may detect the page information of the document using the index. However, if the index is not included, the page information may be detected by checking the entire document to be actually printed.

In the case of a PS file, since a Showpage postscript command is used for a specific page unit, the page information of a document stored in the PS file can be detected by parsing the Showpage postscript command.

The index checker 200 checks whether an index having information about a page is included in the file input from the interface 120 (step 400). When the PS file is input, the index checking unit 200 preferably detects a Showpage PostScript command included in the PS file in step 400.

When the index is included in the file, the operation of the controller 110 is as follows. The page information detection unit 210 detects page information of a document to be printed using the index included in the file and outputs the page information to the display unit 140 (step 410). The rendering unit 220 receives a page to be printed by the user from the user input unit 150 (step 420), extracts image data corresponding to the input page from the image data stored in the file, and then extracts the image data. The image data of the selected page is converted into print data printable by the printing unit 160 (step 430). In operation 430, the renderer 220 converts only image data of a part corresponding to a page to be printed by the user, and the print data extractor 230 converts the print data converted by the renderer 220 into the print data. Transfer to the printing unit 160 (step 440).

When the index is not included in the file, the operation of the controller 110 is as follows. The rendering unit 220 converts the entirety of the image data stored in the input file into print data printable by the printing unit 160 (step 450). The page information extracting unit 210 receives print data for the entire document from the rendering unit 220, detects page information of the document using the entire print data, and outputs the page information to the display unit 140. (Step 460).

The print data extracting unit 230 receives a page to be printed by the user from the user input unit 150 (step 470), and corresponds to the input page of the entire print data converted by the rendering unit 220. The printed data is extracted (step 480). The print data extracting unit 230 outputs the extracted print data of the page desired by the user to the printing unit 160 (step 440).

The invention can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all kinds of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disks, optical data storage devices, and the like, which are also implemented in the form of carrier waves (for example, transmission over the Internet). Include.

Although a method and apparatus for directly receiving and printing a PDF file from an external storage device have been described in detail with reference to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in addition to the PDF file, a file containing a table of contents or page information to be printed from an external device is output from the external device. The present invention is also applicable to printing by input. In addition, one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains may implement the invention in various ways without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. You will know. Accordingly, modifications to future embodiments of the present invention will not depart from the technology of the present invention.

According to the image forming method and apparatus for receiving and printing image data from an external storage device according to the present invention as described above, directly receiving and printing a file storing the image data to be printed from an external storage device such as a USB memory stick In this case, it is possible to select and print an area or a part of the page corresponding to some contents of the image data stored in the file, thereby reducing waste of paper and the like due to the printing of the page that is not desired to be printed. It can provide convenience.

Claims (5)

An image forming method of receiving image data from an external storage device and printing the same, Receiving a file storing image data to be printed from the external storage device; Converting image data stored in the input file into printable print data, detecting and displaying print page information from the converted print data; Receiving a page to be printed among the displayed pages; And And extracting and printing print data corresponding to the input page to be printed from the converted print data. The method of claim 1, wherein the input file is An image forming method comprising any one of a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Postscript file, and a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file. An image forming apparatus which receives image data from an external storage device and prints the same, An interface unit for receiving a file storing image data to be printed from the external storage device; A display unit for displaying print page information of image data stored in the file; A user input unit which receives a page to be printed among the displayed pages; A control unit for detecting print page information of the image data from the input file and outputting the print page information to the display unit, and converting image data corresponding to the input page to be printed among the image data into printable print data; And And a printing unit for printing the converted print data. The method of claim 3, wherein the input file is An image forming apparatus characterized by any one of a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Postscript file, and a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file. The method of claim 3, wherein the control unit A rendering unit converting image data stored in the input file into printable print data; A page information detection unit for detecting print page information from the converted print data; And And a print data extraction unit for extracting print data corresponding to a page to be printed input from the user input unit from the converted print data.

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