초록 ▼

In addition to functioning as a conventional printer, a printer system responds to triggering strings of characters within incoming pages of data by calling upon a meta-command interpreter to execute meta-commands such as " # if . . . # endif," " # for . . . # next," and " # mid . . . " embedded w

In addition to functioning as a conventional printer, a printer system responds to triggering strings of characters within incoming pages of data by calling upon a meta-command interpreter to execute meta-commands such as " # if . . . # endif," " # for . . . # next," and " # mid . . . " embedded within templates containing data and print commands which describe families of documents or reports. The incoming pages can be stripped of their printer control codes and can be then used as rectangular arrays of characters which control the customization and reduction of the templates into one or more customized documents or reports containing data extracted from the incoming pages inserted at points marked by the " # mid" meta-command and similar meta-commands. A first template, with a " # startform" command, can cause the meta-command interpreter to process subsequent incoming pages against a designated template without the need for further triggering. The system provides global search and replace functions for all incoming pages as well as optional double-byte to single-byte conversion.

대표청구항 ▼

1. A programmable data analyzer, and report generator, and printer comprising:a print engine capable of printing text and graphics in response to printer engine control signals; a print command language interpreter operatively connected to and controlling said print engine and causing said print eng

1. A programmable data analyzer, and report generator, and printer comprising:a print engine capable of printing text and graphics in response to printer engine control signals; a print command language interpreter operatively connected to and controlling said print engine and causing said print engine to create and to print images by interpreting print commands and by then generating a set of printer engine control signals that correspond to the functions called for by said interpreted print, commands; a data input port; a data switch normally connecting said data input port to said print command language interpreter such that print commands presented to said input port are executed by said print engine; a digital information memory; a template sensor connecting to said data input port and causing said data switch to route document and report templates containing meta-commands into said data information memory; a template-related data sensor connecting to said input port and causing said data switch to route data corresponding to one of said stored templates to a meta-command interpreter; a meta-language interpreter connecting to said data switch to receive incoming data and to retrieve from said memory the template corresponding to said data, and acting under the control of the meta-commands within said template together with at least some of said incoming data, extracting selected data from said incoming data, combining said selected data with selected printer control commands from said selected template, and passing the data and print commands to said print command language interpreter; whereby customized documents or reports may be printed out by said printer containing data selected from data flowing into said input port and combined with print commands selectively taken from said template, the document or report customization process and the data selection process controlled by the meta-language commands in said template together with at least some of said incoming data.