One of the conventional printer drivers has a function of causing the display apparatus to display an image for setting printing conditions. This allows the user to input information through this image so as to set various conditions in carrying out printing with a printer.
The functions of the printer are now becoming more various and complicated, and therefore the printing operation is also becoming diversified. The setting screen needs to have detailed information to cope with such complication in printing job. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Tokukai 2001-5628 (published on Jan. 12, 2001) discloses a printer driver which displays animation in the setting screen, which allows more minute control in the printing operation. Also, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Tokukai 2002-182871 (published on Jun. 28, 2002), and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Tokukai 2004-220487 (published on Aug. 5, 2004) disclose a printer driver capable of displaying icons corresponding to printing functions by which the user can more easily understand the details of the printing functions.
After such a setting image is created, the designer may desire to make some changes in design often to improve user's operation efficiency. The users also may desire to customize the setting image according to their own needs.
However, in the foregoing conventional printer drivers, all programs for creating and displaying the setting image are mounted to the printer driver in advance. Therefore, it is necessary to edit the whole built-in program of the printer driver to make changes of the setting image. This is extremely troublesome. Particularly, the printer driver for driving the setting image with animation or icons is very large, and the changes for the setting image becomes further difficult.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds