Abstract: A drag-and-drop direct printing method with enhanced functions is described. A printing bin icon is provided on the computer's desktop, and the user drags files onto the icon to print the files without manually opening them. The printing bin program allows a user to set basic printing property settings, select a printer, compose a page, etc. all without visibly opening the files or the full printing and print properties interface. Simple popup menus, such as a printing property setting menu, printer selection menu, page composition menu, etc. are provided to allow the user to accomplish these functions. In one embodiment, when a user drops a file in the printing bin icon, a popup menu allows the user to select one of multiple printing methods, such as print with current settings, change settings and print, select printer and print, compose page and print, etc.

Abstract: A method used with the XPSDrv printer driver which reduces the overhead associated with loading the XPS filters is disclosed. The method may be implemented in a dynamic-link library (DLL) loaded by the configure module of the XPSDrv driver or a special function. The DLL or the special function dynamically modifies the XPSDrv driver's filter pipeline configuration file for each print job, so that only a subset of the filters, i.e., filters that are required for that print job, are included in the filter pipeline configuration file. In operation, the user uses the printer driver interface (UI) to set print property settings for the print job, and when the user exits the driver UI, the DLL or the special function modifies the filter pipeline configuration file based on the print property settings set by the user.

Abstract: Systems and methods consistent with embodiments of the present invention provide for a method for preserving and maintaining document integrity. In some methods for preserving and maintaining document integrity, the contents of a document, or contents of a document layer may be encoded into a machine-readable form. In some embodiments, the encoded information may be represented using a 2-dimensional bar code. In some methods for preserving and maintaining document integrity, the machine-readable code is printed along with contents of the document based on space available in the document. In some embodiments, a printed document containing the machine-readable code may be scanned and digitized, and content extracted from the scanned data. In some embodiments, the machine-readable code printed on the document is used to recreate layer data from the printed document.

Abstract: Systems, methods and storage mediums are disclosed for processing images and two-dimensional barcodes for two-way verification of document data. In one exemplary embodiment, image data of a document is obtained, processed and rendered into a barcode for incorporation into a reproduction of the document image. The barcode may overlap the document image which allows it to be placed anywhere in the document. Moreover, the barcode may overlap certain portions such that it conceals confidential information while maintaining the integrity of the confidential information within encoded data of the barcode.

Abstract: A method for managing a plurality of pint jobs is implemented in a print job management apparatus connected to printers. The method includes receiving print job, and visually presenting a display screen to a user, the display screen including first, second and third panels for classifying the received print jobs according to processing phase thereof, the first panel being provided for listing print jobs that are awaiting assignment of printers thereto for processing the print jobs, the second panel being provided for listing print jobs that have been assigned to printers and that have not been completed by the assigned printers, the third panel being provided for listing at least one of first and second categories of print jobs, the first category including print jobs that have been completed, the second category including print jobs that have been cancelled.

Abstract: A toner saving printing method and related computer program product is described. The program analyzes an input file to extract data that represents background, and if the background is a solid dark color, changes the background to a colorless or a lighter color background. The colors of the foreground objects such as text and graphics are changed correspondingly to maintain adequate contrast between the foreground objects and the background. The method can be implemented as a part of a printer driver.

Abstract: An image forming method includes marking a cutting pattern over an image to be printed, designating portions of the cutting pattern as a portion to be kept in the image to be printed and a portion to be discarded, creating an image mask using information of the designated portions, applying the image mask to create a modified image in which the portion to be kept is exposed and the portion to be discarded is hidden by the image mask, applying colorant only to the portion to be kept of the modified image, which is exposed by the image mask, to create an outputted image with colorant only on the portion to be kept, and cutting away the portion to be discarded of the modified image, which is hidden by the image mask, so that the portion to be discarded is not included in the outputted image.

Abstract: A printing system, which includes a printer and a client computer having executable instructions for creating a print job for producing a large format of an image. The executable instructions include selecting a medium size, displaying an image on a display associated with the client computer, wherein the image is partitioned into a plurality of images, selecting a partition within the plurality of images, and printing the selected partition.

Abstract: A paper clearing mode is provided in a printing device such as a copier or printer to automatically eject stopped sheets of paper after the jammed paper is manually cleared. The printing device indicates on a display panel only the location(s) of the jammed paper, i.e., the jam location that triggered the print engine to stop printing. The display does not indicate to the user the locations of other sheets of paper that are stopped along the paper transport path but not jammed. Following the displayed instruction, the user manually clears the jammed paper, but does not clear the stopped sheets. After the jammed sheet is cleared, the printing device automatically discharges the stopped sheets from the paper path as a part of the jam recovery process.

Abstract: A printing system, which includes a printer and a client computer having executable instructions for creating a print job. The executable instructions include selecting a medium; dividing an image into a plurality of image partitions; determining margins for the image on the image partitions based on a selected composition layout of the image partitions; and locating the image within the plurality of image partitions in accordance with the determined margins. The printer and the client computer are connected via a network.

Abstract: An improved variable data printing (VDP) method is disclosed. A VDP database contains variable data and form data. The variable data includes a plurality of entries each having a plurality attributes. The form data includes images. Each printed piece of a VDP production includes variable data and form data selected based on the variable data attributes. When the printed pieces include a background image and foreground text to be printed over the background image, and when different pieces in the VDP production have different background image, the method automatically selects a text color to print the foreground text over the background image on each piece to enhance visibility and/or aesthetic appearance. In addition, the foreground text color for each piece may be selected based on additional attributes of the variable data.

Abstract: In a system of networked devices such as printers managed by a computer connected to them by a network, a method is described for executing device discovery and device status update at independent time intervals using a SNMP broadcast method while eliminating thread safety risk. Device discovery and status update are executed as subroutines within a main routine and each subroutine has its own decrement counter. The entire routine is repeated one cycle every time unit. In each cycle, the decrement counters are evaluated. If a counter is a positive value, the corresponding subroutine is skipped and the counter is decremented by one. If a counter is zero, the corresponding subroutine is executed and its counter is reset to the user-specified time interval afterwards.

Abstract: A method for managing printers, implemented in a print job management apparatus, is provided. The method includes determining availability of each of the printers in accordance with a pre-defined criteria, and displaying a list of the printers together with the availabilities of the printers on a display monitor.

Abstract: A document authenticating method is disclosed by which a plurality of two-dimensional barcode stamps are generated and printed on a back side of the document forming a color mosaic pattern. Each barcode stamp by itself is a binary barcode, but the plurality of barcode stamps as a whole are printed with different colors and/or color intensities. The barcode stamps collectively encode the content of the document to be used for document authentication.

Abstract: A document authenticating method is disclosed by which a plurality of two-dimensional barcode stamps are generated and printed on a back side of the document forming a pre-defined special pattern. The barcode stamps collectively encode the content of the document to be used for document authentication. Each barcode stamp encodes linking information indicating the position of the next barcode stamp. An index barcode may be printed on the front side of the document which encodes the position information for all of the barcode stamps on the back side.

Abstract: A targeted TCP socket connection-based printer discovery method is disclosed. It does not use network broadcasts; rather, single packets are sent to each IP address. A multi-threaded method is implemented so that each child thread attempts a TCP socket connection with one IP address, and multiple child threads executes simultaneously. If a connection is successful, the child thread records the corresponding IP address in a local record table. After all child threads exits, the parent thread examines each IP address in the local record table to determine whether the IP address is a supported printer not already in the discovered printer list, and adds the IP address to the discovered printer list if appropriate. Alternatively, the steps of determining whether the IP address is supported printer not already in the discovered printer list may be performed by the child threads.

Abstract: An image printing apparatus includes an image printing unit which prints an image and has a cluster printing function in which a print job is shared with at least one other printing apparatus over a network. A registration unit registers in the memory unit paper type information of a recording sheet to be used in the print job. A communication unit receives over the network paper type information of recording sheets in each of the plurality of other image printing apparatuses. A determination unit selects at least one candidate image printing apparatus from among the plurality of other image printing apparatus based whether the paper type information received by the communication unit matches the paper type information registered in the memory unit. The image printing apparatus, during cluster printing, shares the print job with the at least one candidate image printing apparatus.

Abstract: A method for recovering from an interruption while executing color split printing is described. The document is split into two sub-documents. N sets of the first sub-document are printed on a first printer, and N sets of the second sub-document are printed on a second printer while merging sheets of the first sub-document using a paper inserter unit. When an interruption occurs when printing and merging the nth set, the nth set is skipped and the remaining sets are finished first. Then, the second printer instructs the user to place the printed sheets of the nth set of the first sub-document starting from the first sheet after the point of interruption in the paper inserter unit. The second printer prints the nth set of the second sub-document starting from the point of interruption while merging sheets of the first sub-document using the paper inserter unit to complete the nth set.

Abstract: A document is printed on a recoding medium together with a high resolution 2d barcode that encodes desired information about the document, and a low resolution 2d barcode that encode resolution data that specifies the spatial resolution of the high resolution barcode. The low resolution barcode has a sufficiently low spatial resolution so that it can be adequately read by a majority of scanners at their low resolution settings. Thus, if the printed document is scanned at a low scan resolution, the low resolution barcode can be adequately read to extract the resolution data in order to determined whether the scan resolution is adequate for reading the high resolution barcode. If necessary, the printed document can be re-scanned at a higher scan resolution so that the high resolution barcode can be adequately read. Alternatively, the resolution data may specify the print resolution at which the document is printed.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and user-interfaces consistent with embodiments of the present invention provide for a method for secure document scanning in a non-private environment. In some methods for secure document scanning in a non-private environment, the presence of an accessible and writeable removable media device coupled to a scanning device may be detected and the user may be presented with interfaces to configure parameters related to the scan, including scanning device related parameters, document related parameters, and removable media device related parameters. The scanned document may be saved to the removable media device if it meets criteria specified by the user, which may include verification and authentication of security mechanisms embedded in the document.