Abstract: A variable data printing (VDP) method is disclosed. The method takes advantage of the capacity of a print shop to increase overall throughput of a VDP production. The shop management software running on a server provides the ability for a print shop operator to divide the VDP production and submit it to multiple printers so that each printer prints different pieces of the production. In one method, the operator enters a division rule to divide the VDP production based on the variable data. In another method, the server automatically determines how to divide the VDP production based on performance of the printers and other the volume of the VDP production.

Abstract: To solve the problem of incorrect jam recovery, a printer is equipped with one or more sensors to detect the number of sheets outputted to the output tray(s) of the printer. The number of sheets outputted to the tray(s) for a print job is counted, and compared to the number of pages to be printed in the print job. If the numbers do not match, the printer notifies the user of the mismatch. The user may then inspect the printed sheets to determine whether some pages are missing or extra pages have been printed, and take appropriate corrective actions.

Abstract: A printing method that allows a user to conveniently compose and print a document that includes multiple portions from multiple original documents. The method may be implemented as a separate printer driver program or as a part of another printer driver program. The printer driver program displays images of the original documents, and allows the user to select blocks from the original documents. The program then automatically arranges the selected blocks of image into one or more pages, and prints the resulting pages. Thus, only the selected blocks of image are printed. The program additionally allows the user to rearrange the blocks on the pages before printing. A graphical user interface (GUI) is implemented to interact with the user in this process.

Abstract: A variable data printing (VDP) method is disclosed in which different types of contents on each piece of the VDP production, such as color form contents and black and white contents, are printed using different types of printers, such as color printers and black and white printers, respectively. The color form content is printed first to form partially printed sheets. Partially printed sheet carrying different color contents are loaded into different input trays of the black and white printers. The black and white content is printed on the partially printed sheets using the black and white printers. When printing the black and white content, the color data in the input VDP data is excluded. The job tickets for the black and white print jobs specify the input trays to be used so that the appropriate partially printed sheet is selected for each black and white print job.

Abstract: An automatic job assignment method implemented in a print job management apparatus for processing print jobs in a multiple-printer print shop environment described. Each print job is processed by comparing the printing requirements of the job with capabilities of the printers to find one or more candidate printers that can satisfy all job requirements. Then, from all such candidate printers, one printer is selected by evaluating real-time conditions of the printers, such as wait time, device status, periodic maintenance (PM) count, operation history, job ticket history, etc., and the print job is submitted to the selected printer. The real-time conditions and the order in which they are evaluated are set by the operator. The process can also be run in an alternative mode where one of the candidate printers is selected based on a pre-defined fixed priority preference.

Abstract: An automatic job assignment method implemented in a print job management apparatus for processing print jobs in a multiple-printer print shop environment described. Each print job is processed by comparing the printing requirements of the job with capabilities of the printers to find one or more candidate printers that can satisfy all job requirements. Then, from all such candidate printers, one printer is selected by evaluating real-time conditions of the printers, such as wait time, device status, periodic maintenance (PM) count, operation history, etc., and the print job is submitted to the selected printer. The real-time conditions and the order in which they are evaluated are set by the operator. The process can also be run in an alternative mode where one of the candidate printers is selected based on a pre-defined fixed priority preference.

Abstract: A proof copy printing method implemented in a print shop. When a user desires to print a proof copy of a print job while reducing resource usage, the user activates a GUI screen, which allows the user to conveniently set multiple parameters that will achieve reduced resource usage. When printing the proof copy, the values set on the GUI screen are used to temporarily override the corresponding parameter values specified in the job ticket without modifying the job ticket itself. When the user desires to print the job normally, the user activates the GUI screen to cancel the proof mode. The system then prints the job using the job parameter values specified in the job ticket.

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: In a print shop management system, a print job submission approval policy is provided to determine whether a print job submission to a target printer is approved or prohibited. The policy includes multiple policy settings of job restriction criteria enforced at job submission time. The restrictions are based on conditions of the target printer, such as PM count, jam count, error count, printer status, levels of available resources, etc. The policy may also restrict certain user's ability to submit print jobs to certain printers. If the job submission is prohibited, a message is displayed to the user but the print job is not submitted to the printer. Each policy setting may be applied to a printer based on printer type or identity. Each policy setting is created by an administrator. A user interface for inputting policy setting values is disclosed.

Abstract: In a print shop management system, a print job submission approval policy is provided to determine whether a print job submission made by a particular user is approved or prohibited. The policy includes multiple policy settings of job restriction criteria enforced at job submission time. The restrictions may be based on job price, certain restricted functions, resource usage, etc. If the job submission is prohibited, a message is displayed to the user but the print job is not submitted to the printer. Each policy setting may be applied to a user based on his user role or user name. Each policy setting is created by an administrator. A user interface for inputting policy setting values is disclosed.

Abstract: A method which uses digital image comparison for imaging software development is described. The software under development is used to generate a set of test digital images from print data. The images are stored. The software of a reference system is used to generate a set of reference digital images based on the same print data. The test and reference images are tiled, and image comparison is carried out on a tile-by-tile basis. A difference tile is generated for each test image tile and corresponding reference image tile, and the tiles are stored together in an image file to be displayed to the human user. The test images and reference images are compared using an image comparison program. The result of the comparison is presented to the human software developer for further comparison and evaluation.

Abstract: A printing method is described that allows the user to conveniently either print a document, or generate an output file from it in a desired image file format and save the file for late use, or both at once. The user opens a document using an application, and issues a print request. From the print dialog box, the user chooses to set printing preferences. The print preferences dialog box includes an “output file” tab allowing the user to specify whether an output file is to be generated, specify an output file format, specify a destination for saving the output file, and specify whether hard copies of the document are to be printed on the printer. The method may be implemented as a part of a printer driver program.

Abstract: An improved document authentication method in which critical content, such as signatures, is preserved at a high-resolution in the authentication data carried on the self-authenticating document. When generating authentication data, signatures are compressed without down-sampling to preserve their resolution and quality. The compressed signature data (a bit string) is embedded in an image segment on the document. For example, each bit of the bit string is stored in the low bits of one or more image pixels. A hash code is calculated from the bit string and stored in a barcode printed on the document. To authenticate a scanned-back document, the bit string is recovered from the image segment. A hash code is calculated from the recovered bit string and compared to the hash code extracted from the barcode. The signatures re-generated from the recovered bit string are compared to the signatures in the scanned document.

Abstract: A batch file printing method is described. A user opens a file using an application, and issues a print request. From the print dialog box, the user chooses to set printing preferences. The print preferences dialog box includes tabs for setting various printing references, and an additional batch file printing tab for selecting a number of files to be printed as the same batch using the same printing preferences. The batch file printing tab includes a file list box showing the files to be included in the batch and buttons allowing the user to add files to or remove files from the list. The selected files, along with the currently open file, are printed at once using the same printing preferences set by the user. The selected files may be in different folders, and may be different type of files.

Abstract: Systems, methods and storage mediums are disclosed for processing image data and associated two-dimensional barcodes for decreased data storage requirements and increased data transfer capabilities. Image data of a document may be obtained, processed, and rendered into a barcode including image data from which the document may be substantially reproduced. The barcode may be incorporated into a reproduction of the document. The amount of data associated with the reproduction of the document may be decreased by reducing the resolution of the reproduction, thereby allowing for decreased data storage requirements and increased data transfer capabilities. The amount of data may also be decreased by reducing the area of the reproduction.

Abstract: A method implemented in a printer controller for printing oversized image data is described. During printing, a process is executed to determine whether the data to be printed have a page data size that exceeds the maximum printable area for the specified recording medium. The page data size of a given page is the total extent (width and height) of the data objects on the page. If the page data size exceeds the maximum printable area, the process determines whether the portions of the image that exceeds the maximum printable area are background data. If they are, a portion of the background data that exceeds the maximum printable area are cut off, and the document is printed without reducing the size of the non-background data. The method can also be implemented on a print driver.

Abstract: Apparatus, systems, and methods presented herein allow for the alignment of images. In some embodiments, a plurality of PWM modules each receive input data and corresponding input phase-shifted clock signals. In some embodiments, each PWM module generates an output phase-shifted PWM signal based on the input data and its corresponding input phase-shifted clock signal. In some embodiments, a selector selects one of the output phase-shifted PWM signal based on timing relationships between an event signal and the phase-shifted clock signals.

Abstract: A print job canceling method for a printer is described and is especially useful in a printer with relatively small buffer memory. When a print job is cancelled by the user using the printer's control panel, this method allows the printer controller to receive additional print jobs while the current job is being cancelled, without having to notify the host to stop sending the current print job. The printer controller reduces the memory allocated to the job being cancelled. The printer controller continues to accept data for the current job from the host, but does not print the received data. The data is subsequently flushed from the memory. The printer controller also assigns a lower priority to the print job being cancelled. Meanwhile, the remaining memory can be used to receive and print additional print jobs.

Abstract: An improved image processing method for generating an image from a hard copy document includes the following steps: scanning the hard copy document multiple times using a scanner to generate a plurality of images; performing deskewing for each image; performing translational compensation for each image; selecting two images (first and second) among the plurality of images that have the highest similarity to each other; dilating the first image; converting the dilated first image into a binary form; eroding the converted first image to generate a first processed image; eroding the second image; converting the eroded second image into a binary form; dilating the converted second image to generate a second processed image; and extracting common portions of the first and second processed images to generate a final image. This method can be used to generate high quality scanned images of hard copy documents for purposes of document authentication.

Abstract: A document authenticating method is disclosed by which numerous small-sized two-dimensional barcode stamps are generated and placed in a distributed manner on a printed document. The small-sized barcode stamps collectively encode the content of the document to be used for document authentication. In one example, the stamp size is about ¼ by ¼ inches or less and the tile size for the stamps is 4 by 4 pixels at a resolution of 400 dpi. The document is segmented into segments each containing a paragraph or a line of text. For each segment, a set of barcode stamps encoding the authentication data for the segment is placed in the vicinity of the segment. They may be placed in the empty space in the last line of each paragraph, in the empty space between adjacent paragraphs, or at the beginning or end of each line.