Abstract: A system, method, and program for optimally caching in a memory system an overlay instance. The system includes a local memory and a rasterizing processor coupled to the local memory. Responsive to receipt of a presentation requirement specifying an overlay stored in a memory device, the rasterizing processor determines whether an overlay instance for the overlay is cached in a memory system. Responsive to the overlay instance not being cached in the memory system, the rasterizing processor generates a new overlay instance for the overlay and caches the new overlay instance in the memory system. Responsive to the overlay instance being cached in the memory system, the rasterizing processor produces another overlay instance tailored to the presentation requirements, compares the another overlay instance to the cached overlay instance and then caches into the memory system only one overlay instance among the another overlay instance and the cached overlay instance that best presents the overlay.

Abstract: A flexible and extensible job processing system is described. A print job processing server manages a plurality of data receivers and printer emulators. Data receivers receive jobs from the print job originators, such as print servers. The printer emulators convert the jobs into a plurality of intermediate output formats, with error, status and control information being available for both storage and reporting back to the print job originator. A user interface client is used to communicate with a plurality of job processing systems. The client can be used to view and possibly edit the job and device information available by the print job originator, configure the printer emulators in the system and the system itself, view the job status and error information, including printer traces, and view and possibly edit the data output of the printer emulator. The system uses the output of the printer emulators for a variety of purposes, such as driving output devices.

Abstract: A method of compressing pixel information is described. The pixel data is received in a data stream and compressed into a compressed data format by identifying a run of consecutive bytes of the data stream based on the similarity of the consecutive data bytes in the data stream. A mode bit of a compression byte is used to indicate whether a run of consecutive bytes is identified. Count bits of the compression byte are used to indicate the number of times the data bytes are repeated and zero counts may be used to indicate particular types of runs, for example, runs to the end of a scan line and the end of an object. Where a pixel byte is represented by 8 bits, the data stream may be compressed in multiples of four bytes at a time. If a pixel is represent by less than 8 bits, the compression method may look for repetitions of similar bytes one byte at a time.

Abstract: Provided is a method, system, and program for interfacing with a printer driver. Data and an acknowledgment request is received from the printer driver. The printer driver does not send further data to print until receiving an acknowledgment reply indicating that the transmitted data passed an initial check to improve printer performance. An acknowledgment reply is transmitted to the printer driver in response to the acknowledgment request before completing the initial check of the sent data to cause the printer driver to send further data. Data processing operations are resynchronized in response to detecting an error in the received data. The received data is rasterized and outputted.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and information bearing medium for merging display items in encoded form involve providing display items to be merged in an encoded format, such as a run length encoded format (e.g., modified enhanced run length encoded format). The display items are examined on the basis of item priority. A target item having a target area is defined. The display items in the target area are merged according to item priority to produce the target item. The target item is representative of the merged display items. The encoded data associated with the display items to be merged includes control data and color data. In one embodiment, tokens are produced using the encoded data associated with the display items to be merged. The display items are merged using the tokens. The tokens represent counts of repeated data or pointers to pass-thru data associated with the display items to be merged.