Abstract: Systems, apparatus, and methods for enhancing management of raster image processing (RIP) resources are described. In one aspect, a printing environment includes a RIP engine and multiple RIP pipelines. The RIP engine is scheduled to perform RIP for a first time period for a first pipeline of the multiple RIP pipelines. Responsive to occurrence of a start time of the first time period, the RIP engine is automatically transferred to the first pipeline for RIP.

Abstract: Various systems and methods for raster image processing employing partitioning of print jobs are described herein. In one representative embodiment, a method is provided that comprises the steps of determining a page count for a print job expressed in a page description language and specifying a number of partitions of the print job. The method also includes the steps of assigning each of the partitions of the print job to one of a number of raster image processing (RIP) engines for raster image processing, and, re-aggregating a number of raster image processed partitions from the RIP engines into a raster image processed output file. Each of the raster image processed partitions is generated by raster image processing a corresponding one of the partitions with a respective one of the RIP engines.