Xerox Corporation

Graham Button

Richard M Bentley

James E Pycock

Rachel Jones

Allan MacLean

Kevin A Palfreyman

Jon O'Brien

In an electronic document filing system, placeholder objects are used to provide an explicit representation of document files which are not yet present but which are explicitly expected by the system. A placeholder object can be a real filing system object, which may be processed by the filing system in the same manner as any other filing system object, and can include filing system data such as file metadata. The metadata may be associated with an expected source for the document file (e.g., for automatic capture of a paper document from a scanner).

Electronic filing system with scan-placeholders

The present invention provides a method to support the coordination of geographically distributed printing and, in particular, identification of possibilities for distributing print jobs to other shops for production. The technique involves the forwarding of production schedules by a number of print shops to a central location, where they are accessible to other print shops and can be used as a resource for identifying possible collaboration partners for distributed production. The technique builds on the common understanding and similar representation in the print industry of the production schedule, a device which charts the plan assignment of print job to particular machines for some future period. The novelty of the present invention lies in the sharing of production schedules through forwarding them to a central location in order to support the coordination of distributed production printing.

Method to support the coordination of distributed production-printing

In an electronic document filing system, placeholder objects are used to provide an explicit representation of document files which are not yet present but which are explicitly expected by the system. A placeholder object can be a real filing system object, which may be processed by the filing system in the same manner as any other filing system object, and can include filing system data such as file metadata. The metadata may be associated with an expected source for the document file in, for example, filing systems, messaging systems, workflow systems, and document scanning systems.

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Huntingdon, United Kingdom

Graham Button