Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

James S Boyce

Elliot Lee Klosterman

John P Daly

Timothy P Blair

Tracy Freeman

Alan J Oyama

Dale A Saur

A method for configuring data communication paths between a central controller and a plurality of devices is provided. The method ensures a first appliance is active. For each of the devices, a first communication capability is determined between the first appliance and the device. Signals indicative of the first communication capabilities are transmitted to the central controller. Respective communication paths are mapped between the central controller and the devices via the first appliance as a function of the first communication capabilities. The method ensures an automatic appliance failover is obtained.

Method and system for gathering data using automatic appliance failover

A system for processing a print job stores the print job on a first device. A pointer is provided to a printing device, which notifies the printing device that the print job is waiting to be processed. The pointer also identifies the name and location of the print job stored on the first device. When the printing device is ready to process the print job, the printing device retrieves the print job from the first device using the pointer. Additionally, the printing device may retrieve a particular font prior to processing the print job.

Indirect processing of print jobs

A printer driver uses filters that are operating system-independent and printer-independent. Print requests and corresponding print data are received by the printer driver and converted into an internal representation that is both operating system-independent and printer-independent. The data to be printed is then passed through a print pipeline where one or more of a plurality of print filters are applied to the data. As a final stage in the print pipeline, the data is converted to a printer-dependent representation. In one embodiment, one or more of the plurality of filters used in the print pipeline are stored in a dynamic link library (DLL).

Printer drivers using filters that are operating system-independent and printer-independent

A print job requiring unavailable resources is held until the deficiency is remedied. The resource requirements of the print job are evaluated. The resource requirements are compared to known available resources. Either standard resources are assumed or available resources for the printer are discovered. Responsive to a resource deficiency exposed by the comparison, the print job is communicated to a printer with a command to hold the print job. Also responsive to the resource deficiency exposed by the comparison, instructions for remedying the resource deficiency are created and the instructions are provided to a remedy provider. The instructions are provided to the remedy provider either by printing the instructions or by displaying the instructions on the printer. The remedy provider remedies the resource deficiency and the printer processes the print job. Alternatively, the resource deficiency is communicated to the printer, the resource deficiency is monitored for a remedy, and responsive to the remedy of the resource deficiency, the print job is processed.

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Meridian, ID, United States of America

James S Boyce