Kyocera Document Solutions Inc.

Xerox Corporation

Kyocera Document Solutions Development America, Inc.

Javier A Morales

Michael E Farrell

Michael M Chang

Jayant Bhatt

Edwin Philip Lockwood

Arturo Becerra

Robert T Cunningham

Nicholas Paul Osadciw

David C Robinson

Yoshihiro Osada

William Samuel Jacobs

Arlene J Buck

Jonathan David Levine

David E Rumph

Roger Lee Triplett

Michael J Evan

Katherine Bayquen Lao

Nishan Hossepian

Steve A Doria

Patrick Harrington

Jonathan A Goldstein

Paul Michael Ong Siy

Roman D Liccini

Chris Mazur

Matthew Yoshio Morikawa

Heidi O Thatcher

Atsushi Yamada

Timothy F Donahue

Michael E Parrell

Mohamed Mostafa

Michael A Farrell

Timothy Sterling Geesman

Michelle De Beus

Daniel Bell

Jobert Lim

A printing device includes an inline inspection system using one or more sensors to determine defects on a printed sheet. The control unit, or other component connected to the printing device, determines a plurality of horizontal and vertical portions within one or more images on the sheet that are above a colorant value, or CMYK, threshold. A set of the plurality of horizontal and vertical portions are identified from the images on the sheet. The set of horizontal portions may differ from the set of vertical portions. The printed images of these portions are captured by the inline sensor. The captured data is analyzed to determine a defect within the printed sheet.

Printing device inline inspection system and methods

Printing operations may use a hot folder. The hot folder includes printing instructions that are applied to print jobs within the hot folder. A file for the print job is stored in the hot folder. More than one file can be retained. The hot folder invokes a script to be executed on the file. A temporary folder is created corresponding to the file. The file is stored in the temporary folder. The temporary folder has a unique filename. The script is executed within the temporary folder and the execution is monitored to its completion. When the script is done executing, the temporary folder is deleted. Separate temporary folders are generated for each file in the hot folder.

Management of printing operations using enhanced hot folders

A peer-to-peer network of printing devices is configured to share printing device information, such as job queue status, configuration information, and resource information for automated load balancing, capability matching, failover, and print splitting operations. A digital front end (DFE) of a printing device establishes connections with the DFEs of other printing devices to manage output within the peer-to-peer network in an automated manner. When a print job is received at a DFE for a printing device, it is evaluated to determine how to best manage the output for the print job.

Methods and printing system for peer-to-peer output management

A printing system includes an estimation system that provides estimates for ink or toner use for a print job at a target printing device. The estimation system retrieves digital job settings, digital front end (DFE) configuration settings, and printing device configuration settings from the target printing device. The estimate for recurring printing operations is stored at the estimation system. As printing instances occur, the estimation system retrieves the estimate along with its associated settings and compares them to current settings applicable at the printing device. Any difference between defined settings and current settings is resolved prior to printing the document. Job costing information also is generated for this instance of printing and provided to the estimation system.

Methods and printing system for verified production in printing operations

A printing system receives a print job. The print job includes parameters such as dimensions and print attributes. A plurality of papers is accessed in a paper catalog available for a printing device within the printing system. A group of papers is formed based on the dimensions. If the dimensions are for a non-standard size paper, then a standard size of available paper is determined. The smallest standard size paper that fits the dimensions of the print job may be a determined size. The group of papers includes paper entries from the paper catalog having the standard size. Subsets of the group of papers is defined using the attributes. The groups and subsets are presented in a recommended list of paper entries from the paper catalog.

Printing system and methods for enhanced paper selection

A printing system includes a printing device having paper trays. Each paper tray includes loaded paper and has one or more paper tray settings. The paper trays may be divided into paper tray groups. A number of job sheets needed to complete a current or subsequent print job is compared to the number of loaded sheets of paper in a paper tray group. If not enough loaded sheets are available, then the operator is prompted to load additional sheets. Further, another paper tray can be added to the paper tray group. A paper queue also may specify a quantity of paper to be loaded onto the printing device.

Preemptive paper tray management for printing operations

A raster image processor (RIP) system is used in a printing system to process a variety of different jobs. A front end receives the jobs and determines the job type. The job types include a print job, a preview job, and an estimation job. Depending on the type of job, the front end configures the RIPs within RIP system accordingly to process the job. The RIPs may process the job in parallel, with a high performance RIP processing the first page of the job. If the job is not processed in parallel, then the front end assigns the job to a very high performance RIP. The front end also assigns the preview job to a preview RIP and the estimation job to an estimation RIP. The front end configures RIPs as needed.

Methods and printing system using raster image processors (RIPs) configured for processing a preview job

Methods and printing system using raster image processors configured for processing a job

A printing device includes an inspection system that uses variable intervals to inspect printed sheets for a print job. The variable interval sets the inspection points for the inspection process. Once a defect is detected on a printed sheet, the sheets in the paper path are cleared and separated into good and defective sets of sheets. The cleared sheets are sent to an output bin for further review. After addressing the defect, the last good sheet printed is determined and adjusted to resume printing operations.

Methods for print inspection recovery operations at a printing device

A front end of a raster image processing (RIP) system decides a starting storage location and a storage hierarchy. The hierarchy dictates where the rendered pages of a job will be stored. At least one page of a first set of pages of a job are stored at a memory for the RIP system. At least one page of a second set of pages of the job are stored in a storage drive when the memory is not available. The type of job also dictates that the rendered pages of the job are stored in the storage drive. Complex pages also are stored in the storage drive while simple pages are discarded. The processing operations are managed so that the print engine is running efficiently.

Methods and printing system using intelligent RIP I/O for printing operations

Printing operations may use a hot folder. The hot folder includes printing instructions that are applied to print jobs within the hot folder. A file for the print job is stored in the hot folder. More than one file can be retained. Modifications to the file are made while it is within the hot folder, if allowed. Once processing of the file for printing operations is complete, the file is removed from the hot folder.

Management of hot folders during printing operations

An estimation system provides consumable use estimations, such as for ink or toner, in printing operations. The estimation system uses a classification-based consumable use process to estimate the consumable use. A print job is assigned a classification category according to an arbitrary job category selected for the print job and a job property defined for the print job using job settings. An estimate is provided using the classification category and the distribution of the consumable use for print jobs in the category. The estimate is adjusted by a consumable use adjustment factor that reflects the amount of ink or toner disposed of during container replacement or wasted during printing operations.

Methods and printing system using consumable use tracking to adjust consumable use estimation

Management of spot colors and spot color adjustments includes associating these color printing resources with print conditions, customer accounts, or projects for a printing device. A spot color adjustment is associated with a print condition, a customer account, or a project used for printing operations. A print job is received that specified a selected print condition, a selected customer account, or a selected project. The associated spot color adjustment is determined using these attributes. The spot color adjustment is applied during color printing operations for a document using the spot color. The spot color is printed within the document according to the specified spot color adjustment.

Methods for smart spot color management in printing operations

A color printing system manages ICC profiles by controlling ink use without performing the ICC profile creation operations. To obtain an ink limit for an ICC profile, a table associated with the ICC profile is parsed to determine the ink limit. The ink limit is decreased or increased. For an ink limit decrease, a color over the decreased ink limit is adjusted to meet the new ink limit. The ICC profile is updated accordingly. For an ink limit increase, the combination of primary colors are boosted by a percentage amount. Checks are made with regard to the volume-based ink limit and an quality check operation to accepted the boosted amount. The ICC profile is updated accordingly.

Methods and system for ink limit adjustments to ICC profiles for color printing

A printing system implements a peer to peer network to manage resources between printing devices, such as configuration settings, software programs, or multifunctional printer (MFP) applications. When a printing device is added to the peer to peer network, it queries an existing printing device for information about its resources. Such information includes versions of the software programs. The information is used to compare the resources at the added printing device to those within the peer to peer network, using the existing printing device. Any differences are resolved by upgrading the resources at the added printing device by retrieving them within the peer to peer network.

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Rochester, NY, United States of America

Javier A Morales