International Business Machines Corporation

Infoprintsolutions Company, LLC

Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Ricoh Production Print Solutions LLC

Larry David Teklits

Charles D Johnson

Russel Neil Miller

Larry Mason Ernst

Ho Chong Lee

Jack Louis Zable

Dennis Carney

Steven Michael Wallace

Karen Lynn Harrison

Timothy D'Avis

Hong Li

Jean Margaret Aschenbrenner

Kenneth Stuart Shouldice

Allan Anthony Hren

Rose Ellen Visoski

Ronald Earl Van Buskirk, Ii

Kent S Norgren

Vladimir V Shestak

Edward Francis Chatcavage

Brian Charles Pendleton

J Wesley Boyes, Jr

Perry E Davenport

Elke M Jones

Perry P Davenport

Embodiments of the invention disclose a method for K-only (gray/black) object rendering in a high-speed color controller of a printing system. The method includes setting a flag to indicate selection of a K-only text and barcode print preference from a user of a print system, receiving one or more objects to be printed by the print system, the one or more objects including at least one of a text object and a barcode object, determining whether an input color space for the at least one text object and barcode object should be converted to K-only black ink, and rendering the at least one of the text object and the barcode object as K-only black ink if the input color space is determined to be converted to K-only black ink.

Mechanism for K-only object rendering in a high-speed color controller

Systems and methods are provided for printer controller, dynamic N-UP print job imaging. An enhanced printer includes features hereof to dynamically adjust parameters of a print job at any point in a print job. In one aspect hereof, the printer configures a print job for an initial set of printing parameters without host system intervention and may reconfigure those parameters during printing of the print job. In another aspect hereof, the adjustments may include adjusting the relative position of any of the N-UP images independent of any other of the N-UP images. Another aspect hereof provides that the formatting of the print job according to printing parameters by the printer occurs after rasterizing the print job into logical page images. Since the formatting is performed after rasterizing, the printing parameters may be changed at any time during printing of the print job.

Printer controlled dynamically altered N-UP imaging

An International Color Consortium (ICC) profile making tool includes a regression module to establish a dependency between a profile connection space (PCS) and a device color space and an optimization module to generate a first output profile based on an ink minimization mode and a second output profile based on a high accuracy mode.

Ink minimizing profile making tool

The present invention efficiently directs the flow of print jobs and efficiently controls the spooling and printing of print jobs. The multiplexer system analyzes jobs received from client systems through print channels. The multiplexer determines the attributes of the incoming job and the attributes associated with the print channel. If the attributes of the print job and the attributes of the print channel dictate an output path (either MUST PRINT or MUST SPOOL), then the multiplexer examines the state of the selected path. If the designated output path (printer or spooler) is busy, then the multiplexer decision is to signal a Stop_Flow to the print channel. The print channel is signaled to Start_Flow at a later time, when the output path becomes available. If the attributes of the print job and the attributes of the print channel do not dictate an output pith, then the multiplexer examines a User Output Selection setting to control spooling and printing of print jobs.

Method and apparatus for determining how to process incoming print jobs

A Job Monitor for providing printer recognition and management of a print job entity is described. The Job Monitor includes a repository of attributes and status associated with each print job that passes through the system. Interfaces to the Job Monitor provide the ability for components to process a job according to the unique requirements of the processing component, and report job attributes and processing status of the job to the Job Monitor for common access by other components. Each component has access to common variables and can present job attributes or status to its respective external interface according to the unique requirements dictated by the external interface. Additionally, internal job processing components interface with the Job Monitor to access and report current processing status. The common status repository provided by the Job Monitor is used by the Job Monitor and other components to control the sequence of processing within the printer.

Method and apparatus for providing printer recognition and management of a print job entity

A system and method for concurrently spooling and despooling print jobs, which allows print data associated with a print job to be despooled from storage at the same time that additional print data associated with the print job is spooled onto storage. Print jobs are received and storing of the print job is initiated. The portion of the print data that has been stored is concurrently read from the storage device, and sent to the print engine, thereby allowing the print job to be printed as the print job is being stored onto the storage device.

Method and apparatus for processing print jobs via parallel spooling and despooling operations

The present invention efficiently directs the flow of print jobs and efficiently controls the spooling and printing of print jobs. The multiplexer system analyzes jobs received from client systems through print channels. The multiplexer determines the attributes of the incoming job and the attributes associated with the print channel. If the attributes of the print job and the attributes of the print channel dictate an output path (either MUST PRINT or MUST SPOOL), then the multiplexer examines the state of the selected path. If the designated output path (printer or spooler) is busy, then the multiplexer decision is to signal a Stop_Flow to the print channel. The print channel is signaled to Start_Flow at a later time, when the output path becomes available. If the attributes of the print job and the attributes of the print channel do not dictate an output path, then the multiplexer examines a User Output Selection setting to control spooling and printing of print jobs.

A page generation system that efficiently generates a page segment by clearing memory immediately after data representing the page segment is read from memory. The system generates a page in memory by writing the data representing the image content of the page to a memory block. The memory block is initially clear (all logical 0's) to enable the system to efficiently generate the page segment by writing the positive content of the page segment without having to write the blank sections of the page segment. By clearing memory immediately after data is read from memory, the page generator does not need to zero clear a memory block prior to constructing a page segment therein.

ALDC with zero clear after read

Density calibration for a printer is achieved using a standard grey scale vignette master and a stored gray scale vignette image that the printer operator can invoke from the operator panel of a printer. The vignette image provides a precalibrated scale that is used in conjunction with the &bull;standard&bull; image to determine the proper optical density. The density is then set by the printer control panel based upon the value obtained by visually matching the two grey scale vignettes.

Gray scale calibration tool for setting the density of a printer

A data buffering/transformation system and method that compresses a received signal and stores the compressed received data signal in a data storage unit to conserve storage usage. The system decompresses the data signal prior to transmitting the signal. The received data signal may be an encoded data signal. In such a case, the system further decompresses the received data signal, decodes the signal, recompresses the signal, and stores the signal in the data storage unit. The system and method employs a combination compressor and first decompressor and a second decompressor so the system and method can simultaneously decompress a compressed received data signal and decompress a compressed decoded received data signal.

Dual aldc decompressors inside printer asic

Density calibration for a printer is achieved using a standard grey scale vignette master and a stored gray scale vignette image that the printer operator can invoke from the operator panel of a printer. The vignette image provides a pre-calibrated scale that is used in conjunction with the &square;standard&square; image to determine the proper optical density. The density is then set by the printer control panel based upon the value obtained by visually matching the two grey scale vignettes.

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Loveland, CO, United States of America

Larry David Teklits