Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Manuel Gonzalez

Andrew Mackenzie

Emiliano Bartolome

Luca Chiarabini

Andreu Gonzalez

Steven J Simske

Paolo Faraboschi

Roland John Burns

Lluis Abello

Steven Battle

Jean-Michel Combe

Alex Roche

Virginia Palacios

A system for printing documentshaving a position identifying patternon them comprises a memoryarranged to have a document definitionstored therein which defines a document having at least one pattern areaand a printing control systemarranged to print a document instance from the definition by allocating an identity to the document instance, associating an areaof pattern space with the document instance, and printing the document instance, wherein the printing control system is arranged to move the boundaries of the defined pattern area before printing the document instance.

Printing of documents with position identification pattern

A producthaving a data encoding patternprinted on it, the pattern defining a grid having a grid spacing, wherein the grid spacing has discontinuities arranged to compensate for a mismatch between the resolution at which the patternis printed and a required value for the grid spacing, the discontinuities being irregularly spaced across the product.

Data encoding pattern

A method and apparatus for producing a document having human-readable content and a position identifying encoding pattern. A printer places text or other content onto a substrate, such as paper, and a filter material application system applies transparent filter material to at least a portion of that content to only modify the reflectivity of the content at a predetermined wavelength. Because the reflectivity of the position identifying encoding pattern remains unchanged, it is distinguishable from the content and can be read at the predetermined wavelength. The position identifying pattern can take a number of forms including a number of dots printed at predetermined positions on the substrate on an imaginary grid.

Products with data-encoding pattern

There is disclosed an on-line print network comprising a print merchant computer, and a plurality of print service providers. Within each print service provider, orders are satisfied efficiently by optimizing throughput of print jobs within the print service provider, whilst at the same time, minimizing media wastage and achieving high printer device utilization, under control of a print manager computer interfacing with the print merchant computer on the one hand, and with the plurality of printer devices on the other hand.

Method and apparatus for automated on-line printing service

A method of operating an electronic document distribution system arranged to distribute documents over a network including the steps of: composing an electronic document; addressing said document with a plurality of recipient addresses; in response to a user input creating a distribution list corresponding to said plurality of recipient addresses; and, distributing said electronic document.

Electronic document handling system and method

An electronic control apparatus configured for use in routing customer orders, received over the internet, to a service provider such as a print service provider selected from a plurality of competing print service providers, comprises an electronic interface configured to receive and acknowledge customer orders; first processing means configured to compare the requirements of a received order with pre-stored information specific to each of the competing service providers; responsive means configured to establish a list of the service providers determined to be able to fulfill requirements of the received order; and processing means configurable, for a received order, to make the selection from the list and to route the received order to the selected service provider. Advantageously by applying a series of filters an optimum service provider is selected by a gateway device assigning a printing order to a print service provider taking into account geographical criteria, and attempts to minimize the final price, in particular the shipping costs. While minimizing costs to the end customer, the gateway device seeks to ensure that a print service provider having competitive prices still receives work.

On-line selection of service providers in distributed provision of services on demand

The present invention provides a system and method for selecting an image size and printing a received image in the selected image size. A computer file including an image is received. A range of sizes for printing the received image is calculated based on a plurality of quality standards in order to maintain a predetermined degree of quality for a printed image. The quality standards may be related to resolution, aspect ratio, number of pixels and orientation. Also, a user may provide a custom print size for printing the received image. If the custom print size is in the calculated range of sizes, the image may printed in the custom size. Alternatively, the image is printed in a size in the range.

System and method for selecting a paper size for printing an image file

Automatic testing determines whether a proofing-file generator and receiver are in a common intranet. If so then the proofing file is automatically sent by a route that is substantially wholly within the intranet, and ideally peer-to-peer. If the generator and receiver are not in a common intranet, then preferably the file is sent by a conventional route through the Internet, preferably via a master server of the proofing service. The test preferably includes dynamically establishing IP addresses for the generator and receiver, and comparing the established IP addresses; however, consultation of a pretabulated listing is also possible.

Growing community of inventors

Barcelona, Spain

Manuel Gonzalez