Electronics for Imaging Gmbh

Ramgopal Vidyanand

Margaret Motamed

Ravi Someshwar

James K Schwarz, Jr

Nick Hartzel

A system is provided for supporting multiple platforms with common personal preferences for printer drivers. The set preferences for the printer driver are therefore reusable and may be moved from one driver to another. The system involves the provision of a common format for printer driver preferences. When a new printer is brought to a system or a user moves to a station that uses a different printer, the preferences are readily moved to that location. Further, an MIS department may provide a corporate wide printer preference solution, for example for printing a particular page or printing in a particular style. The preferences may not be identical for each printer due to differences in the capabilities of various platforms. The printer preferences overwrite a default value in printers with preferences, to the extent that each printer has the options available. To the extent that these options are not available, the printer reverts to its default setting.

Apparatus and methods for transferring printer driver preferences

A method for dynamically managing printers comprises a mechanism for printing from a network of printers that belong to a virtual printer group to meet the user's request for printing. The invention does this by requesting an options and capabilities file from each printer and then generating a virtual printer group, such that when a user wants to print a file, the invention looks for the best suited printer for the user and sends a file to that printer for printing. The invention has the capability to keep track of each printer's printing capabilities dynamically and to communicate to the user about the status of printing and printer location, and of informing a system administrator for manual intervention should the need arise.

Method and apparatus for automatically managing capabilities in a virtual printer group

This invention relates to variable data print job systems. In particular, this invention relates to variable data print job systems that reduce the master and variable jobs to a single job that does not require indefinite disk storage on a printer. A first part of the job contains the master data pages and a second part of the job contains the variable data. The print job is assembled and sent to the printer, which detects that the job is a two part job. The printer places the master data in the page buffer and copies it to another area of the page buffer so that a page of the variable data can be overlaid on the page buffer, which is then sent to the print engine for printing.

Variable data print job system

Reusable and transferable printer driver preference system

A variable data print job system that reduces the master and variable jobs into a single job sent from the client to the printer that does not require indefinite disk storage on the printer. The first part of the job contains the master data pages and the second part of the job contains the variable data. The print job is assembled and sent to the printer which detects that the job is a two part job. It places the master data in the page buffer and copies it to another area of the page buffer so a page of the variable data can be overlaid onto the page buffer and is then sent to the print engine for printing. This process is repeated for each page of variable data.

Methods of translating a print object stream into a print job stream are claimed. The print object stream contains a succession of print objects. The print job stream contains print job objects.

Preprocessing method for a variable data print job system

A variable data print job system that reduces the master and variable jobs into a single job sent from the client to the printer that does not require indefinite disk storage on the printer. The first part of the job contains the master data pages and the second part of the job contains the variable data. The print job is assembled and sent to the printer which detects that the job is a two part job. It places the master data in the page buffer and copies it to another area of the page buffer so a page of the variable data can be overlaid onto the page buffer and is then sent to the print engine for printing. This process is repeated for each page of variable data. The invention expands upon this concept and handles multiple masters with a print job that contains variable data grouped with the associated master data. The single print job is assembled with the sequential variable data pages placed immediately after their associated master pages in a serial fashion. The printer simply decodes the job serially and places the master data into memory whenever master data are encountered in the job stream. Another preferred embodiment of the invention adds master indexing to each page of a variable job. The master data is grouped in the front of the job with each variable page in the print job containing an index indicating the master data that it is associated with. The printer loads each master data into the page buffer that is called up through the variable page index. A further preferred embodiment of the invention modifies the traditional two-job approach with the variable data containing the sub-index to the associated master page. The printer finds the appropriate master page, loads it into the page buffer, and overlays the variable page onto the master page.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Ramgopal Vidyanand