Pitney Bowes Inc.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Yichun Zhang

Patrick Rolling

Vishnu Sharma

Elaheh Zamanian

Vinod B Nethala

Richard A Sloan, Jr

Dale A French

Paul R Sette

Jinhong K Guo

Paul A Kovlakas

Jeffrey P Rios

Brian A Lemm

Elaheh E Zamanian

A printing system has fixed print heads in positions that are subject to adjustment between print jobs. The system provides a print preview display that includes a representation of the item of printing stock on which the printing is to be performed. The print preview display also includes a first printing field that is at a location in the representation that corresponds to the position of a first one of the print heads. The print preview display further includes a second printing field that is at a location in the representation that corresponds to the position of a second one of the print heads.

Print preview for printers with multiple print heads

A method and system for processing data indicative of pages of mailpiece content material, and for printing pages 'on demand' for use in a mailpiece inserter. The method comprises the steps of: (i) transmitting data from the application software to a print processor along read and write paths and (ii) activating one of the write and read such that when one path is activated the other path is inactivated. The data is then rendered into a print control language (PCL) compatible with a printer integrated with the mailpiece inserter and printed for use therein. The method and system mitigates printing errors by eliminating synchronous access to the same data location within the spool file, i.e., by the application software/spooler along the write path and the print processor along the read path.

Method and system for mitigating errors when processing print stream data

A method is provided for printing and regenerating mailpiece content material in a mailpiece creation system having a controller for modulating the flow of data a printing device. The method comprising the steps of producing an electronic version of the mailpiece content material and generating print stream data indicative of the mailpiece content material. The print stream is then segmented into data sets/packets indicative of a self-contained pages of mailpiece content material. The data packets each include page-based data and an object-data dictionary associated with the page-based data. The data packets are then stored as electronic files in an electronic buffer and, from the electronic buffer, transmitted during a first data transmission to the integrated printer. After the pages are printed, the electronic files of self-contained pages are moved from the electronic buffer to a storage device. Should any pages be identified as having been unsuccessfully printed, the system controller issues a command signal to regenerate the unsuccessfully processed pages in a second data transmission. This final step can be performed automatically or manually.

Method for regenerating mailpiece content material in a mailpiece creation system

A method and system for recovering addresses in an address printing system is provided. A resume marker is set at the current location in the print buffer, used to buffer the addresses for printing, from which the next address will be read for printing. The address in the buffer location preceding the location where the resume marker is set is reprinted. The user can compare the reprinted address to the mail pieces already processed to determine if it is a duplicate. If not a duplicate, the address in the next preceding location can be reprinted. This processing continues until a duplicate address is printed, indicating that the address printing system properly printed all of the previous addresses in the address list up to the point of the duplicate. The print job will then automatically continue from the location where the resume marker was set.

Method and system for address recovery in an address printing system

A system and method for processing mailpiece content material in a mailpiece inserter including a printer integrated with the mailpiece creation system. The integrated printer receives print stream data from a software application and prints the mailpiece content material based upon command signals from a system controller. The system further includes at least one device disposed downstream of the printer for issuing a signal indicative of the rate that content material is processed by the inserter. The system controller monitors the throughput rate of the at least one downstream device and issues a command signal indicative thereof. The system and method of the present invention employs a page-based language monitor to throttle the print stream data received by the printer to vary the printing rate of mailpiece content material. Accordingly, the system and method drives the rate of printing to closely match the throughput rate that mailpiece content material is processed/generated by the inserter by the at least one downstream device. Consequently, the throughput of the mailpiece inserter is optimized.

Method and system for controlling print operations in a mailpiece creation system

A method for binarizing an image that includes initializing, for each column of the image, a first set of variables representing a local column low pixel value and a local column high pixel value, and, for each row of the image, a second set of variables representing a local row low pixel value and a local row high pixel value. The following steps are iterated for each pixel: determining a threshold value dependent upon the first and second sets of variables at the current pixel location, comparing a value representative of an image pixel at the current pixel location with the determined threshold value, and setting a binarization pixel for the current pixel location to one of two values, dependent upon results of the comparison, and adjusting values included in the first set of variables and the second set of variables dependent upon the results of the comparison.

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Webster, NY, United States of America

Yichun Zhang