Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Emulation or plural modes
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-18
2001-09-25
Grant, II, Jerome (Department: 2624)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Emulation or plural modes
C358S001140
Reexamination Certificate
active
06295134
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to methods and systems for printing computer generated images and more particularly to methods and apparatus for formatting a sheet in preparation for printing on a printing device.
A computer system can output data to a wide variety of output display devices. Output display devices such as laser printers, plotters, imagesetters, and other printing devices produce an image or “visual representation” on a sheet of paper or the like. A printing device can print dots on a piece of paper corresponding to the information of a bitmap (or pixelmap having a depth of two or more bits). A “raster” printing device creates a visual representation by printing an array of pixels arranged in rows and columns from the bitmap.
One type of printing device that can receive data from a computer system is a printing press. A printing press may be used to produce books, newspapers, pamphlets, posters and other single and multi-page printed matter. A printing press may print multiple pages of printed matter at the same time onto a single sheet. Other devices used for printing multiple pages at the same time include imagesetters and plate setters.
When printing multiple pages, the individual pages are arranged in one or more sheets. Each sheet includes a layout of pages that may be ordered or otherwise optimized to facilitate post-printing processes. For example, the layout of the sheet may be arranged such that individual pages are in sequence when folding occurs.
Printing devices that produce output in response to page description language input are widely used. A page description language (PDL) is a high level language for describing objects to be displayed by an output device, such as PostScript® language available from Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, Calif. A printing device may receive page description data for an entire sheet in the form of a PDL file. In order to produce a finished sheet, the printing device interprets the data contained in the PDL file, renders objects within the data into bitmaps, and after all objects for the sheet are rendered, prints the sheet.
Interpretation is a pre-printing process that includes the sub-functions of language interpretation and output production. Language interpretation may result in the conversion of the data from one format to another and the manipulation of data in a local memory in order to produce a final output. Output production may include the generation of a new PDL file (such as a PDL page file) or raster data.
An interpreter may be used to convert data for a sheet from its associated page description language file format into individual page description page files, one for each output page in the PDL file processed. Conventional interpreters operate on pages of a PDL file in order. That is, the interpreter produces as an output a PDL page file for each page in the sheet in the order that the pages are to be printed for the given sheet.
Imposition is the pre-printing process of arranging the pages for a sheet to achieve a proper sequence or position of each page relative to other pages. Imposition is performed to facilitate post-printing processes. These processes include fold and cut operations followed by some form of binding. Conventional imposition processes are executed on a computer workstation prior to the printing process. An imposition process operates on one or more PDL page files, for example as produced by a interpreter, and layout information for a given sheet. The layout information describes how the pages are to be arranged to achieve the desired output result. The output of an imposition process is generally a single PDL file that includes all the data required (including external references if any) to print the sheet by a printing device.
SUMMARY
In general, in one aspect, the invention features a method of interpreting a PDL file prior to printing by a printing device. The method includes receiving a page description file defining at least two pages to be printed on a surface of a media sheet. The page description file is transferred to a first interpreter and a second interpreter. Both the first and second interpreters process all interpretation language operators within the page description file. The first interpreter is enabled to produce a first output page description file defining a first one of the pages to be printed on the surface of the media sheet while the second interpreter is disabled from producing the first output page description file. The second interpreter is enabled to produce a second output page description file defining a second one of the pages to be printed on the surface of the media sheet while the first interpreter is disabled from producing the second output page description file.
Certain embodiments of the invention include one or more of the following features. The page description file is a PostScript file. The output page description files are PDF files. The printing device is selected from the group of an imagesetter, a digital press, a printing press and a plate setter.
In another aspect, the invention features a method of interpreting a page description language file defining a sheet to be printed on a printing device including processing in parallel the page description language file by a plurality of redundant interpreters. The output of only one of the plurality of redundant interpreters is enabled for each page of the sheet such that only one interpreter of the plurality of redundant interpreters produces an output for each page of the sheet. The output may be display list data.
In another aspect, the invention features a computer program, residing on a computer-readable medium, comprising instructions for causing the computer to receive a page description language file defining a sheet to be printed on a printer, interpret in parallel the page description language file by a plurality of redundant interpreters and enable the output of only one of the plurality of redundant interpreters for each page of the sheet such that only one interpreter of the plurality of redundant interpreters produces an output for each page of the sheet. The sheet may include two or more pages.
In another aspect, the invention features an apparatus for interpreting a page description language file defining a sheet to be printed on a printing device. The sheet includes a plurality of pages. The apparatus includes a plurality of interpreters each configured to receive the page description language file and output a page description file for each page of the sheet and a controller. The controller operates to enable one of the plurality of interpreters for each page, such that any one interpreter of the plurality of interpreters produces an output for a subset of all the pages of the sheet.
In another aspect, the invention features a printing device for printing a sheet including a plurality of pages, the printing device including a plurality of redundant interpreters each configured to receive a page description language file describing the sheet and output a page description file for each page of the sheet. The printing device also includes a controller operating to enable one of the plurality of interpreters to produce an output for each page and a plurality of redundant raster image processors each configured to receive a page description file from one of the plurality of redundant interpreters and produce pixelmap data. A print engine is included for receiving the pixelmap data and producing an image of the sheet on an image media.
The controller may enable ones of the plurality of interpreters according to a predefined algorithm. The predefined algorithm may be a round robin modulo algorithm. The predefined algorithm may select an interpreter for enabling based on performance characteristics for a given interpreter. A performance characteristic may be a speed at which a particular interpreter processes output files or may relate to a type of page received. A particular interpreter is enabled based on availability or type when a pag
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Grant II Jerome
Tran Douglas
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