Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Controller
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-11
2003-08-19
Nguyen, Lamson (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Controller
C358S504000, C347S019000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06607258
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to machines and procedures for printing a document hardcopy at a target printer facility based upon information in an image data file; and more particularly for producing an accurate color proof at a distinct proofing facility. In general the target and proofing facilities are mutually remote, but a more important characteristic for purposes of the invention is that the two facilities be distinct in organizational or business terms.
The invention may be especially useful when either the hardcopy or the proof is produced by incremental printing—i.e. by a swath-based scanning machine and method, or by a pagewide-array machine and method, that construct text or images from individually computer-controlled placement of dots on a printing medium. Although the invention may be practiced using any of a great many different kinds of final-hardcopy printing devices and preliminary proof-producing devices, one kind of proofing device of particular interest is the Hewlett Packard line of large-format printers; exemplary description of these machines appears in U.S. utility-patent application Ser. No. 09/516,323, later issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,098.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(a) Purpose of Proofing; Traditional Methods
A “proof” is a visible simulation of the appearance of an anticipated eventual hardcopy. A proof is not just a data file and traditionally is most often not associated with a data file. The general purpose of a proof is to enable printing customers and others to have a preliminary look at how the hardcopy will later appear.
Traditionally a printing facility is a unitary, integrated entity that performs essentially all functions related to a print job under one roof or at least within the scope of operations of a single commercial enterprise. The printing facility's customer, or sometimes a graphic artist or other intermediary on behalf of the customer, brings the job to the printing facility in the form of materials with written or verbal instructions for execution.
In earlier decades, any artwork that was to appear in the finished hardcopy was most usually handed to the printer in the form of so-called “camera-ready copy”—that is to say, finished art ready for the printer to photograph, so as to make offset-lithographic negatives and plates or even the earlier letterpress engravings. Any text was most commonly provided in the form of manuscript or so-called “copy”, which the printer would assign to a typesetter for preparation of typeset computerized or linotype galleys.
Somewhat more recently, and particularly in the case of high artistic-quality work, an intermediary such as a graphic artist might provide artwork to the printer in the form of already-prepared color-separation negatives or even color-separation plates (or engravings). An intermediary might similarly provide text in the form of computer tapes representing the copy already keyboarded. Although some such efforts represent an effort by the customer or intermediary to control costs, more commonly both these trends are primarily in the interest of more-nearly controlling the quality and accuracy of the ultimate finished product.
The printing facility proceeds with preparations, but pauses before actually producing the final hardcopy. At that point the facility “shows a proof” to the customer or intermediary, to enable that person to see—as accurately as possible or practical—how the job will turn out.
Perhaps most typically to see the proof the customer goes physically to the printing facility where the final job will be done, and where the customer can be side-by-side with that facility's makeready people for a crucial conference about all the details, and the prospects for a satisfactory completion of the work. Where distances make a personal meeting uneconomic, in some cases proofs are instead sent by mail or courier.
Depending on the type of project, the customer may be particularly interested in seeing how faithful the colors will be in a large, display-format reproduction. In other projects the focus may be upon how well the printshop has implemented complex layout instructions for a creative multiple-fold presentation; or how precisely all the elements of a periodical have been assembled as to sequence, orientation, cropping, size, typesetting and so forth.
(b) Responsibility Allocation
Regardless of all such details or focus, the printshop does not typically show proof as a favor or courtesy to the customer, but rather somewhat the opposite. It is a mechanism for allocating to the customer any liability for errors in the finished job, if the customer fails to object to them in the proof.
The point is that all the makeready processes up to the point of showing proof, though costly, are usually significantly less than—and perhaps in most cases only a small fraction of—the total price of the job. Responsibility for the cost of printing, however, is by no means the end of legal liabilities and other obligations that can be associated with an unsatisfactory printed product.
Though the printing may be very expensive, the customer's objectives may have a value which dwarfs that expense. Another kind of consequence that is still more difficult to quantify and unpleasant to confront is the negative impact which defeated expectations exert on the crucial goodwill of a printing or graphic-arts firm.
Hence a key element in the proofing process is the customer or representative's signature approving the proof, whether with or without marked changes. In many cases the customer may call for showing of another proof, either full or partial, before finally—in industry vernacular —“signing off on the job.”
A printing proprietor wants to print, and print for profit—not absorb the cost of a printjob gone wrong, or waste time and money in squabbles with customers or litigation with graphic artists. Clearly the role of a proof in the traditional commercial printing environment is enormously important.
(c) Escalated Demands in Printing
All of these traditional practices and concerns carry forward undiminished into the modern world of faster, more widely distributive commercial activities with creative new kinds of proprietary relationships. Perhaps the most important differences are that customers and their intermediaries want to see proofs faster, want to see them in a more convenient place, want them to be more accurately representative of the finished product, and generally want to push on the envelope of what can be humanly accomplished—all without error.
One modern development that is particularly important to the present invention is introduction of long-distance transactions in which a printing facility may be doing a job for a customer in a faraway city, even on a different continent. In many such situations source personnel working on behalf of the customer may go beyond providing camera-ready artwork, and text manuscript or “copy”—and even negatives and plates, as before—but now also prepare a computer data file, or great sets of files, for the printer's use in automatically generating necessary printing materials.
This trend generally continues, into the artwork and layout parts of the printing industry, the earlier introduction of typesetting computer tapes for text. Modernly such files may for example be detailed color-image data.
(d) Modern Printing in Traditional Firms
To avoid losing overall perspective, it will be mentioned here that these files can also exist in the context of a printing project that is all prepared and executed within a traditional single business and single location. In fact such data files can be very efficiently used and integrated into the flow of work within that location.
Such integrated traditional printing establishments still do exist in large numbers, and it is still common for a customer to bring an entire job to a printer in the form of some camera-ready copy, plus manuscript with layout instructions—or even with instructions for preparation of artwork by a graphic artist who works for the pr
Jodra Rodolfo
Lammens Johan
Lippman Peter I.
Nguyen Lamson
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