Methods and apparatus for analyzing electronic documents and digital printing systems

A method for analyzing a print job comprising an object having an associated print attribute, the method comprising:

• arranging at least one print controller in a printing environment, said printing environment comprising a plurality of client computers and a plurality of printers, wherein at least one printer from among said plurality of printers is not capable of processing at least one print attribute;
• determining, by said at least one print controller, at least one print attribute of interest, said print attribute of interest comprising an attribute that is incapable of being processed by at least one printer in said printing environment;
• associating, by said at least one print controller, a corresponding unique marker to the determined print attribute of interest;
• receiving, by said at least one print controller, page description language (“PDL”) commands that describe a print job;
• interpreting, by said at least one print controller, the PDL commands;
• determining, by said at least one print controller, if said at least one print attribute of interest is present in said print job;
• and
• reporting to the user of a client computer, by said at least one print controller, whether said print job includes at least one print attribute of interest by using the corresponding unique marker to indicate the presence of said at least one print attribute of interest.