Printing on a randomly ordered stack of media
OwnerChen Quaninventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A printing apparatus includes a print media input holder; a print region; at least one media transport element for moving sheets of recording medium from the print media input holder to the print region; and a scan element disposed along a printing path; and a controller including: a first selectable printing mode that includes: using the scan element to determine whether a first side of a sheet of recording medium has marks on it; and printing on the first side of the sheet if it is determined that the first side does not have marks on it; and a second selectable printing mode that does not include determining whether the sheet of recording medium has marks on it.
Claims15
A method of printing on a sheet of recording medium included in a randomly oriented stack of recording media provided to a printing apparatus, the method comprising:
- (a) using a scanning element disposed in a printing path of the printing apparatus to scan a first side of the sheet of recording medium to provide scan data;
- (b) analyzing the scan data to determine whether the first side has previously been marked on;
- and
- (c) printing on the first side of the sheet if the analyzed scan data determines that the first side has not previously been marked on;
- or
- (d) printing on a second side of the sheet of recording medium if the analyzed scan data determines that the first side has previously been marked on.
A printing apparatus comprising:
- a print media input holder;
- a print region;
- at least one media transport element for moving sheets of recording medium from the print media input holder to the print region;
- and
- a scan element disposed along a printing path;
- and
- a controller including:
- a first selectable printing mode that includes:
- using the scan element to determine whether a first side of a sheet of recording medium has marks on it;
- and
- printing on the first side of the sheet if it is determined that the first side does not have marks on it;
- and
- a second selectable printing mode that does not include determining whether the sheet of recording medium has marks on it.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.