US 5,995,721 AGranted

Distributed printing system

AssigneeXerox Corporation

InventorsJohn L. Rourke, Steven A. Graham

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Abstract

There is provided a document processing system including at least one document reproduction apparatus and managing on-demand output of a document job. The document job is characterized by a set of job attributes with each job attribute relating to a manner in which the document job is to be processed by the document processing system. The document processing system, which further includes a document server for managing conversion of the document job into the on-demand output, includes: a plurality of queues mapped to a plurality of document processing subsystems, each of the plurality of queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of the plurality of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues. The document processing system further includes a queue utility communicating with the plurality of queues. The queue utility compares the set of job attributes and each set of queue attributes to generate a set of information corresponding the set of job attributes with those queues, among the plurality of queues, that are capable of completely processing at least a portion of the document job. In practice, at least a portion of the document job is corresponded with one of the plurality of queues based on the set of information generated by the queue utility.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A document processing system including at least one document reproduction apparatus and managing on-demand output of a document job including an electronic document with multiple pages, the document job being characterized by both a set of job level attributes with each job level attribute relating to a manner in which the document job is to be processed by the document processing system and a set of page level attributes with each page level attribute relating to a manner in which each page of the electronic document is to be processed by the document processing system, the document processing system further including a document server for managing conversion of the document job into the on-demand output, comprising:

a plurality of queues mapped to a plurality of document processing subsystems, each of the plurality of queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of said plurality of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues;
a queue utility communicating with said plurality of queues for parsing the document job to obtain the set of job level attributes and parsing the electronic document to obtain the set of page level attributes, said queue utility comparing both the set of job level attributes and the set of page level attributes with each set of queue attributes to generate a set of information corresponding both the set of job level attributes and the set of page level attributes with those queues, among said plurality of queues, that are capable of completely processing at least a portion of the document job;
and
using the set of information generated by said queue utility to correspond a first portion of the electronic document to a first one of the plurality of queues for execution at a first one of the plurality of document processing subsystems and a second portion of the electronic document to a second one of the plurality of queues for execution at a second one of the plurality of document processing subsystems.

1 more element

A document processing system including at least one document reproduction apparatus and managing on-demand output of a document job including an electronic document with multiple pages, the document job being characterized by both a set of job attributes with each job attribute relating to a manner in which the document job is to be processed by the document processing system and a set of page attributes with each page attribute relating to a manner in which each page of the electronic document is to be processed, the document processing system further including a document server for managing conversion of the document job into the on-demand output, comprising:

a first set of one or more queues mapped to a first set of document processing subsystems, each of said first set of one or more queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of said first set of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues of said first set of queues, and each of the first set of document processing subsystems being part of a first family of document processing subsystems;
a second set of queues mapped to a second set of document processing subsystems, each of said second set of queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of said second set of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues of said second set of queues, and each of the second set of document processing subsystems being part of a second family of document processing subsystems;
a queue utility communicating with said first and second sets of queues and comparing both the set of job attributes and the set of page attributes with each set of queue attributes to generate a set of information corresponding both the set of job attributes and the set of page attributes with those queues, among said first and second sets of queues, that are capable of completely processing at least a portion of the document job;
and
using the set of information generated by said queue utility to correspond a first portion of the electronic document with one of said first set of one or more queues and a second portion of the electronic document with one of said second set of queues.

2 more elements

In a document processing system including at least one document reproduction apparatus and managing on-demand output of a document job including an electronic document with multiple pages, the document job being characterized by both a set of job level attributes with each job level attribute relating to a manner in which the document job is to be processed by the document processing system and a set of page level attributes with each page level attribute relating to a manner in which each page of the electronic document is to be processed by the document processing system, the document processing system further including a document server for managing conversion of the document job into the on-demand output, a method comprising:

mapping a plurality of queues to a plurality of document processing subsystems, each of the plurality of queues including a set of queue attributes characterizing the extent to which each document processing subsystem mapped to one or more of the plurality of queues is capable of processing a job portion delivered to the one or more queues;
parsing the document job to obtain both the set of job level attributes and the set of page level attributes;
comparing both the set of job level attributes and the set of page level attributes with each set of queue attributes to generate a set of information corresponding both the set of job level attributes and the set of page level attributes with those queues, among the plurality of queues, that are capable of completely processing at least a portion of the document job;
and
the set of information generated by a queue utility to correspond a first portion of the electronic document to a first one of the plurality of queues for execution at one of the plurality of document processing subsystems and a second portion of the electronic document to a second one of the plurality of queues for execution at a second one of the plurality of document processing subsystems.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 08/876,419Filed 16 Jun 1997
Granted: 30 Nov 1999
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G06F 3/1288
Remote printer device, e.g. being remote from client or server: in client-server-printer device configuration
G06F 3/1203
Specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect: improving or facilitating administration, e.g. print management
G06F 3/1241
Print job management: dividing a job according to job requirements, e.g. black/white and colour pages, covers and body of books, tabs
G06F 3/126
Print job management: job scheduling, e.g. queuing, determine appropriate device