System and method for automatic testing of output device capabilities via electronic document

Abstract

A system and related techniques automatically exercise the output capabilities of a printer or other output device, and return a log or record of those capabilities to the print manager of a host operating system or other destination. According to embodiments, the host, client or other machine may decide to query a printer, facsimile machine, copy or multifunction machine or other device to determine its range of output capabilities such as available fonts, graphical or rending routines, firmware compatibility or other functions or capabilities. The host may transmit a composite electronic document, containing various components including intermediate language objects which may be interpreted to execute various output processing, such as exercising a set of fonts, scaling, rotating, or other rendering or output functions. The results may be captured in the printer or other output device, for instance by dumping an output buffer or returning execution codes, and returned to the host machine where the available capabilities may be displayed, including in embodiments a rendering of the physical output or simulated physical output on the user interface. The invention offers enhanced profiling and verification for printers and other output systems, compared to manual test pages and other test procedures.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.