Mixed jobs generation method and apparatus thereof
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKeita Oshima
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed is processed in a system in which a plate offset press for processing fixed data and a plateless digital press capable of processing variable data are connected. A number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the plate offset press is acquired. When the acquired number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the plate offset press does not exceed a number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession in the input data, a first job is generated to assign, for the plate offset press, pages of fixed data in the input data. A second job is generated to assign, for the plateless digital press, the remaining input data obtained by excluding the fixed data assigned for the plate offset press from the input data.
Claims21
A mixed jobs generation apparatus for processing input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed, in a system in which a first printing device for processing fixed data and a second printing device capable of processing variable data are connected, wherein the first printing device includes a plate printing device, the second printing device includes a plateless printing device, data are processed for each print page, and print data for the first printing device includes plate data for making a press plate used in the first printing device, comprising:
- a segmentation selection unit for sequentially selecting a plurality of different segmentation methods for input data;
- a first calculation unit for calculating, in accordance with the selected different segmentation methods, a plurality of assignments for pages of the input data;
- an assignment selection unit for selecting, from the plurality of assignments calculated in said calculating unit, an assignment which satisfies a predetermined condition;
- an acquiring unit adapted to acquire a number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the first printing device;
- a first generation unit adapted to generate a first job which assigns, in accordance with the selected assignment, as the print data of the first printing device, pages of fixed data to be printed in succession within input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed, when a number of the pages of fixed data to be printed in succession in the input data exceeds the acquired number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the first printing device;
- a second generation unit adapted to generate a second job which assigns, in accordance with the selected assignment, as print data of the second printing device, remaining pages of the input data obtained by excluding the pages of fixed data assigned for the first printing device from the input data;
- wherein a memory and a processor are included in the mixed jobs generation apparatus.
A method of generating mixed jobs for processing input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed, in a system in which a first printing device for processing fixed data and a second printing device capable of processing variable data are connected, wherein the first printing device includes a plate printing device, the second printing device includes a plateless printing device, data are processed for each print page, and print data for the first printing device includes plate data for making a press plate used in the first printing device, the method comprising the steps of:
- sequentially selecting a plurality of different segmentation methods for input data;
- calculating, in accordance with the selected different segmentation methods, a plurality of assignments for pages of the input data;
- selecting, from the plurality of assignments calculated in said calculating step, an assignment which satisfies a predetermined condition;
- acquiring a number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the first printing device;
- generating a first job which assigns, in accordance with the selected assignment, as the print data of the first printing device, pages of fixed data to be printed in succession within the input data in which fixed data and variable data are mixed, when a number of the pages of fixed data to be printed in succession in the input data exceeds the acquired number of pages of fixed data to be printed in succession by the first printing device;
- generating a second job which assigns, in accordance with the selected assignment, as print data of the second printing device, remaining pages of the input data obtained by excluding the pages of fixed data assigned for the first printing device from the input data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.