Method and apparatus for automatically printing documents from portable memory device

A first print device, comprising:

• a communication port for communicating with a data store containing a print history and obtaining information from the print history;
• a port for communicating with a portable memory device;
• a print engine;
• a processing device communicatively coupled to the port and the print engine;
• and
• a non-transitory, computer-readable medium containing program instructions that are configured to cause the processing device to:
• detect a trigger event by determining that the portable memory device has become communicatively connected to the port and that the portable menxory device contains a folder of a designated name,
• upon detecting the trigger event, access the print history from the data store and retrieve a print instruction,
• use the print history to determine that a document file in the folder of the designated name has not been printed,
• automatically cause the print engine to print the document file, based on the print instruction, and
• transmit a communication to the data store to update the print history to reflect that the document file is printed.

A method for automatically printing a document in a document printing system, comprising:

• detecting, by a processing device of a first print device, a trigger event by determining that a portable memory device has become communicatively connected to a port of the first print device and that the portable memory device contains a folder of a designated name;
• upon detecting the trigger event, accessing by the processing device, a print history from a data store via a communication port of the first print device and retrieve a print instruction from the print history;
• using, by the processing device, the print history to determine that a document file in the folder of the designated name has not been printed;
• by the processing device, automatically causing a print engine of the first print device to print the document file based on the print instruction;
• and
• transmitting, by the processing device, a communication to the data store to update the print history to reflect that the document file is printed.