| US 7,593,125 B2 | ||
| Print job spooling and distribution system | ||
| Zhencai Wang, Concord, Calif. (US); Lu-Chun Liao, Walnut Creek, Calif. (US); Katherine B. Lao, Concord, Calif. (US); and Hong Yan, San Ramon, Calif. (US) | ||
| Assigned to Kyocera Mita Corporation, Osaka (Japan); and Kyocera Technology Development, Inc., Concord, Calif. (US) | ||
| Filed on May 06, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/123,574. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2006/0250638 A1, Nov. 09, 2006 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06F 15/00 (2006.01); G06F 15/173 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 358—1.15 [709/224] | 17 Claims |
| 1. A method for printing to a plurality of printers, comprising:
providing a GUI for an administrator to configure virtual ports, each of which is associated with at least one physical printer
and at least one virtual printer, wherein each of the at least one virtual printer is configured from a physical printer;
spooling a print job sent to a virtual printer to the virtual port associated with the virtual printer; and
providing a GUI for the administrator to send the print job to the at least one physical printer associated with the virtual
port, and for the administrator to specify a printing policy for sending the print job, which printing policy comprises use
of Cluster printing policy comprising
dividing a print job into pieces at page boundaries by applying dividing subpolicies of matching color, paper size, media
type, and finishing characteristics of the pieces with the corresponding characteristics of the at least one physical printer,
wherein the order of the application of the dividing subpolicies is customizable by an administrator using GUI; and
sending the pieces to the at least one physical printer by applying sending subpolicies of optimization for fastest printing
based on the speed of the at least one physical printer and distributing equal number of pages to the at least one physical
printer.
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