Patent Application
20140036301
1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to network wide document printing. More particularly, it relates to printers, and to apparatus and methods for exploiting printers, including multifunctional printers, on a network wide or enterprise wide basis.
2. Description of the Related Art
The efficient and convenient printing of documents on, for example, an enterprise wide basis presents several challenges. A central print facility, with a large sophisticated printer or printers, can be used. However, the need to deliver the printed material to various locations makes this method unduly burdensome.
A series of small, less costly and less sophisticated printers, each connected to a personal computer provides convenient, local printing, but may not address the need to print documents not stored on, or generally accessible to, the personal computer. Security concerns may limit accessibility to certain documents, sets of documents, or documents of a certain type.
Over time, these smaller, less costly and less sophisticated printers have acquired additional functionality. They permit a user to copy and print documents, to scan documents, and to fax documents, or with the aid of a personal computer, to e-mail documents, to various locations. However, the full capabilities of these printers is not being utilized with respect to the on-demand printing of documents that may be stored on servers or other, remote computers on an enterprise wide network.
A problem associated with the use of a large printer at a central print facility, or smaller printers connected to individual computers, is that an employee of a company generally will not have immediate access to documents for which a need arises during a business meeting, or at a time when the employee is away from his office or usual work station, or has traveled to a company office in a location other than the employee's home office. Retrieving and printing documents may then require locating someone who has access to a computer, and is cleared to receive that document. This may take undue time and effort, and may represent an imposition on that other employee's time. Another option would be to call an office assistant at the employee's home office, have the document printed, and then sent to the employee at a remote location, by e-mail or fax. This approach could produce undue delay, and again involves interrupting an office assistant's other duties.
In order to solve the problem of printing documents at various locations, each person on a network can have a folder where documents that may need to be printed, can be stored. A user can access a printer on the network to print one or more of the documents stored in the folder.
A component or a feature that is common to more than one drawing is indicated with the same reference number, or a similar reference number, in each of the drawings.
Referring to the figures and, in particular,
Printer 10 has a control panel 16 with a touchscreen 18. Touchscreen 18 has a region to select 20 a print on demand option. When this option is selected, a login screen is presented to the user 22. If a recognized user name and password are entered, authentication with an active directory 24 takes place, which provides entry to the user's print on demand folder 26. This may be accomplished by way of an LDAP or active directory in which the user profile lists the user's personal parent directory that would be reflected on the printer 10. A utility may also provide the ability to set group directories that can be accessed by users based on active directory or LDAP user profiles.
Upon successful login, the user 30 has access to the folder 28, located anywhere on the network, which is accessed via the network 32, and contains the user's printable documents, which the user 30, at 34, previously placed into the print on demand network folder.
At 36, the user 30 selects a document to print by using the touchscreen 18 to highlight the document. At this point the document may print 38, either automatically upon selection, or by the user 30 touching a confirmation region on touchscreen 18.
While this embodiment is highly advantageous and solves the problems described above, it requires some modification to standard printers. Other disclosed embodiments, described below, require virtually no or minimal printer modifications. Such modification can be, in some cases, limited to changes in firmware.
Referring to a second embodiment in
Referring to a third embodiment in
The embodiment of
In the embodiment of
It is also possible for mobile telephone 21A to communicate with network 12 via a 3G or 4G telephone network, rather than with Wi-Fi.
The disclosed embodiments also can be used to integrate application documentation access or critical departmental documents, such as standard operating procedures in a common LDAP directory, that can be accessed by a group of authorized users. Thus, all authorized individuals in the group are able to print these documents at any company office having network access.
While the disclosed network is an enterprise wide network, the type of network is not so limited. It can include a local area network, a wide area network, a virtual private network, or the Internet.
It will be understood that the disclosure may be embodied in a computer readable non-transitory storage medium storing instructions of a computer program which when executed by a computer system results in performance of steps of the method described herein. Such storage media may include hard drives, flash drives, firmware, read only memory, random access memory, or any other storage device usable by a printer, a network printer interface, a smart phone, or storage device on the network, as described above. By way of example, and not by way of limitation, the computer readable non-transitory storage medium can be memory 29 of mobile telephone 21.
Thus, in order to solve the problem of printing documents at various locations, each person on an organization wide network can have a folder where documents that may need to be printed, can be stored. Printers on the network, regardless of size or complexity, can have or be associated with, a log-in facility on which users having a user name and password can log in to the printer. A display facility is associated with the log-in facility so that when the user has logged in, the directory for the folder containing the printable documents is displayed. A document selection function and a start print function are also available so that when a document that the user wishes to print has been selected, the document can be printed on the local printer.
The printer may be connected to the network with cables or wirelessly.
The log-in facility, the display and the print initiator can be integral parts of the printer. Alternatively, the log-in facility, the display and the print initiator can be a part of an apparatus, other than a general purpose computer, connected between the network and the printer.
The printer can have an interface device configured to communicate with a mobile telephone. The telephone can have an application for logging on to the printer, displaying a list of documents, and printing a document on the printer.
Thus, the present disclose provides a local printer for connection to a network to print documents residing on different parts of the network. The printer has a connector for connection to the network, a log-in facility for a user to log in to the printer; a display for displaying a list of documents stored on a selected portion of a storage device on the network, and a print initiator to cause a selected document from the list of documents to be printed by the printer. The selected portion is designated by that user. The logon facility, the display and the print initiator can be integral parts of the printer. Alternatively, the log-in facility, the display and the print initiator can be a part of an apparatus connected between the network and the printer. The apparatus can be other than a general purpose computer.
The printer can have an interface device between the network and the printer. The interface device can be configured to communicate with a mobile telephone. The telephone has an application thereon that uses a screen of the telephone to provide the log-in facility for a user to log in to the printer, a list of documents to be displayed, and a print initiator to cause a selected document from the list of documents, to be printed by the printer.
The printer can have a network radio communications facility for data communication with the network. A mobile telephone can be provided for communication with one of the network and the printer, the mobile telephone having an application for logging in to one of the network and the printer; displaying a list of documents stored on the selected portion of the storage device on the network; and initiating printing of a selected document from the list of documents.
In accordance with an aspect of one embodiment, a mobile telephone can have an application thereon for causing printing of documents stored on a selected portion of a storage device on a network, by a printer connected to a network, by executing the steps of logging on to one of the network and the printer; displaying a list of documents stored on the selected portion of the storage device on the network; and initiating printing of a selected document from the list of documents.
The present disclose is also directed to a method for printing documents from a local printer connected to a network, without the use of a local computer, including logging on to the network or the printer with a device having a presentation screen; displaying, on the presentation screen, a list of documents stored on a selected portion of a storage device on the network; and initiating printing of a selected document from the list of documents. The method also includes storing the documents to be printed in the storage device. The logging on, displaying and initiating can be performed by an employee of an organization at a location other than where the employee usually works. The logging on, displaying and initiating can be performed at a display on the printer or on an apparatus separate from and connected to the printer. The apparatus can be a mobile telephone which communicates with the apparatus. The logging on, displaying and initiating are performed by a mobile telephone that communicates with the network, or with the printer.
The techniques described herein are exemplary, and should not be construed as implying any particular limitation on the present disclosure. It should be understood that various alternatives, combinations and modifications could be devised by those skilled in the art. For example, steps associated with the processes described herein can be performed in any order, unless otherwise specified or dictated by the steps themselves. The present disclosure is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variances that fall within the scope of the appended claims.
