Systems and methods herein generally relate to print drivers and more particularly to print drivers that provide page exception print settings.
Page exceptions or overrides allow a user to override the job level print settings for specified pages in a document to be printed (e.g., a “print document”) such as media attributes (e.g., paper size, paper type, paper color), color correction, image shift, etc. Page overrides can be programmed at the device or via a client such as a job submission application or print driver. Page exceptions are established for a specific page number, set of page numbers, or range of page numbers along with the desired settings for those pages, and these settings override the settings used for the rest of the job.
Page overrides are a powerful feature, but creating customized print settings for specific pages in a print document is difficult in conventional systems because the user is asked to manually remember the page numbers of every page of the document to which the special print settings will be applied. Therefore, conventional systems ask the user to program page overrides in small batches, save the settings, and return to the document to determine the next set of special print settings. With conventional systems, users sometimes write down all affected pages and their associated special print settings prior to entering the driver user interface. For example, some users find it easier to simply print the entire document without page overrides, and then refer to the printed document (and associated annotations/notes) when programming page overrides in the driver user interface.
To complicate matters even further, programming page overrides for jobs containing different sizes with duplex (2-sided) printing can result in a blank image being inserted on the back side of a page prior to the print media size change, which can make it extremely difficult for a user to determine which page numbers to use later in the document, as they attempt to account for the injected blank pages in their calculations. In a single job there could be dozens of page overrides that were meticulously configured, which is most common in production and graphics arts environments.
One of the biggest challenges from a user experience perspective with page overrides is using them for documents that change over time. Page overrides are only accurate until document revisions cause the pagination of the source document to change. When the pagination changes, the page overrides need to be updated to reflect changes in page numbers, which can be very cumbersome.
Various methods herein receive an identification of one or more sections of a print document into a graphic user interface. At this point, the print document has at least some document print settings, which may be just default settings, or may be customized settings; however, such settings are applied to the entire document (until exception/override settings are set for some of the document, and then those overrides are applied in place of the original print settings).
These methods provide exception shortcut keywords from a print driver through a graphic user interface for the user to select. Each of the exception shortcut keywords identifies a preset combination of exception print settings maintained by the print driver, each of the preset combination of exception print settings contains a unique combination of print media, printing color, color correction, image shift, printing image quality, and/or simplex/duplex controls, etc., that are different from the document print settings, and from the other preset combinations of exception print settings.
The exception shortcut keywords can be provided (and responses thereto received) through an application used to create and/or edit the print document (e.g., word processor, graphic design program, spreadsheet, etc.); or through a print job submission application (e.g., print driver, print server, finisher program, etc.). Further, the preset combination of exception print settings can comprise print settings that are outside those natively available in the application used to create and/or edit the print document.
In response, these methods receive an exception shortcut keyword for at least one of the sections (without asking the user to identify any page numbers within the print document) into the graphic user interface from the user. This causes these methods to automatically change print settings of corresponding ones of the sections of the print document to corresponding ones of the preset combination of exception print settings. It is notable that all the setting changes associated with a selected preset combination of exception print settings are made in response only to receiving the single exception shortcut keyword for that document section.
After the preset combination of exception print settings are set for one or more sections of the document, these methods print the print document using a printing device that is operatively connected to the processor. During the printing, such methods use the document print settings for pages of the print document that are outside the sections, and use the preset combination of exception print settings for pages of the print document within the sections.
Systems herein include, among other elements, a graphic user interface receiving identification of sections of a print document, a processor operatively (meaning directly or indirectly) connected to the graphic user interface, and a printing device operatively connected to the processor. The print document has document print settings; however, the graphic user interface provides exception shortcut keywords from a print driver. Each of the exception shortcut keywords identifies a preset combination of exception print settings, each of the preset combination of exception print settings is different from the document print settings, and each different one of the preset combination of exception print settings maintained by the print driver comprises a different combination of print media, printing color, color correction, image shift, printing image quality, and/or simplex/duplex controls, etc.
The graphic user interface receives, from the user, an exception shortcut keyword selection/identification (presented as menu selections) for at least one of the sections. The processor automatically changes print settings (using the print driver) of corresponding sections of the print document to the corresponding preset combination of exception print settings in response only to receiving the exception shortcut keyword menu selection from the user. The printing device prints the print document using the document print settings for pages of the print document outside the sections, and using the preset combination of exception print settings for pages of the print document within the sections.
These and other features are described in, or are apparent from, the following detailed description.
Various exemplary systems and methods are described in detail below, with reference to the attached drawing figures, in which:
As mentioned above, manually establishing page exceptions or page overrides can be very time-consuming and frustrating for users. Therefore, the systems and methods herein provide dynamic page overrides that represent an enhancement to manually selected page overrides.
In many document creation/editing applications, such as word processors, spreadsheet programs, presentation programs, graphic design programs, etc., a user can create a document containing multiple sections that are manually set to use print media of varying sizes, types (such as envelopes), or paper source selections (such as “tray 3”). The systems and method herein provide a print driver that supplements the document creation/editing application with highly customized print setting values that might not otherwise be available through the document creation/editing applications alone. These customized print setting values are selected using predefined page exception shortcut “keywords” that the user can then associate with page overrides defined in the driver.
More specifically, with systems and methods herein, a user operates a document creation/editing application to create a page or section break, and then chooses a dynamic page override page exception keyword from the menu selection through which paper sources are presented for that page or section. Rather that specifying a page number or range, with the systems and methods herein, the user chooses a dynamic page override page exception keyword for a limited section (defined by section breaks and/or page breaks) in the document. The user follows the same procedure to assign customized print setting values to additional sections in the document. The user can reuse a specific dynamic page override page exception keyword a number of times in the same document, or use different dynamic page override page exception keywords in different portions of the document.
With the systems and methods herein, the print driver can resolve and inject the job ticket settings for each of the dynamic page overrides such that the job ticket is consistent with the existing ticket format. In another option, the systems and methods herein send the dynamic page overrides settings to the printing device and the printing device resolves and applies the appropriate settings when it encounters a page containing the associated page exception keyword.
Such dynamic page overrides greatly simplify the user experience related to page overrides, especially for complex jobs that ask users to spend a significant amount of time programming the page overrides. Also, these dynamic page overrides avoid the need to manually update page numbers and ranges in the print driver user interface to account for pagination changes because such dynamic page overrides are based upon sections of the documents, and not specific page numbers.
Therefore, the systems and method herein eliminate many sources of frustration for programming page overrides. Rather than needing to determine or recall the affected page numbers, or update settings later as the document content grows or shrinks; with systems and method herein, the user only chooses a dynamic page override page exception keyword for a section in the document creation/editing application. The driver then dynamically determines on which pages to apply the exception print settings at the time of printing.
The systems and methods herein also extend the range of print settings that are available through document creation/editing applications, which generally only provide the user very straightforward exception print settings such as media size, type, or tray, color vs. black and white, duplex/simplex, draft mode, etc. To the contrary, the systems and methods herein provide print drivers that offer highly complex print settings including many different tone reproduction curves, highly granular image quality selections, etc., not available through the limited menu choices provided by the document creation/editing application alone.
Thus, while the document creation/editing application may be able to provide a very limited number of print settings on its own, systems and methods herein provide a full range of advanced page level features that would otherwise only be available by manually configuring page overrides. Further, such complex print settings are offered to the user as preset combinations of settings that have been determined previously to successfully work together, which allows the user to select multiple settings known to be successful combinations of settings using a single keyword (not requiring the user to take any other action beyond selecting the single keyword).
With this historical information of successfully utilized combinations of print settings, in item 102 the systems and methods herein allow very sophisticated (and casual) users to establish named print exceptions. An exemplary screenshot for establishing exception shortcut keywords and associated preset combinations of exception print settings presented to users is shown in
The processing in item 102 in
Some popular document creation/editing applications (and print/finishing job submission applications and print drivers) provide the user the option to divide a document into sections (that are not necessarily tied to specific page numbers). Therefore, in item 104 in
At this point, the print document has at least some document print settings, which may be just default settings, or may be customized settings; however, such settings are global settings that are applied to the entire document (until exception/override settings are set for some of the document, and then those overrides are applied in place of the original print settings).
As shown in item 106, these methods provide exception shortcut keywords from a print driver through a graphic user interface for the user to select. The exception shortcut keywords can be provided (and responses thereto received) through an application used to create and/or edit the print document (e.g., word processor, graphic design program, spreadsheet, etc.); or through a print job submission application used with the print document or after the print document has been previously created (e.g., print driver, print server, finisher program, etc.). Further, the preset combination of exception print settings can comprise print settings that are outside those natively available in the application used to create and/or edit the print document.
Two exemplary ways that the page exemption shortcut keywords can be provided to the user are shown in
Each of the different exception shortcut keywords presented in item 106 identifies a different preset combination of exception print settings maintained by the print driver. Further, each of the preset combination of exception print settings contains a unique combination of print media, printing color, color correction, image shift, printing image quality, and simplex/duplex controls, etc., that are different from the document print settings, and from the other preset combinations of exception print settings.
Therefore, as shown in
Document creation/job submission applications usually only allow the user a limited number of print settings (so as to reduce user confusion, maintain simplicity in programming sophistication, etc.). For example, a document creation/job submission application may offer three color quality settings (low, medium, and high). However, because the systems and methods herein allow the creation of an unlimited level of sophistication of print settings in items 100 and 102, the print settings available through selection of the exception shortcut keywords has a greater range of print settings and sophistication of print settings relative to those preset print settings available through the document creation/job submission applications. Thus, there can be hundreds (or even thousands) of different print qualities offered in the different preset combinations of exception print settings implemented through the exception shortcut keywords.
In response, these methods receive an exception shortcut keyword for at least one of the sections of the document in item 108 (without asking the user to identify any page numbers within the print document) into the graphic user interface from the user. This causes these methods to automatically change print settings of corresponding ones of the sections of the print document to corresponding ones of the preset combination of exception print settings in item 110. It is notable that all the setting changes associated with a selected preset combination of exception print settings are all automatically made in response to just receiving a single exception shortcut keyword from a user for a given document section in item 108. Further, such setting changes in item 110 can be made using the print driver operating through a processor that is operatively (meaning directly or indirectly) connected to the graphic user interface.
After the preset combination of exception print settings are set for one or more sections of the document, these methods print the print document in item 112 using a printing device that is operatively connected to the processor. During the printing in item 112, such methods automatically use the document print settings for pages of the print document that are outside the sections, and automatically use the preset combination of exception print settings for pages of the print document within the sections.
As shown in
The input/output device 226 is used for communications to and from the computerized device 200. The processor 224 controls the various actions of the computerized device. A non-transitory computer storage medium device 220 (which can be optical, magnetic, capacitor based, etc.) is readable by the processor 224 and stores instructions that the processor 224 executes to allow the computerized device to perform its various functions, such as those described herein. Thus, as shown in
Therefore, systems herein include, among other elements, a graphic user interface 236 receiving identification of sections of a print document, a processor 224 operatively connected to the graphic user interface 236, and a printing device 204 operatively connected to the processor 224. The print document has document print settings; however, the graphic user interface 236 provides exception shortcut keywords from a print driver. Each of the exception shortcut keywords identifies a preset combination of exception print settings, each of the preset combination of exception print settings is different from the document print settings, and each different one of the preset combination of exception print settings maintained by the print driver comprises a different combination of print media, printing color, color correction, image shift, printing image quality, and simplex/duplex controls, etc.
The graphic user interface 236 receives, from the user, an exception shortcut keyword selection/identification (presented as menu selections) for at least one of the sections. The processor 224 automatically changes print settings (using the print driver) of corresponding sections of the print document to the corresponding preset combination of exception print settings in response only to receiving the exception shortcut keyword menu selection from the user. The printing device 204 prints the print document using the document print settings for pages of the print document outside the sections, and using the preset combination of exception print settings for pages of the print document within the sections.
While some exemplary structures are illustrated in the attached drawings, those ordinarily skilled in the art would understand that the drawings are simplified schematic illustrations and that the claims presented below encompass many more features that are not illustrated (or potentially many less) but that are commonly utilized with such devices and systems. Therefore, Applicants do not intend for the claims presented below to be limited by the attached drawings, but instead the attached drawings are merely provided to illustrate a few ways in which the claimed features can be implemented.
Many computerized devices are discussed above. Computerized devices that include chip-based central processing units (CPU's), input/output devices (including graphic user interfaces (GUI), memories, comparators, processors, etc.) are well-known and readily available devices produced by manufacturers such as Dell Computers, Round Rock Tex., USA and Apple Computer Co., Cupertino Calif., USA. Such computerized devices commonly include input/output devices, power supplies, processors, electronic storage memories, wiring, etc., the details of which are omitted herefrom to allow the reader to focus on the salient aspects of the systems and methods described herein. Similarly, scanners and other similar peripheral equipment are available from Xerox Corporation, Norwalk, Conn., USA and the details of such devices are not discussed herein for purposes of brevity and reader focus.
The terms printer or printing device as used herein encompasses any apparatus, such as a digital copier, bookmaking machine, facsimile machine, multi-function machine, etc., which performs a print outputting function for any purpose. The details of printers, printing engines, etc., are well-known and are not described in detail herein to keep this disclosure focused on the salient features presented. The systems and methods herein can encompass systems and methods that print in color, monochrome, or handle color or monochrome image data. All foregoing systems and methods are specifically applicable to electrostatographic and/or xerographic machines and/or processes. Further, the terms automated or automatically mean that once a process is started (by a machine or a user), one or more machines perform the process without further input from any user.
It will be appreciated that the above-disclosed and other features and functions, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined into many other different systems or applications. Various presently unforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations, or improvements therein may be subsequently made by those skilled in the art which are also intended to be encompassed by the following claims. Unless specifically defined in a specific claim itself, steps or components of the systems and methods herein cannot be implied or imported from any above example as limitations to any particular order, number, position, size, shape, angle, color, or material.