NL2026099B1

NL2026099B1 - Method for executing a print job in accordance with a job specification

Info

Publication number: NL2026099B1
Application number: NL2026099A
Authority: NL
Inventors: P Brünner Marvin; P J De Smet Luc; H D Geraats Leonardus; Fabel Ronald
Original assignee: Canon Production Printing Holding Bv
Priority date: 2020-07-20
Filing date: 2020-07-20
Publication date: 2022-03-21
Also published as: DE102021117873A1

Abstract

Method for executing a printjob in accordance with a job specification, comprising the steps of: receiving a job specification; changing the job specification by changing at least one firstjob setting of the job specification; wherein the received job specification comprises an intent; and the method further comprises the steps of: analysing whether the changed job specification complies with the intent in view of the changed, first job setting; if the changed job specification complies, executing the job according to the changed job specification; if the changed job specification does not comply, determining a second job setting to change and a job setting value to change the second job setting to in order to make the thus changed job specification comply with the intent, and executing the job according to the thus changed job specification.

Description

METHOD FOR EXECUTING A PRINT JOB IN ACCORDANCE WITH A JOB

SPECIFICATION Field of the Invention The present invention generally pertains to a method for executing a print job in accordance with a job specification, comprising the steps of: receiving a job specification and changing the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification. The invention also pertains to a computer program product to execute such a method. The invention also pertains generally to a printer controller for managing a print job specified by a job specification and controlling a print engine to print the print job in accordance with the job specification, the controller comprising: a communication device arranged for receiving the print job; and wherein the managing of the print job comprises changing a job specification for the received print job by changing a job setting of the job specification. The invention further pertains to a print system comprising such a printer controller. Background Art In production printing print jobs are typically prepared during a pre-processing phase. During pre-processing, several activities are performed to define the printed product (for example a book). These activities might include for example gathering of digital files defining the content to be included in the printed product such as a file defining the book cover and another file defining the book block. Further activities might be selecting a signature for the printing of the book block and a corresponding impositioning for each page taking into account differing left, right, top, and bottom margins, binding gutters, creep correction, etc. Furthermore, these activities might include pre-flighting and soft- proofing to validate whether specification can be processed without errors or conflicts and whether the result is as expected. All settings defined during pre-processing are typically recorded in a job ticket (for example according to the JDF (job Definition Format) standard) although it is also possible to record them (or some of them) in the print data itself. In the remainder of this writing, we will refer to the job ticket, even if some or all of the settings are recorded in the print data. Furthermore, the settings in the job ticket are not necessarily limited to print settings.

The settings may relate to every step in the production process, for example, it is customary that settings related to finishing, such as trimming and binding, are also recorded in the job ticket.

A disadvantage of the known pre-processing, printing, and post-processing (for example finishing) systems is that sometimes decisions are taken during pre-processing that cannot be executed during printing or post-processing for various reasons.

An example is that during pre-processing media are specified with certain media properties including a certain size (for example A4) and a certain weight (for example 250 g/m?). The media properties are recorded in the job ticket or in the print data themselves.

Then during printing the printer operator may determine that there is insufficient stock of the exact media type as specified.

However, it may still be possible to execute the customer order by changing the print job appropriately.

Some simple changes may be done on the printer itself by changing a single job settings.

Other slightly more complex changes might still be done on the printer by changing multiple job settings, because a single job setting might not suffice due to “side effects” of the change that need to be cancelled out.

However, it is also common that the print job has to be changed in pre-processing and resubmitted to the printer.

The objective of the present invention is to make it easier to deal with changing job settings after the pre-processing phase.

Summary of the Invention In a first aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for executing a print job in accordance with a job specification, comprising the steps of: receiving a job specification; changing the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification; wherein the received job specification comprises an intent; and the method further comprises the steps of: analysing whether the changed job specification complies with the intent in view of the changed, first job setting; if the changed job specification complies, executing the job according to the changed job specification; if the changed job specification does not comply, determining a second job setting to change and a job setting value to change the second job setting to in order to make the thus changed job specification comply with the intent, and executing the job according to the thus changed job specification.

In contrast to prior art solutions, the intent in the job specification does not merely specify what operations to perform and what settings to apply during the execution of the job, but directly specifies the actual, intended result. So whereas the typical job specification uses an imperative approach, the intent adds a declarative aspect. As an example, instead of specifying to print on a sheet of RA4-sized media and trimming of

2.5 mm from all four edges, the intent will only specify that the end product should be A4-sized. Note that a job setting and a job intent may have an identical value, but have a different meaning. If the job setting specifies to print a single page on A4-sized media and also specifies an intent of producing an A4-sized sheet, the job setting and the job intent will appear to convey the same information. However, they mean different things. The job setting to print on A4-sized media will only result in producing A4-sized sheets (as the job intent specifies) in the absence of cutting, trimming, and folding actions. For example, the job settings may specify printing on A3-sized media and subsequently folding the sheets. The result is an A4-sized booklet though. Therefore, the intent should specify an A4-sized booklet. The real advantage of the intent is that it allows for alternative production methods, for example printing A4-sized media and glue-binding them into an A4-size booklet.

The job specification may be comprised in the actual print data, however as it is more customary in the production printing industry to specify jobs in a ticket, for example a ticket according to the JDF standard, inhere most examples will actually show job specifications in the form of tickets. It is however, also possible that the job is partly specified in the print data itself and partly in the ticket.

The print job is not necessarily received at a printer. It may as well be received at a print server or a management system for print jobs or print orders (MIS).

The job setting may be changed automatically (for example in an automation workflow) or manually (for example by an operator making adjustments to the job specification such as selecting different media size). The operator may change the job setting from a user interface of the printer, but also from a workstation that allows an operator to manage print jobs.

In a further aspect according to the present invention a method is provided wherein the step of changing the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification comprises changing at least one first job setting upon receiving an operator command to that end.

In again a further aspect of the invention a method is provided for specifying a print job comprising print data, the specification method comprising the steps of: specifying job settings for the print job; recording the job settings in at least one of: the print data of the print job, and a job ticket for the print job; specifying an intent; and recording the intent in atleast one of: the print data of the print job, and a job ticket for the print job.

This aspect focusses on specifying the print job in order to have it executed in accordance with any of the aspects relating to the execution of the job.

In a further aspect of the invention a method is provided, wherein the intent represents at least one of: a direct specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and an optimisation target which target is to be maximised or minimised during execution of the print job.

If more than one optimisation intent is provided, they may optionally be provided with a priority or a weight.

This allows to provide a preference for a certain optimisation if some of the optimisation intents may contradict each other.

For example, minimising trimming waste may increase the number of finishing operations to perform to obtain the final intended product.

In such a case, a preference may be expressed to balance minimising trimming waste and time spent on finishing operations.

According to a particular aspect of the present invention, a method is provided, wherein an intent specifies at least one of: a direct specification of the intended size of a sheet of the final product to be produced with the print job, creep compensation to be applied, an integral shift to be applied, a trimming shift or alignment, an automatic bleed spacing, and a format of the print product such as a booklet or a flip-over.

According to another particular aspect of the present invention, a method is provided, wherein an intent specifies at least one of: a maximum same-up print specification to specify to maximise the number of pages to print on a sheet with same-up printing, a maximise page count signature, a minimise white page specification, a minimise waste specification, a minimise number of post-processing operations specification, and a minimise number of post-processing devices specification.

As an illustrative example: creep compensation is normally applied during pre-

processing in an impositioning step.

This results in a print job specifying for the text block of each page to be individually shifted (or actually positioned) in order to compensate for all the text blocks being displaced with respect to each other during folding actions allowing for the text blocks to line up again in the final product. In the prior art, a printer operator shouldn't select a different media weight from the weight specified (directly or indirectly) during pre-processing otherwise the text blocks of the pages will not line up any more. According to the invention, the intent “creep 5 compensation” is specified. When the printer operator selects media with a different media weight, the printer is able to recalculate the impositioning and reapply creep compensation during the impositioning (probably in combination with an intent for a text block position in the final product instead of the traditional position with respect to the media size during printing).

In a further aspect of the invention a computer program product is provided that is embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium that, if executed on a processor, performs the steps of any of the above methods.

In one embodiment, the present invention provides a printer controller for managing a print job specified by a job specification and controlling a print engine to print the print job in accordance with the job specification, the controller comprising: a communication device arranged for receiving the print job; wherein the managing of the print job comprises changing a job specification for the received print job by changing a job setting of the job specification; wherein the controller is further arranged to read an intent from the job specification and determining whether the job specification complies with the read intent after a job specification has been changed; and if the changed job specification complies, executing the job according to the changed job specification; if the changed job specification does not comply, determining a second job setting to change and a job setting value to change the second job setting to in order to make the thus changed job specification comply with the intent, and executing the job according tothe thus changed job specification.

In a further embodiment, the present invention provides a printer controller further comprising a user interface and wherein the user interface is arranged to display a screen to allow a user to change the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification.

In a particular embodiment, the present invention provides a printer controller, wherein the intent represents at least one of: a direct specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and an optimisation target which target is to be maximised or minimised during execution of the print job.

In another particular embodiment, the invention provides a print system comprising: at least one print engine for providing print media with marking material in accordance with a print job, and a printer controller according to any of the previous embodiments. In a further embodiment, the present invention provides a print system further comprising at least one finisher for performing finishing operations in accordance with the print job on the printed media printed by the at least one print engine. Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.

Brief Description of the Drawings The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow and the accompanying schematical drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein: Fig. 1 shows a diagram with a production workflow to which the present invention may be advantageously applied. Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of a printing system suitable for implementing the present invention in.

Fig. 3 shows schematically a exemplary product to be produced in accordance with the invention.

Fig. 4 shows schematically the exemplary product from Fig. 3 and how it is specified to be produced in the workflow of Fig. 1.

Fig. 5 shows a simplified representation of a job ticket in accordance with the prior art. Fig. 6 shows the simplified job ticket of Fig. 5 enhanced in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 7 shows an intermediate stage of the exemplary product from Fig. 3 due to practising the present invention.

Fig. 8 shows a flow diagram of a method in accordance with the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Drawings The present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein the same reference numerals have been used to identify the same or similar elements throughout the several views.

A typical production workflow (Fig. 1) comprises one or more pre-processing steps 110 such as page programming, impositioning, pre-flighting, soft proofing, etc.

Such pre- processing steps 110 are typically done on stand-alone workstations 112. After pre- processing 110 is complete, a job is created that is submitted 115 to a printer 122 or a print server (not shown). In the printer 122 the printing process 120 takes place.

The printing process 120 may take place on a single printer 122 or on multiple printers.

For example, the print job may be distributed over multiple printers to print in parallel.

Or different parts of the print job may be executed on different printers depending on the printer capabilities required to produce those parts.

For example, a black-and-white book may be printed on a black-and-white printer, but the book cover may comprise a colour design and may be printed on a colour printer.

After the printing steps 120, post- processing 130 takes place.

Post-processing 130 comprises finishing operations such as stacking, cutting, trimming, binding, laminating, etc.

Some finishing steps may be performed by the printer 122 if it comprises inline finishing devices.

A typical inline finisher is a stapler that can staple a (relatively small) stack of sheets together.

However, more involved finishing steps are typically executed on a nearline or offline finisher 132. Finisher 132 may for example be a booklet maker that folds a stack of sheets and binds the sheets at the fold to create a booklet.

A typical reprographic apparatus (Fig. 2) such as a printer 122 generally comprises a controller 210 and an engine 220. The engine 220 is responsible for low-level control of the apparatus.

It deals with individual hardware components that are responsible for the reprographic process such as drives for media transport, media detectors (in the media path as well as in the input and output media trays), path switches, fusers, print heads, etc.; in general actuators and sensors 228. These actuators and sensors are connected through input/output (I/O) boards 227 to a bus 229. The bus 229 connects the major components in the engine 220. Actual data processing takes place in a central processing unit (CPU) 221.

The CPU 221 reads sensor values from the sensors 228 through the I/O 227. Based on these sensor values and other data such as print data and print commands received from the controller 210, the CPU 221 determines how the engine 220 should respond to this information and determines appropriate actuation values that are sent through the VO 227 to the actuators 228. The engine 220 comprises a volatile memory such as a random access memory (RAM) 222 to temporarily store data for processing such as the print data and print commands received from the controller 210, and the sensor values read from the sensors 228. Furthermore, a non-volatile memory such as a hard disk drive (HDD) 223 serves to store data in a more permanent manner, for example to survive a power down of the system.

This hard disk drive 223 typically also stores embedded software comprising computer instructions that are run on the CPU 221. The engine 220 typically runs a real-time Operating System (RTOS), for example a soft real- time Operating System in order to deal with the time critical functions of controlling the actuators 228. The engine 220 further comprises a communication device 224 to communicate with the controller 210. Typically, the engine 220 receives print data and print commands from the controller 210 and provides back status information on the engine 220 itself and on the processing of the print commands and print data, including sending error messages to the controller 210. The controller 210 is connected to the engine 220 through a communication device 214 that communicates with the communication device 224 of the engine 220. These communication devices 214, 224 may be implemented as Ethernet network interface controllers (NIC). Processing in the controller 210 is done by a CPU 211 that is connected to all the other components in the controller 210 through a bus 219. The data to be processed is temporarily stored in a volatile memory such as RAM 212, while data is stored in a more permanent manner in a non-volatile memory such as hard disk drive 213, for example in order to survive power downs, but also to relieve the volatile memory 212 which typically has a smaller storage size.

The hard disk drive 213 typically stores print jobs, each comprising print data and a job ticket.

Furthermore, the hard disk drive 213 comprises converted print data which is print data converted to a format suitable for processing by the engine 220. Typically the converted print data comprises raster images.

Converting the print data in the print jobs to converted print data is typically done in a Raster Image Processor (RIP). Although the RIP may be a dedicated hardware device, it is common to be implemented in software and running on CPU 211. As the RIP-process is rather computationally intensive, it is common for controllers 210 to have multiple processing units in the form of a multi-core CPU 211 or multiple CPUs 211. The controller 210 further comprises a display 216 to show messages to an operator, or display a complete graphical user interface (GUI) to an operator for operating the reprographic apparatus. The display 216 is supplemented by a human interface device (HID) 218 such as a keyboard, mouse, touchpad, stylus, or touch sensitive panel integrated into display 218, and allows the operator to operate the reprographic apparatus. The controller 210 comprises a communication interface 217 for communicating with peripheral devices such as finishers, for example, stackers, staplers, binders, punchers, cutters, trimmers, folders, media input units, etc. The controller 210 further comprises a network interface card (NIC) 215 to connect the controller 210 to a computer network. Through the network connection, print jobs may be submitted to the controller 210 and the results of scan jobs may be retrieved from the controller 210. For these operations the controller 210 may be directly in communication with individual workstations, or indirectly through a print server. Furthermore, the network connection may be used to remotely operate the reprographic apparatus, monitor its status, and send production data to monitoring systems, accounting systems, or business information systems. Note that in smaller printer models, specifically printers suitable for placement on desks, it is common to use communication interfaces such as USB, FireWire, or Bluetooth instead of the NIC 215.

The controller 210 and the engine 220 may be implemented in a single printer device (typical for smaller printers for low volume printing), or as two separate, but interconnected devices (typical for larger, high-volume production printers).

The engine 220 typically deals with print data on a sheet level, swath level, or even line level. The engine 220 is typically not aware of information on a document or even job level. In contrast the controller 210 typically receives print jobs comprising one or more documents, the documents typically comprising multiple pages.

In Fig. 3 an exemplary document is shown as might be ordered by a customer. The document describes a single page 310 with a header background 312 and a footer background 314 as well as some text elements 318 making up the main part of the document. The header background 312 and footer background 314 are to be printed with a background colour or image that is to printed full bleed (extending to the sheet edge without any margin between the background colour or image and the sheet edge). The customer has ordered the document to be printed single sided (simplex) on A4 sized media with 300 g/m? media weight (thickness) the media being single side (top side) coated.

As many printers either cannot print full bleed, or require cleaning after printing full bleed due to ink or toner being present on the media edges, such an customer order is typically produced by printing on slightly bigger media with a small margin between the media edge and the intended page border (the trimbox) with the backgrounds “bleeding” into the margin.

After printing, the edges of the media sheets are trimmed (according to the defined trimbox). This cuts of the margins with the small edge of the background that “bleeds into” the margin resulting in full bleed backgrounds.

To produce this document, during pre-processing 110 the job may be specified as follows (Fig. 4). For the single page 310 in the document a media type with size RA4 (215 mm x 305 mm) is specified.

If the header and footer backgrounds 312, 314 were not already defined by the customer to extend beyond the original A4-sized page'’s borders, they are extended during pre-processing to make them “bleed into” the margin 422. The remaining part of the margin 422 extending to the media edge remains blank to prevent ink or toner contamination in the printer 122. A trimbox is defined (not shown although it is common to also print visual trim marks to facilitate manual trimming) to define how much of each edge of the media should be trimmed off after printing to obtain the A4 size the customer ordered with the full bleed.

The other media properties are defined such as the media weight 300 g/m? and single side coated (C1S). Simplex printing is selected.

All these settings are stored as job settings in a job specification.

The job specification may be embedded into the print data to be submitted 115 to the printer 122, but in production printing it is typically recorded in a job ticket, for example according to the JDF standard.

It is also possible to embed some job settings in the print date, while other job settings are recorded in the job ticket.

After pre-processing 110 is finished a job ticket 500 (Fig. 5) is generated and sent to the printer 122 with the print data.

The job ticket 500 comprises the typical job settings 530 comprising of job setting names 510 with their corresponding values 520. Note that the job ticket shown in Fig. 5 is simplified to facilitate understanding.

For example, JDF tickets are XML documents specifying many more job settings structured in a much more complex structure than actually shown.

Once the print job (including the job ticket 500) is submitted 115 to the printer 122, the printer operator will at some point be ready to prepare for printing the print job. One of the tasks of the printer operator is to make sure sufficient media of the correct type are loaded. However, the printer operator concludes that there is not sufficient stock of RA4- sized, 300 g/m? single-side coated media to print the entire print job. Instead, the printer operator decides to print the print job on B3-sized (353 x 500 mm), 300 g/m?, single-side coated media.

According the prior art, the operator could change the media size to B3, but depending on the equipment available in the print shop, this might not be sufficient. For example, the trimmer might not be able to trim the biggest margin off requiring an alternative approach to the trimming. Furthermore, trimming more than half the media off is wasting a lot of media, so the printer operator might consider printing 2-up. If the printer 122 natively supports 2-up printing, due to limitations in the printer 122 or the printer's user interface, this may either be complex to properly configure through the printer's user interface or it may only be possible with reduced functionality requiring more manual operations later. It is not uncommon that the printer operator will actually sent the job back to pre-processing to have it set up for the alternative B3 media size.

Now, according to the invention, during pre-processing 110, the job ticket 800 (Fig. 6) not only comprises the job settings 530, but also a job intent 640. The job intent 640 differs from the job settings 530 in that it only specifies an intention whereas the job settings 530 define the “how” of the job, namely specific settings to be applied directly to individual steps to be performed. In contrast, the intent 640 only defines a certain result (a property of the final end product) or an optimisation to apply during execution of the job. Particularly, it defines in this case that the end product should finally have a media size A4 (after printing and post-processing). It doesn’t necessarily specify the media size used during printing (although that could sometimes be a valid way to obtain that result although not in the full bleed example provided here). The job settings 530 specify what media size the printer 122 is to select during printing, namely media with size RA4 (and weight 300 g/m? and coating C 185).

Now that the ticket 600 defines both the settings 530 to apply during the production steps as well as the intent 640, it allows for the operator to change one or more job settings 530 and have the print system automatically adjust in order to ensure that the customer actually gets what he wanted.

As the printer 122 has received the ticket 600 comprising the intent 840, the printer operator can change the media size setting from RA4 to B3. The printer 122 detects that the ticket 600 comprises an intent 640 and will check whether the job specification with the changed media size complies with the intent 840. It will also check the optimisation intent that specifies that “max same-up” should be applied, meaning that if there is sufficient space on the media selected for printing on, the printer should apply a same- up setting that maximises the number of (identical) pages on the media sheet. In this case, the printer 122 notices that the B3-sized sheet can accomodate two pages (with sufficient margin for the bleeding and for cutting and trimming). So due to the “max same-up” optimisation intent, the printer 122 will automatically switch to 2-up printing for same-up printing (Fig. 7). Furthermore, due to the media size intent, the printer 122 will also define the correct cutting and trimming settings in order to have the two pages on the single B3 sheet cut down to two A4-sized sheets in accordance with the original trimbox (as originally defined for the RA4-sized media).

This way, the printer operator only has to tell the printer 122 that he is not going to print on RA4 media, but on B3 media instead, and the printer 122 can automatically adjust to still produce what the customer actually ordered (A4-sized pages) and do it in an efficient way (using same-up printing to reduce on wasted media).

In order for the printer 122 to determine a changed impasitioning (instead of a location of the page image on the RA4-sized sheet, two locations of the same page image on a B3-sized sheet), the printer 122 needs to have access to an impositioning algorithm, either internally or externally. Typically, modern production printers do have such access. In general, whether a printer 122 is able to automatically validate every single intent and if necessary change the job specification in order to bring the job specification back into compliance with every single intent depends on the capabilities of the printer 122 and the resources it has available. For example, if an intent requiring creep compensation is present, the printer 122 needs to know directly or indirectly the thickness of the media used (which modern production printers typically do). In the ideal situation the printer 122 has access to the same information and algorithms as the pre- processing 110 steps have.

Note that the operator may not only change from RA4 to B3 media for reasons of insufficient RA4 stock, but also because it may be more productive to print two pages on B3 sheet in one pass instead of printing two pages on two separate RA4 sheets

(although this may be partly offset by increased post-processing operations due to more, or more complex trimming and cutting). This procedure of executing the job according to the invention is shown in the form of a flow diagram in Fig. 8. The procedure starts 802 and receives 804 a job. Next, some job setting in the received job is changed 806. The print system reads 808 the intent 640 from the job and verifies 810 the changed job against this intent. If it finds 812 that the job does not comply with the intent, it changes or adds 814 further job settings in order to make the job comply with the intent. For example, in the previous example, the same- up setting was set to 2-up printing to make the job comply with the “max same-up” optimisation intent, and the cut and trim settings were adjusted to make the job comply with the media size intent of “A4”. Once the job is compliant with the job intent, the job is further executed 816 and the procedure according the invention ends 818.

In order to be able to verify the compliance of a changed job with an intent, the job specification should be provided with the intent 640. A convenient way to do this is to add the intent 640 to the job specification when the job specification is created during pre-processing 110. This would also allow to copy input from an order specification or an order intake form straight to an intent 840 or to derive it therefrom.

Detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which can be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure. In particular, features presented and described in separate dependent claims may be applied in combination and any advantageous combination of such claims are herewith disclosed.

Further, the terms and phrases used herein are not intended to be limiting; but rather, to provide an understandable description of the invention. The terms "a" or "an", as used herein, are defined as one or more than one. The term plurality, as used herein, is defined as two or more than two. The term another, as used herein, is defined as at least a second or more. The terms including and/or as used herein, are defined as comprising (i.e., open language). The term coupled, as used herein, is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly.

The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims. Embodiments

1. Method for executing a print job in accordance with a job specification, comprising the steps of: — receiving a job specification; — changing the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification; wherein the received job specification comprises an intent; and the method further comprises the steps of: — analysing whether the changed job specification complies with the intent in view of the changed, first job setting; — if the changed job specification complies, executing the job according to the changed job specification; — if the changed job specification does not comply, determining a second job setting to change and a job setting value to change the second job setting to in order to make the thus changed job specification comply with the intent, and executing the job according to the thus changed job specification.

2. Method according to claim 1 wherein the step of changing the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification comprises changing at least one first job setting upon receiving an operator command to that end.

3. Method for specifying a print job comprising print data, the print job to be executed by any of the methods according to claim 1 or 2, the specification method comprising the steps of: — specifying job settings for the print job; — recording the job settings in at least one of: 30 . the print data of the print job, and

. a job ticket for the print job; — specifying an intent; and — recording the intent in at least one of: . the print data of the print job, and 5 . a job ticket for the print job.

4. Method according to claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein the intent represents at least one of: — adirect specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and — an optimisation target which target is to be maximised or minimised during execution of the print job.

5. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein an intent specifies at least one of: — adirect specification of the intended size of a sheet of the final product to be produced with the print job, — creep compensation to be applied, — an integral shift to be applied, — atrimming shift or alignment, — an automatic bleed spacing, and — a format of the print product such as a booklet or a flip-over.

6. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein an intent specifies at least one of: — a maximum same-up print specification to specify to maximise the number of pages to print on a sheet with same-up printing, — a maximise page count signature, — a minimise white page specification, — a minimise waste specification, — a minimise number of post-processing operations specification, and — a minimise number of post-processing devices specification.

7. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium that, if executed on a processor, performs the steps of the method of any of the preceding claims.

8. A printer controller for managing a print job specified by a job specification and controlling a print engine to print the print job in accordance with the job specification, the controller comprising: — a communication device arranged for receiving the print job; wherein the managing of the print job comprises changing a job specification for the received print job by changing a job setting of the job specification; wherein the controller is further arranged to read an intent from the job specification and determining whether the job specification complies with the read intent after a job specification has been changed; and — if the changed job specification complies, executing the job according to the changed job specification; and — if the changed job specification does not comply, determining a second job setting to change and a job setting value to change the second job setting to in order to make the thus changed job specification comply with the intent, and executing the job according to the thus changed job specification.

9. The printer controller according to claim 8 further comprising a user interface and wherein the user interface is arranged to display a screen to allow a user to change the job specification by changing at least one first job setting of the job specification.

10. The printer controller according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the intent represents at least one of: — a direct specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and — an optimisation target which target is to be maximised or minimised during execution of the print job.

11. A print system comprising:

— atleast one print engine for providing print media with marking material in accordance with a print job, and — a printer controller according to claim 8, 9, or 10.

12. The print system according to claim 11, further comprising at least one finisher for performing finishing operations in accordance with the print job on the printed media printed by the at least one print engine.

Claims

CONCLUSIONS

A method of performing a print job in accordance with a job specification, comprising the steps of: — receiving a job specification; - modifying the task specification by modifying at least a first task setting of the task specification; wherein the received task specification includes an intent; and the method further comprises the steps of: - analyzing whether the modified task specification matches intent in light of the modified first task setting; — if the modified task specification matches, performing the task according to the modified task specification; — if the modified task specification does not match, determining a second task setting to be adjusted and a task setting value to adjust the second task setting to in order to match the thus modified task specification with the intent, and performing the task according to the thus custom job specification.

The method of claim 1 wherein the step of adjusting the job specification by adjusting at least a first job setting of the job specification comprises adjusting at least a first job setting after receiving an operator command to that effect.

A method of specifying a print job including print data, the print job to be performed by any of the methods of claims 1 or 2, the specification method comprising the steps of: — specifying job settings for the print job; — registering the job settings in at least one of: ° the print data of the print job, and . a job ticket for the print job; — specifying an intention; and

— registering the intention in at least one of: ° the print data of the print job, and . a job ticket for the print job.

The method of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein the intent represents at least one of the following: — a direct specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and — an optimization target which target is to be maximized or minimized during print job execution.

A method according to any preceding claim, wherein an intent specifies at least one of the following: — a direct specification of the target size of a sheet of the final product to be produced by the print job, — a creep compensation to be applied ), — an integral shift to be applied, — a crop shift or alignment, — an automatic bleed spacing, and — a format of the print product, such as a booklet or flipchart.

A method according to any preceding claim, wherein an intent specifies at least one of the following: — a maximum “same-up” print specification to specify maximizing the number of pages to be printed on a sheet with “same-up” printing, — maximizing a number of pages in a signature, — a minimize blank pages specification, — a minimize waste specification, — a minimize number of post-processing operations specification, and — a minimize-number of post-processing device specification.

A computer program product comprised in a non-volatile, computer-readable medium which, when executed on a processor, performs the steps of the method of any preceding claim.

A printer controller for managing a print job specified by a job specification and controlling a printing device to print the print job in accordance with the job specification, the controller comprising: — a communication means configured to receive a print job; wherein managing a print job comprises adjusting a job specification for the received print job by adjusting a job setting of the job specification; wherein the controller is further configured to read an intent from the task specification and determine whether the task specification matches the read intent after a task specification is modified; and — if the modified task specification matches, performing the task in accordance with the modified task specification; and — if the modified task specification does not match, determining a second task setting to be modified and a task setting value to adapt the second task setting to so as to match the thus modified task specification with the intent, and performing the task according to the thus adapted task specification.

The printer controller of claim 8 further comprising a user interface and wherein the user interface is configured to display a screen to allow a user to modify a job specification by adjusting at least a first job setting of the job specification.

The printer controller of claim 8 or 9, wherein the intent represents at least one of the following: — a direct specification of a required property of the resulting final print product, and

— an optimization target which target should be maximized or minimized during the execution of the print job.

A printing system comprising: — at least one printing device for applying marking material to a printing medium in accordance with a print job, and — a printer controller according to claim 8, 9, or 10.

The printing system of claim 11, further comprising at least one post-processing device for performing post-processing operations on the printed medium printed by the at least one printing device in accordance with the printing job.