| System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow -> Monitor Keywords |
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System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflowRelated Patent Categories: Data Processing: Presentation Processing Of Document, Operator Interface Processing, And Screen Saver Display Processing, Presentation Processing Of DocumentSystem and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070113164, System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/572,341, filed May 17, 2000, in the name of David R. Hanson et al. entitled "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPOUND DOCUMENTS IN A PRODUCTION PRINTING WORKFLOW," the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND [0002] While just about every computer user owns their own printer and is capable of producing high quality documents, the ability to produce such documents in high volume and with special finishing features, such as binding, is still within the purview of the commercial print shops and corporate copy departments. High volume, finished production of documents is typically referred to as production printing. A production printer is a printing device capable of rapid production of large volumes of documents. Typically these printers have high paper handling capacity, the ability to draw on multiple media types from multiple sources and the ability to automatically finish a document such as by adding a binding. Despite the automation provided by the production printer and the proliferation of computer technology, especially in the area of desktop publishing, production printing is still a complicated and often manual process. [0003] In a typical print shop, customers bring in original documents which they want turned into a finished product such as a bound booklet, a tri-fold brochure or a tabbed three ring bound notebook. In addition, they typically need a large volume of the finished product, for example, one thousand brochures. The combination of the original documents plus the instructions for producing the finished product is called a "job". The documents can be brought in either in hard copy or electronic form, such as on floppy disk, compact disc or tape or can be transmitted to the print shop over a network such as the Internet. [0004] After handing over the documents to the clerk, the customer relays his instructions for preparing the finished product. The clerk will note these instructions on a "ticket" or "job ticket". The job ticket is typically a piece of paper with all of the instructions written on it for producing the finished product. As mentioned above, this is known as job. The job will then be handed to an operator, who runs the production printer, to produce the finished output. The operator's job is to prepare the document for production, load the appropriate materials, such as paper stock and binding materials, into the production printer and ensure that the finished output is correct. [0005] While the job of the operator seems simple, there are many issues which quickly complicate it. Often, the documents provided by a customer are not ready to be run on the production printer. Some documents provided by a customer are merely raw manuscripts requiring basic formatting, such as margins, typography, etc. Other documents may be formatted but such formatting might not take into account the requested binding. For example, the text of the document is too close to the margin, therefore, when the finished product is bound, some of the text will be obscured. Some documents, such as books, require special care so that, for example, the first page of every chapter appears on the front of a page, also known as imposition. Other forms of imposition include booklet/pamphlet imposition or n-up imposition. Or the customer may bring in multiple documents and ask that these "chapters" be assembled into a book, with a cover and binding. [0006] Other issues which complicate the production printing job are determining and loading the correct media into the production printer. Often, jobs will require many different paper types, such as different stock weights or different colors. In addition, some jobs require the insertion of tab stock at specific points within the document. Still other jobs may require the adding of a bates number or other annotation to the document. [0007] With such a complicated production process to produce finished output, errors are bound to occur, such as loading the wrong paper stock in the printer or setting a margin too close to a binding. Production printers run at very high speeds, often producing output greater than 1 page per second therefore, errors in the finished output may not be caught before a significant amount of time and resources have been wasted. [0008] Accordingly, there is a need for an efficient system and method for managing the production printing workflow. SUMMARY [0009] The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on those claims. By way of introduction, the preferred embodiments described below relate to an interface, implemented in a computer, for representing and controlling a production printing workflow. The interface comprises: a display; a first document object representing a document, the document further comprising content and formatting, the formatting defining at least one page in the document, the first document object being associated with a first visual representation on the display; a document ticket object representing global document attributes, the document ticket object being associated with a second visual representation on the display and capable of being associated with the first document object; a page object representing a page attribute of one of the at least one page, the page object being associated with a third visual representation on the display and capable of being associated with the first document object; a book object capable of representing an ordered association of at least one of the first document object with a second document object, the second document object being associated with a book document containing an ordered assembly of all of the respective documents in each of the at least one of the first document object, the book object being further associated with a fourth visual representation on the display; and a first user input device for selectively associating at least two of the first, second and third visual representations; wherein association of the first, second and third visual representations results in association of the respective objects. [0010] The preferred embodiments further relate to a method of controlling a production printing workflow comprising: displaying a first visual representation of a document on a display; displaying a second visual representation of global document attributes capable of being associated with the document on the display; selectively associating the first visual representation with the second visual representation; based on this association, linking the global document attributes with the document such that the global document attributes apply to the document; displaying a third visual representation of a compound document capable of being associated with an ordered one or more of the documents on the display; selectively associating the third visual representation with one or more of the first visual representation; and based on this association, creating a book document having a fourth visual representation associated with the third visual representation and comprising an ordered assembly of the ordered one or more documents. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0011] FIG. 1 depicts a flow diagram illustrating a preferred production printing workflow. [0012] FIG. 2 depicts a flow diagram showing the user functionality workflow of the preferred embodiment. [0013] FIG. 3 depicts a block diagram of a preferred software architecture for use with the embodiments shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. [0014] FIG. 4 depicts a representation of a graphic user interface display according to the preferred embodiment. [0015] FIG. 5 depicts a high level representation of the integration of the preferred embodiment in the workflow of the print shop. [0016] FIG. 6 depicts a high level representation of the integration of the preferred embodiment in the workflow of the print shop including a workflow automation component. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENTLY PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [0017] Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a flow diagram illustrating the production work flow 100 in a typical production print shop such as a commercial high volume copy or print shop. A workflow is defined as the tasks, procedural steps, organizations or people involved, required input and output information, and tools needed for each step in a business process. As will be discussed below, a workflow approach to analyzing and managing a business or process such as production printing can be combined with an object oriented approach, which tends to focus on the discrete objects and processes involved such as documents, pages, data and databases. For the purposes of this disclosure, the term "object oriented", when applied to the disclosed embodiments, does not imply that an object oriented programming approach is the only method of implementation of the disclosed embodiments. [0018] FIG. 1 further depicts a typical computer network 112 for use in a print shop. In a typical digital print shop, there will be a network 112 of computer work stations 114, 116, servers 118, 120 and high volume output devices 122 which make up the computer network 112. The servers 118, 120 include network servers 118 and print servers 120. The topology of the network 112 is typically structured so as to align with the workflow 100 of the print shop. The network 112 may be implemented as a wired or wireless Ethernet network or other form or local area network. Further the network 112 may include wired or wireless connections to wide area networks such as the Internet and connections to other local area networks such as through a virtual private network. [0019] The production workflow 100 includes the procedural stages of job origination 102, job submission 104, job preparation 106, print production 108 and final fulfillment 110. Alternatively, one or more of these procedural stages may be combined as well as there may be other additional procedural stages. Job origination 102 is the procedural stage of receiving the documents and instructions, which together are defined as a "job", from the customer. Job origination 102 can occur when a customer physically brings his job, whether in hard copy or electronic form, to the print shop or otherwise transmits the job to the print shop, whether by phone, fax, postal mail, electronic mail or over a local area or wide area network such as over the Internet. Note that a job may contain more than one document and more than one set of instructions. For example, a job may contain many documents, each being one chapter of a book, along with a document containing a cover for the book. This exemplary job may include the instructions for producing the body of the book from the individual chapter documents and another set of instructions for producing the cover. In addition, as will be discussed below, there may be a third set of instructions for assembling the cover to the body of the book. Continue reading about System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow... Full patent description for System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. Start now! - Receive info on patent apps like System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow or other areas of interest. ### Previous Patent Application: Belief propagation decoder cancelling the exchange of unreliable messages Next Patent Application: Method of authoring audiovisual content, audiovisual product, method of producing audiovisual product and apparatus Industry Class: Data processing: presentation processing of document ### FreshPatents.com Support Thank you for viewing the System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow patent info. IP-related news and info Results in 0.15161 seconds Other interesting Feshpatents.com categories: Novartis , Pfizer , Philips , Polaroid , Procter & Gamble , 174 |
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