The color image forming apparatus (1) of the present invention has two intermediate transfer media. With at least two of color images (Y+M+C+K) layered previously, the other remaining images are further layered thereon by a between-intermediate-transfer-media transfer device, and a color image is formed on a transfer material by a transfer material transfer device. The time required until the color image is outputted is shortened. Particularly, an image of single black can be outputted in a shor...

A reprographic system is provided and includes a digital multi-function reprographic machine for reproducing copies of original images and a programmed personal computer (PC) subsystem. The programmed personal computer (PC) subsystem is connected to the multi-function reprographic machine for processing and controlling original images to be reproduced by the multi-function reprographic machine, and includes a work station monitor having a user screen, a machine-client dialog box, and a drop-down...

To reduce the amount of memory used and process time in an expansion process, an editing process part (1) is used to select a mode of reproduction of page state. Before printing data of intermediate form is stored in an intermediate-form printing data memory (6), a register process part (4) included in an editing process part (1) analyzes the data and detects in what page state the data is reproduced on paper. The page state is converted into page state data and added to printing data of interme...

Image forming devices and methods of facilitating ordering of an imaging consumable are described. According to one aspect, an image forming device includes an interface adapted to communicate with a communication medium external of the image forming device; imaging circuitry configured to use an imaging consumable to form hard images; a sensor configured to monitor a status of the imaging consumable; and processing circuitry coupled with the sensor and configured to generate a message indicatin...

In a color ink-jet printer using seven colors of ink including C, M, Y and K and c, m and y having low density, the data size of a conversion table used in color conversion is large. In view of this, compressed conversion table data, having compressed grid point data of a conversion table arranged by color components which are used to construct image data, is stored in a compressed data buffer. Then, the compressed conversion table data is expanded by a data restoration unit. Then, color convers...

A print engine/controller (10) configured to be coupled with others to drive an ink drop printhead (33). It has an interface (27) at which to receive compressed page data. Image decoders (28, 88) decode compressed image planes in the received compressed page data. A half-toner/compositer (29) a half-toner/compositer composites respective strips of the decoded image planes by halftoning a contone layer to a bi-level version and compositing a spot1 bi-level layer over an appropriate halftoned cont...

A search for copyright-related information contained in image data is conducted. If no such information is detected, a database is queried to determine whether it contains copyright-related information corresponding to the image represented by this image data. Information relating to a copyright in accordance with the result of querying the database is added onto the image data. This prevents the unauthorized copying of a copyrighted article in an environment in which digitized copyrighted artic...

A printing terminal connected to a network includes a display section to display a printing instruction or information, a transmitting/receiving section to transmit/receive information to/from a server, and a print processing section to print out printing data in accordance with the printing instruction. The server connected to the network includes a display forming section to generate information which is to be displayed on the display section of the printing terminal, a display processing sect...

A computer system and method for outputting printer commands to a printer in response to a print request from an application program are presented. The printer includes a device font whose characters are addressed for printing via a single, double, or n-byte code. The text data, however, utilizes the Unicode Standard to identify its characters. The system, therefore, includes a graphics device interface, which is compatible to read the Unicode data, to invoke the printer driver functions for con...

A printing system including a plurality of different kinds of printers and a printer selecting device. The printer selecting device includes an accepting section for accepting information representative of a desired number of printings input, and selecting section for selecting one of the printers matching with the desired number of printings. Image data to be printed are sent from the printer selecting device to the printer selected. In this configuration, one printer most advantageous in print...