US Patent 7375842 Variable data printing using variants

A method and apparatus for preparing a Variable Data Print job for printing, having a plurality of documents that are to be printed wherein, each of the documents are defined by variant elements related to content, layout and product intent. Groups are created and defined by a commonality of variants within the document relating to layout and product intent. At least one parameter that relates to the variants is used as a selection criteria to form a plurality of sub-groups. The sub-groups are then arranged for printing according to the form of selection criteria.