US Patent 7505168 Distributed client side printing methods and systems

Various distributed client side printing methods and systems are described. In at least some embodiments, printer control and the job handling functions are bifurcated or separated by allowing jobs, drivers, settings and the like to be controlled by the print server or some other entity, while allowing clients to communicate jobs directly to a printer. The various embodiments can improve server performance by performing rendering and maintaining rendered data on the client side, and not communicating the rendered data to the server, while at the same time, allowing print servers to control the printer.