Patent attributes
Method for efficient printing of large-volume documents to multiple printers, comprising GUI for administrators to configure a virtual port associated with physical and virtual printers; print job to a virtual printer spooled to the associated virtual port; and administrators sending spooled print job to the associated physical printers. Options include Spool without printing, Spool and print immediately, and Spool and print at a scheduled time. Printing policies include Tandem (the same copies to printers), Direct (to one printer), Broadcast (specified copies to printers), and Cluster (a print job is divided into pieces at page boundaries). Cluster dividing subpolicies match color, paper size, media type, and finishing characteristics of the pieces with the printer characteristics, and sending subpolicies optimize based on printer speeds and distribute equal number of pages. Bidirectional communication and monitoring using SNMP and PJL enable Pool (the first available printer) and Recovery (job transfer after a failure) printing policies. Methods also include job previewing and accounting.
