Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7924461?dq=5311516
Timestamp: 2017-04-29 08:32:25
Document Index: 521430455

Matched Legal Cases: ['§119', 'art 212', 'art 212', 'art 212', 'art 212', 'art 212', 'art 212', 'art 610', 'art 610', 'art 670', 'art 610', 'art 670', 'art 610']

Patent US7924461 - Printing method based on remaining color toner or ink information - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inPatentsA method and apparatus for printing a document by remaining color toner or ink information is provided. The printing method comprising the steps of providing remaining color toner or ink information supported by the printing device; dividing the document into areas, and designating colors to the designated...http://www.google.com/patents/US7924461?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7924461 - Printing method based on remaining color toner or ink informationAdvanced Patent SearchTry the new Google Patents, with machine-classified Google Scholar results, and Japanese and South Korean patents.Publication numberUS7924461 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/140,285Publication dateApr 12, 2011Filing dateMay 31, 2005Priority dateMay 31, 2004Fee statusLapsedAlso published asUS20050264850Publication number11140285, 140285, US 7924461 B2, US 7924461B2, US-B2-7924461, US7924461 B2, US7924461B2InventorsYoung-Ju Kim, Don-Seon Lee, Bong-Gi LeeOriginal AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (16), Referenced by (2), Classifications (20), Legal Events (4) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetPrinting method based on remaining color toner or ink information
US 7924461 B2Abstract
A method and apparatus for printing a document by remaining color toner or ink information is provided. The printing method comprising the steps of providing remaining color toner or ink information supported by the printing device; dividing the document into areas, and designating colors to the designated areas; and if the remaining amounts of colors are sufficient to print the document in the designated colors, printing the document in the designated colors
This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) of Korean Patent Application Nos. 2004-39103 filed on May 31, 2004 and 2004-46098 filed on Jun. 21, 2004 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the entire contents of each being hereby incorporated by reference.
It is, therefore, an aspect of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for printing using remaining color toner or ink information, in which a document to be printed is divided into areas, and colors are designated to the divided areas.
According to still another embodiment of the printing method of the present invention further comprising the steps of rendering the document; matching colors to the rendered document; performing a half-tone process on the color matched document; and shingling the half-tone processed document, and the color designating step designates colors to the shingled areas. The term “shingling” is understood to be the process as disclosed in the article entitled, “HP DeskWriter C printer driver development—development of Macintosh driver for HP color ink-jet printer—Technical” by William J. Allen, Toni D. Courville, Steven O. Miller” that was published in Hewlett Packard Journal (August 1992), which is hereby incorporated by reference.
FIG. 10 illustrates a ‘preview’ screen of a printer driver user interface (hereinafter, it is referred to as a “UI”) according to one embodiment of the present invention; and
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described herein below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, well-known functions or constructions are omitted for the sake of clarity and conciseness.
The second color designating part 212 designates colors to each object on a document that is prepared through the application program 211. For example, suppose that a document is composed of text and a bit map. The second color designating part 212 designates colors for the text and the bit map, respectively. There is no fixed time when the user designates the colors to each object. In effect, it can be after rendering, at the same time with color matching, after the half-tone process, or after shingling. In the printing process involving an ink jet printer, ‘shingling’ refers to a data partitioning process, which is known in the art. Usually, color designation is performed on the driver. In other words, when printing a document, the second color designating part 212 does not change the colors of the objects in the document, but temporarily designates the colors at the user's choice. For instance, sometimes the second color designating part 212 designates from a color image to a black and white image or vice versa. In another case, the second color designating part 212 designates a color text to a black and white text, or to a text in another color selected by the user. Still in another case, the second color designating part 212 designates a color image and a color text to a black and white image and a black and white text, or to another color image and text conforming to the user's choice. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary menu through which a user designates colors to objects on a document to be printed. The names of the colors used in FIG. 4 are for illustrative purposes only and represent the colors supported by the printing device in this example.
The printing device 100 is capable of printing not only documents stored in the external memory, but also documents stored in the data processing device 100 under the control of the driver 220 (refer to FIG. 2). In the case where the printing device 100 itself prints documents, the user can designate colors to the objects in the document to be printed by means of a touch screen or by pressing a menu button. The state of the document in designated colors can be seen through a ‘preview’ function. If necessary, the user can edit and designate new colors to the objects. These operations, such as, displaying the designated colors and the user's color editing, can also be performed on the driver that drives the printing device. In such a case, the state of the designated colors can also be displayed through the ‘preview’ function, and the user is allowed to edit the colors with reference to the remaining color toner or ink information.
In addition, if the user inputs a color information change command through the input part 610, a color information change window for object 810 is preferably overlapped on the preview screen 800. The color information change window for object 810 allows the user to select an object he or she wants to change color, and designates a new color to the object he or she selected. Therefore, the color information change window for object 810 will comprise two selection items. An ‘object selection item’ allows the user to select one object from among the font object, the graphic object, and the vector object, and a ‘color selection item’ menu allows the user to designate a new color to the selected object. Accordingly, the user is able to select the object and the color he or she wants to change.
Preferably, the preview screen 800 may comprise a section called ‘color(s) not available for printing’, indicating which color(s) is not supported by the printing device 700. In effect, the ‘color(s) not available for printing’ section displays the information on colors that are currently not available, the information being extracted from the remaining color toner or ink information transmitted to the first color residue information storage 640 from the second color residue information storage 740. When the user inputs the preview function set command through the input part 610, the first control part 670 reads the remaining color toner or ink information out of the first color residue information storage 640, and transmits it to the driver 660. The driver 660 makes the information on color(s) not available (or not supported by the printing device) extracted from the remaining color toner or ink information displayed on the ‘color(s) not available for printing’ section in the preview screen 800 on the driver UI 661. In this manner, when the user wants to change colors of objects, the user knows which color(s) cannot be used, and which color(s) is available in the printing device. Alternatively, only the colors available will appear in the menu of the ‘color selection item’ of the color information window 810.
Referring to FIGS. 9 to 11, when the user inputs through the input part 610 the preview function set command for previewing the document to be printed (S900), the preview screen 800 shown in FIG. 10 is displayed on the display 620, under the control of the first control part 670 (S910). With the aid of the input part 610, the user selects on the preview screen 800 an object and color desired to be changed, thereby changing color information for objects (S920). At this time, the user can make the color change to the objects, referring to the ‘color(s) not available for printing’ section shown on the preview screen 800. The changed color information of the objects is temporarily stored in a volatile RAM (not shown) (S930).
Patent CitationsCited PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS4422084 *Nov 5, 1980Dec 20, 1983Epson CorporationFluid tank and device for detecting remaining fluidUS5016096 *Sep 20, 1988May 14, 1991Konica CorporationApparatus for color processing specifically inside or outside a detected regionUS5134440 *Aug 9, 1989Jul 28, 1992Minolta Camera Kabushiki KaishaDevice and method for forming an image of a document in more than one color including automatic or user selection of colors to be used in specified areas of the documentUS6108009 *Feb 7, 1997Aug 22, 2000Canon Kabushiki KaishaImage processing method and apparatus for previewing color imagesUS6142600 *Apr 22, 1997Nov 7, 2000Canon Kabushiki KaishaPrint control method and printerUS6430711 *Jan 6, 1999Aug 6, 2002Seiko Epson CorporationSystem and method for monitoring the state of a plurality of machines connected via a computer networkUS6612685 *Feb 11, 2002Sep 2, 2003Lexmark International, Inc.Method of selectively underfeeding print media in an ink jet printerUS6621590 *Oct 29, 1999Sep 16, 2003Hewlett-Packard Development Company, Lp.Method and control for summarizing distribution of page-specific features within a multi-page print jobUS6827415 *May 22, 2003Dec 7, 2004Seiko Epson CorporationPrinting apparatus, computer-readable medium, and printing methodUS20050062987 *Dec 18, 2003Mar 24, 2005Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.Image generating apparatus, image processing apparatus, program product and method for printing marked-up print data in color appropriate for printingJP2001293911A * Title not availableJP2002165102A Title not availableKR19990015541A Title not availableKR19990018752A Title not availableKR19990034075A Title not availableKR20030013443A Title not available* Cited by examinerReferenced byCiting PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS8214848 *Jun 19, 2008Jul 3, 2012Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Method and apparatus for installing printer drivers of image forming apparatuses in printing environment employing universal printer driverUS20090031330 *Jun 19, 2008Jan 29, 2009Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Method and apparatus for installing printer drivers of image forming apparatuses in printing environment employing universal printer driver* Cited by examinerClassifications U.S. Classification358/2.1, 358/534, 358/3.24International ClassificationH04N1/52, H04N1/46, B41J2/175, G03G15/00, H04N1/48Cooperative ClassificationG03G15/5087, G03G15/556, G03G15/553, H04N1/46, B41J2/17566, B41J2002/17569, G03G2215/00109, G03G15/502European ClassificationH04N1/46, B41J2/175L, G03G15/55B, G03G15/50FLegal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionMay 31, 2005ASAssignmentOwner name: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., KOREA, REPUBLIC OFFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:KIM, YOUNG-JU;LEE, DON-SEON;LEE, BONG-GI;REEL/FRAME:016620/0203Effective date: 20050527Nov 21, 2014REMIMaintenance fee reminder mailedApr 12, 2015LAPSLapse for failure to pay maintenance feesJun 2, 2015FPExpired due to failure to pay maintenance feeEffective date: 20150412RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services