Patent ID: 8526036

Claim:
A method for processing print data performed by a printing system, wherein the print data comprises PDL data, the method comprising: parsing the print data to identify at least one reusable resource in the print data, wherein the at least one reusable resource is referenced in print data more than once; transforming, by a processor, the identified reusable resource into at least one of several internal formats determined by analyzing at least one characteristic of the reusable resource, wherein the internal formats are common to a plurality of PDL data types; storing, in a storage medium, the formatted reusable resource; and using a rendered version of the stored formatted reusable resource to create a bitmap image for a page whenever the reusable resource is referenced during the creation of the bitmap image for the page, wherein transforming the identified reusable resource into at least one of several internal formats comprises associating the reusable resource with an instance of a data field in a data structure, wherein: the data field instance persists for a page, if the reusable resource is temporary; and the data field instance persists across multiple pages, if the reusable resource is permanent and not temporary, and is used over multiple pages.