Patent ID: 8823987

Claim:
A printing device comprising: a processor; a printing engine operatively connected to said processor; physical media trays operatively connected to said processor, said physical media trays maintaining unaltered media, said unaltered media being supplied to said printing engine for printing operations; a graphic user interface operatively connected to said processor; and media processing components operatively connected to said processor, said media processing components having elements that physically alter said unaltered media, said processor maintaining a status of unaltered media currently available within said physical media trays, said processor maintaining a status of currently available media processing components of said media processing components, said processor dynamically enabling previously created virtual media trays based on said status of said unaltered media currently available and said status of said currently available media processing components, said virtual media trays virtually appearing to contain virtual media that is physically different from said unaltered media currently available, physical features of said virtual media being previously defined by a user, said graphic user interface displaying said physical media trays and said virtual media trays as printing options, said graphic user interface receiving a request to print on a selected virtual media from one of said virtual media trays, and said currently available media processing components physically altering said unaltered media currently available to physically change said unaltered media currently available to said selected virtual media.