Patent ID: 7079269

Claim:
A method of printing digital print files in a network system including a digital network, at least one personal workstation of a user and a plurality of printers, at least a subset of the printers having a local memory and an operator control unit provided with inputting means and a display, said network system further including a print service and a print file storage service, and a digital print file including metadata specifying job information and print image data, the method comprising the steps of: submitting print files from a workstation of a user to said print service; receiving said print files at the print service; extracting, by the print service, at least part of the metadata of a received print file and storing the same in a storage dedicated to the print service as well as storing the print image data of a received print file in a logical storage space allocated to said user in the print file storage service; and automatically transmitting, by the print service, extracted metadata of each received print file to at least two printers of the subset of the printers, without the print service receiving a request for such transmission, wherein by each of the printers of the subset, the method further comprises the steps of: presenting all print files of a respective user that are in the system in the form of one complete list on the display of the operation control unit of the printer, wherein metadata of said all print files is locally available in the printer, permitting an operator to select a print file from the list and to give a command for locally printing the selected print file, and in reaction to a selection by the operator, fetching the print data of the selected print file from the print file storage service and transferring the fetched print data to a printer unit of the printer.