Patent ID: 7016061

Claim:
A printing system in which print job data processing is balanced between a host and one or more imaging devices, comprising: a computer-based host having a raster formatter configured to convert print data to rasterized image data in a hardware-ready format as hardware-ready image data, and a control module adapted to dynamically determine, based on at least one parameter, to transmit print data to an imaging device or to transmit the print data to the raster formatter for conversion to the hardware-ready format prior to transmitting the print data to the imaging device; and at least one imaging device communicating with the host and having a print engine, a formatter coupled to the print engine operative to receive print data from the host and configured to convert the print data into rasterized image data in a hardware-ready format, and hardware-ready firmware operative to receive the hardware-ready image data from the computer-based host and transmit output containing the image directly to the print engine.