Patent ID: 8139246

Claim:
A printer comprising: a plurality of physical print job location units, the printer passing each print job being printed through ones of said plurality of physical print job location units; a processor controlling a job location monitor monitoring each of said plurality of print job locations; a job location mask for said each print job, each bit location in each said job location mask indicating the presence of a print job in a corresponding one of said plurality of print job locations, said job location monitor updating said job location mask responsive to a respective print job location indicating the presence of said print job; and a job location table stored in memory and including a plurality of job location masks, the number of said plurality of job location masks being at least the same as the number of print jobs traversing said printer, said job location table indicating the current location of all print jobs traversing said printer, wherein each of said plurality of print job locations indicates when a print job is entering and exiting and whenever said number of print jobs traversing said printer is fewer than said number of said plurality of job location masks, said each bit location in each available said job location mask indicates the absence of a print job.