Patent ID: 6903837

Claim:
Method of predicting a quantity of a printing product necessary for printing a document, comprising the steps of: storing a document in its entirety as digital data; dividing each page of the document into wider bands of the digital data, wherein a wider band is a band increased by an overlap margin belonging to an adjacent band; creating, from the digital data, a table (T) of limited capacity describing a monochromatic component of a wider band, with the monochromatic component corresponding to the printing product and each cell of the table representing at least a pixel; counting ( 6 ) a number of switched-on pixels in the table, with a switched-on pixel corresponding to a pixel for which a portion of the printing product must be ejected; and deriving from a number of switched-on pixels corresponding to each wider band a necessary quantity ( 10 ) of the printing product before enabling or demanding printing.