Patent ID: 7912416

Claim:
A printing system comprising: a selective variable route media path through the printing system, the path having a start and an end; a plurality of image marking engines disposed in the variable route media path, each engine comprising both an internal simplex path and a duplex path; one and only one media supply source at the start of the media path, wherein said plurality of image marking engines use said media supply source as their media supply source; a diverter module disposed adjacent the start of the paper path for receiving sheets from said media supply source and for selectively directing the sheets to the variable route paper path; a media path spanning said plurality of marking engines that is completely separated from the internal simplex path and the duplex path in each engine for selective bypassing of the marking engines; a cross-over module disposed between two of said image marking engines, said cross-over module including a first transport path for receiving media from a first marking engine and transporting the media to said spanning media path, and a second transport path for receiving media from said spanning media path and transporting the media to a second marking engine; and, a finishing device for finish processing of the sheets including a merge module for selective merging of the sheets; wherein said cross-over module includes a by-pass transport path for transporting sheets from said media supply source directly to the finishing device without passing through any of said image marking engines.