Patent ID: 8599394

Claim:
A print controller comprising: a control processor operable to receive a command to print multiple copies of a print job; and a rasterizer operable to generate raster data for the print job, and to write the raster data to a rip spool; the control processor is further operable to buffer for the rasterizer multiple copies of print data for the print job, and to determine if the rip spool has storage space available to store raster data for a complete rasterized version of the print job; responsive to determining that the rip spool does not have storage space available to store the complete rasterized version of the print job: the rasterizer is further operable to rasterize the multiple copies of print data for the print job, and to provide multiple rasterized copies of the print job to a print engine; responsive to determining that the rip spool has storage space available to store the complete rasterized version of the print job: the rasterizer is further operable to rasterize one copy of the print job, and to spool the one rasterized copy of the print job to the rip spool; the control processor is further operable to discard copies of the print data for the print job that are buffered for the rasterizer, and to de-spool the rasterized copy of the print job multiple times from the rip spool to a print engine.