Patent ID: 8072633

Claim:
A method for managing a print shop system, the print shop system including a plurality of printers and/or finishing devices connected to a server, the method being implemented on the server, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a print job including a job ticket and source document to be printed, the job ticket containing job ticket parameters; (b) generating two or more sub-jobs each including a sub-job ticket and a sub-document by analyzing the job ticket and the content of the source document, each sub-job ticket containing sub-job ticket parameters, at least one sub-job ticket containing at least one parameter having a value different from its value in the job ticket, wherein the sub-job tickets for the sub-job containing the most pages includes parameters describing a merging order, the merging order defining an order in which pages of the other sub-jobs are to be merged with pages of the sub-job that contains the most pages; and (c) submitting the two or more sub-jobs to a plurality of printers and/or finishing devices in accordance with the sub-job tickets.