Patent ID: 6865355

Claim:
A printing method for printing of a print job by a printing apparatus having a monochrome mode and a full-color mode, the method comprising: examining a portion of the print job to determine whether the portion includes a color page; and if the portion includes a color page, scheduling printing of a first page of the portion and one or more subsequent pages of the print job in a full-color mode, irrespective of the color content of the one or more subsequent pages; if the portion does not include a color page, scheduling printing of the portion in a monochrome mode, and if a subsequent color page is detected in a remaining portion of the print job, scheduling printing of the subsequent color page in the full-color mode; and if at least a threshold number of consecutive monochrome cause is detected in a remaining portion of the print job, scheduling printing of the consecutive monochrome pages in the monochrome mode.