Title of Invention

METHOD OF PRINTING A DOCUMENT WHEN A PRINTER TONER IS LOW

Abstract The Print device capable of printing the documents is provided with internal logiC. ihe decision of whether to continue with printing or resist from printing is provided at the print device. ihe printing of the document at the print device is decided by variouS factors liKe availability of paper, sufficient loner for printing the document, etc. conditions. ihe neW method involves adding the decision maKing logiC at the printer that changes the print mode when the toner is loW without canceling the print lob at the print device.ihis method allows the user to continue printing of the document without much delay till the print resource is replaced.
Full Text FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention in general relates to MFP related technologies, like Printers, Faxes, etc. Further, this invention relates to toner level based printing. More particularly the present invention relates to a method of changing the print mode when printer toner is low.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
US Patent No.: 6,496,662 titled "Optical toner low sensor" proposes an MFP in which Toner exhaustion is sensed in cartridge having a toner chamber, a rotation paddle extending across the long dimension. Chamber has a transparent window at its bottom and a reflective surface in chamber, also at the bottom. An optical emitter and receiver periodically senses for returned light, which indicates toner low. Paddle carries a wiper to clean window and reflective surface. This invention allegedly provides improved accuracy by a cost-effective system.
US Patent No.: 6,810,218, titled "Estimation of toner usage" proposes a method for estimation of toner usage in digital xerographic process is disclosed. The method calculates a ratio of transition count/pixel count using a pixel transition count and a pixel count for a printed image and provides an estimate of toner consumption based on the ratio of transition count/pixel count.
In the existing scenario the Printing device is capable of printing the job. The job contains documents of pages. The printing is continued if there is sufficient toner available at the Printer. The printing is cancelled if there is no sufficient toner available. There are mechanisms to identify the available toner at the printer. If there is sufficient printer in the printer then the printer continues to print the document. If the toner is low then the printer would decide if the print can be continued in the low toner condition. But the printed paper would not be clear in that case. The printer can decide to suspend or pause the print job or continue with printing of the document. If the printer decides to suspend the print job, the user has to wait till the toner is replaced. This causes the user long delays in getting his job done. Even the printed job might not be of good quality. The U.S Patents no. 6,496,662 and 6,810,218 do not provide the information of controlling the Print attributes in the above scenario. The present invention allows the user to control the print mechanism at the printer by changing the print settings at the printer when the print job cannot be continued in the normal print settings.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention allows the user to print a multi page document job even if the toner is low and available toner will print the document that will be in a human readable form. When the print device toner is low the printer is capable of identifying the available toner in it. After detecting the available toner the print device is capable of deciding whether the printing of the document can be continued or not. If sufficient toner is available then the printing of the document is continued as usual. But if sufficient toner is not available only then the print job is suspended. This allows the user to continue printing even if the toner is low without interrupting the printing.
The primary objective of the present invention is therefore to allow a print capable device to allow printing by changing the resolution of the print document when the toner is low.
The invented method works in the following manner:
• The print capable device receives the print document for printing.
• The printer checks for the available toner before it starts printing the document.
• If the toner is low the printer checks the resolution of the print document.
• The print device reduces the resolution of the print document and the resolution of the document will be not below the human readable form.
• The printer checks if sufficient toner is available to continue printing the job.
• If sufficient toner is available then the printing is continued in the normal way.
• If sufficient toner is not available then printing of the job is suspended till the toner is replaced.
Accordingly, this invention explains a method of changing the print mode when printer toner is low wherein the said method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving the print document for printing;
(b) checking for the available toner before starting printing the document;
(c) checking for the resolution of the print document when the toner is low;
(d) reducing the resolution of the print document when the toner is low;
(e) printing the document in reduced resolution if sufficient toner is available; and
(f) suspending printing in reduced resolution if sufficient toner is not available.
The other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more apparent from the ensuing detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
Figure 1 represents the working process of handling a print document. Figure 2 describes the print handling feature when the printer toner is low. Figure 3 describes a PC which issues a print request to a printer connected to the PC.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be explained with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood however that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. The following description and drawings are not to be construed as limiting the invention and numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, as the basis for the claims and as a basis for teaching one skilled in the art how to make and/or use the invention. However in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention in detail.
Figure 1 represents the working process of handling a print document. The print device checks for toner availability before it starts printing. If toner is low then the printing of the document is suspended until the toner is replaced.
Figure 2 describes the print handling feature when the printer toner is low. When the printer toner is low then the print device reduces the resolution of the printing document and checks the print capability of the document. If the document can be printed then printing is done or else the printing is suspended.
The terminal as depicted in figure No. 3 is a PC which will issue a print request to a printer connected to the PC. The printer is identified by using suitable software available in the market. The print request consists of a document compromising of multi pages or a single page to be printed at Printer. The printer software installed at PC prepares job for printing. The printer software provides an option to the user to select the print job properties. The print job properties include range of pages, resolution, no of copies of each document to be printed, collate copy or uncollected copy, etc. The present invention provides an option to the user to enable or disable change in resolution and also the minimum resolution to be printed at the printer. A Menu option will be provided at the Printer. The menu option will contain the option of enabling or disabling the change in resolution at the printer when the Toner is low. The user is allowed to select the minimum resolution to be used by the printer when the toner is low. The selected minimum resolution value is stored in a variable and is sent to printer along with the print request while printing. The minimum resolution is the list of standard resolutions available for printing. The standard resolutions include 300 dots per inch (dpi), 600 dpi, 1200 dpi, etc. in case the printer cannot continue with the user selected resolution, the minimum resolution is to be selected at the printer for printing the document. The amount of toner required by the printer is decided by the amount of print data available for printing. The print data is converted into raw data before it is printed. The raw data contains the dots to be printed on pages. The no. of dots to print will decide the amount of toner required to print the page. The toner calculation method for a page is discussed in the US Patent no. 6,810,218. The print software converts the print parameters to print Job Language commands (PJL). The PJL commands are the commands that are set at the printer before a job is handled by the printer. The PJL commands would look like @PJL SET RESOLUTION=300, etc. The print software then sends the PJL commands and the print data to the print server system.
The Print Server System (PSS) takes the print request and the PJL commands from the Printer software and then sends the print request to the Print Client handler (PCH).
The Print client Handler (PCH) takes the Print request form the PSS and puts the print job in the Job queue of the Print Manager (PM). The PM checks the jobs in the print queue. If the queue is not empty then it takes the first job available in the queue for processing. The PM then parses the print attributes for the job in processing and stores the print attributes in temporary location. The print attributes consist of setting the page size, paper type, job data size, resolution, etc.
The Printer sets the print attributes for the whole job. Just before the paper is printed the resolution of the printer is set. The page data size is required to calculate the amount of toner required to print the page. The printer calculates the amount of toner required for printing the print job. The calculation of available toner for a print data is mentioned in the U.S Patent No. 6,810,218. Once the amount of toner required for printing a page is calculated, The PM checks the available Toner low condition in the Printer. The checking of the toner low condition is referred in the U.S. Patent No. 6636705.
The toner count represents the no. of dots that the printer can print. For a page to be printed in the given resolution the available toner count in the printer should be more than the page print data that have dot counts less than toner count. The print dot count for a page is calculated by the resolution that is set for printing the page. For example the print dot count for a page is 12000 for resolution of 600 dpi, then for the same page data the print dot count would be 6000 if the resolution is changed to 300.
Thus if the print dot count is sufficient for printing the page then the printing is continued as normal print. If the available toner count is less than the page print data for a particular resolution say 600, then printing of the document is suspended. The present invention involves checking the toner sufficient condition of the document. The toner sufficient condition is checked if the print dot count is less than the available toner count. If the toner is not sufficient then present invention involves changing the resolution for the page to a lower resolution say 300. Then after changing the present resolution to a lower resolution the toner sufficient condition is checked. If the available toner count is more than the print dot count then the PM gives the Print data to the Print Engine (PE). The print engine then starts printing the pages in the job set in the normal printing system.
Once he PE finishes printing the pages the status of the print job is sent to the PM. The PM then sends the status of the print Job to the PSS.








WE CLAIM
1. A method of changing the print mode when printer toner is low wherein the said
method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving the print document for printing;
(b) checking for the available toner before starting printing the document;
(c) checking for the resolution of the print document when the toner is low;
(d) reducing the resolution of the print document when the toner is low;
(e) printing the document in reduced resolution if sufficient toner is available; and
(f) suspending printing in reduced resolution if sufficient toner is not available.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the user enables or disables change in resolution and set the minimum resolution to be printed at the printer.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein user enables or disables change in resolution and set the minimum resolution through a menu option provided at the Printer.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the user selects the minimum resolution to be used by the printer when the toner is low.
5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the selected minimum resolution value is stored in a variable and is sent to printer along with the print request while printing.
6. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the minimum resolution is the list of standard resolutions available for printing.
7. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the amount of toner required by the printer depends on the amount of print data available for printing.
8. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the print data is converted into raw data before it is printed wherein the raw data contains the dots to be printed on pages.
9. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the number of dots to print will decide the amount of toner required to print the page.
10. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein for printing the document the PJL commands and the print data are send to the print server system.
11. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the Print Server System takes the print request and the PJL commands and sends the print request to the Print Client handler.
12. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the Print client Handler takes the Print request form the Print Server System and puts the print job in the Job queue of the Print Manager.
13. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the Print Manager checks the jobs in the print queue and if the queue is not empty, takes the first job available in the queue for processing.
14. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the Print Manager parses the print attributes for the job in processing and stores the print attributes in temporary location.
15. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the Printer sets the print attributes for the print job and the said print attributes consist of setting the page size, paper type, job data size, resolution, etc.
16. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the resolution of the printer is set just before the paper is printed and the page data size determines the amount of
toner required to print the page.
17. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein to print a page, in the given resolution the available toner count in the printer is more than the page print data that have dot counts less than toner count.
18. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the toner count represents the number of dots that the printer prints.
19. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the print dot count for a page is calculated by the resolution that is set for printing the page.
20. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein if the print dot count is sufficient for printing the page then the printing is continued as normal print.
21. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein if the available toner count is less than the page print data for a particular resolution, then printing of the document is suspended.
22. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said method involves checking the toner sufficient condition of the document.
23. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the toner sufficient condition is checked if the print dot count is less than the available toner count.
24. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein if the toner is not sufficient then the resolution for the page is changed to a lower resolution.
25. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the toner sufficient condition is checked once again after changing to the lower resolution.
26. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein if the available toner count is more
than the print dot count then the Print Manager gives the Print data to the Print Engine.
27. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the print engine prints the pages in the job set in the normal printing system.
28. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein when print engine finishes printing the pages the status of the print job is sent to the Print Manager and the Manager sends the status of the print Job to the Print Server System.
29. A method of changing the print mode when printer toner is low substantially as hereinabove described and illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Documents:


Patent Number 269920
Indian Patent Application Number 349/CHE/2005
PG Journal Number 47/2015
Publication Date 20-Nov-2015
Grant Date 18-Nov-2015
Date of Filing 31-Mar-2005
Name of Patentee SAMSUNG R& D INSTITUTE INDIA BANGALORE PRIVATE LIMITED
Applicant Address #2870 ORION BUILDING BAGMANE CONSTELLATION BUSINESS PARK OUTER RING ROAD DODDANEKUNDI CIRCLE MARATHAHALLI POST BANGALORE -560037
Inventors:
# Inventor's Name Inventor's Address
1 KRISHNA CHAITANYA PADAVALA J.P. TECHNO PARK, 3/1, MILLERS ROAD, BANGALORE 560 052,
PCT International Classification Number H04M3/44
PCT International Application Number N/A
PCT International Filing date
PCT Conventions:
# PCT Application Number Date of Convention Priority Country
1 NA