A print controller includes a plurality of processing units, a receiving unit, a generation unit, a first assignment unit, a second assignment unit, and a request unit. The generation unit generates print side job data for imposing multiple pages on a single print side. The first assignment unit assigns, to the print side job data, an image processing unit not assigned to other print side job data. The second assignment unit assigns at least one image processing unit not assigned to the other print side job data, to page job data of each of the pages. The request unit requests the at least one image processing unit to execute image processing on the page job data of each page, and requests the image processing unit to execute image processing on the print side job data when the image processing on the page job data of each page is completed.

Systems and method for variable data printing are provided. A composition system can receive a variable data printing job and can determine a plurality of subjobs. The composition system can determine a plurality of variable data print streams are determined. The composition system can transmit the plurality of variable data print streams and an indicator to expect a transmission of the plurality of variable data printing streams. The RIP can be configured to receive the indicator and the plurality of variable data printing streams.

An image processing apparatus includes a first processor core configured to allocate a plurality of threads to execute a drawing processing for converting printing object data divided into a plurality of units of printing to printing data, a plurality of second processor cores designated to execute data compression on the printing data converted by the drawing processing, and a storage device in which the compressed printing data are stored. The first processor core allocates a new thread to execute the drawing processing upon determining that the number of the second processor cores in an idle state is greater than the number of threads that are executing the drawing processing by a predetermined number.

A print control device 31 connected to a host 20 and a printer 32 has a print data receiving unit 81 that receives print data written in markup language from the host 20, a command generating unit 82 that adds an initialization command before the print data and generates a print instruction command, and a command transmission unit 83 that transmits the generated print instruction command to the printer 32.

A production installation (21) produces book blocks (22) in parallel from digital prints on basic sheets (24). Each book block has n book sheets aligned through rows (46) and columns (44) and each basic sheet has m book sheets (43) equal to the number m of book blocks to be produced. Under the control of an electronic unit (56), a point bonding group (51) dispenses adhesive strokes (61) on the basic sheets across the rows and/or the columns, a stacking group (52) stacks the basic sheets and forms a basic block (62) stabilized by the point bonds, while a separation group (53) cuts and separates the book blocks from the basic block along the rows and the columns for following treatments. The basic sheets have machine-readable basic codes (68) and the electronic control unit actuates the point bonding group, the stacking group and the separation group on the basis of information derived from the basic codes.

Adaptive parallel data processing techniques are described. In one or more embodiments, a request is received to process a data file. The data file is split into multiple portions and sent to multiple nodes, where each node is configured to process a respective portion of the data file. Responsive to an amount of processing of the data file being completed, at least one of the multiple portions of the data file is dynamically split into multiple sub-portions. The sub-portions are submitted to one or more of the multiple nodes for processing of the sub-portions.

A print control apparatus includes a network interface to receive, from an external device, print job data including a plurality of ordered separate document files and two sequential serial page numbers in the plurality of ordered separate document files for specifying sequential target pages to be printed. The print job data has been generated and sent by the external device. One of the two sequential serial page numbers indicates, as an initial page, a page of one of the plurality of ordered document files, and the other of the sequential serial page numbers indicates, as a last page, a page of another one of the plurality of ordered document files. A rasterizer rasterizes at least the sequential target pages specified by the two sequential serial page numbers, and does not rasterize one or more pages of one or more document files that do not include the sequential target pages.

An image processing system includes a control unit configured to control distributed processing in which a plurality of image processing units distributively perform a plurality of pieces of image processing for performing printing by a printing apparatus, in which the control unit acquires the number of assignments, which is a unit number of pieces of image processing assigned to each of the image processing units, from a plurality of apparatuses including the image processing units, determines, based on the number of assignments, a combination of a plurality of the image processing units in charge of the distributed processing, and controls the determined image processing units to execute the distributed processing.

An image processing control system includes a plurality of image processing units configured to execute an image process for performing printing in a printing apparatus and a control unit configured to cause the plurality of image processing units to execute the image process. The control unit outputs control information to a first image processing unit, the control information including information indicating input data to be processed and the image processing unit that performs a next process on processed output data. The first image processing unit executes a first image process on the input data based on the control information and outputs the output data to the image processing unit that performs a next process.

A distributed printing system includes: a job management device that divides a print job to generate divided jobs; image forming devices that execute the divided jobs to form an image on a sheet; and a sorting device that sorts sheets of a sheet bundle, wherein each of the image forming devices executes the divided jobs, and discharges a sheet bundle, the job management device includes a storage that stores information regarding the sheets constituting the sheet bundles, and the sorting device includes a sheet feeder on which the sheet bundles is settable, an instructor that instructs an operator on an arrangement order of the sheet bundles to be set on the sheet feeder, and a sheet discharger that sorts the sheets of the sheet bundles on the basis of operation information, and discharges a sheet bundle and a sheet bundle including remaining sheets to different sheet discharge trays.