A colorimetric method is executed by a server that communicates with an information processing apparatus coupled to a printing apparatus and to a colorimetric device. The method includes: creating work information that includes print commanding information related to a command to print a chart image based on chart information and also includes colorimetry commanding information related to a command to perform colorimetry for the chart image; storing the work information; transmitting the print commanding information to the information processing apparatus; causing the information processing apparatus to command, according to the print commanding information, the printing apparatus to print the chart image; transmitting the colorimetry commanding information to the information processing apparatus; and acquiring colorimetry result information created as a result of the colorimetry performed for the chart image by the colorimetric device.

An image forming apparatus include a printing engine to form an image on a print medium and circuitry. The circuitry determines whether each page of print data is a blank page, determines whether a blank sheet is to be generated by printing of the print data in accordance with print settings, determines whether to remove a blank page from the print data to avoid generation of the blank sheet, generates changed print data based on whether to remove the blank page in accordance with the print settings, controls the printing engine to perform printing on the print medium according to the changed print data in accordance with the print settings, and counts a number of pages printed, excluding blank pages in the printed pages and the blank page which have been removed from the print data.

System and methods for efficient sheet map loading for print jobs. In one embodiment, a preflight system processes a print job to build a first sheet mapping for rasterizing and printing the print job, and stores the first sheet mapping. A job controller determines an estimate time to load the first sheet mapping from the memory using job properties as input to estimator logic. In response to determining that the estimate time for loading the first sheet mapping from the memory is shorter than a time threshold, the first sheet mapping is loaded from memory, and provided for rasterizing and printing. Otherwise, if the estimate time is longer than the time threshold, the job controller builds a second sheet mapping, and provides the second sheet mapping in increments for the rasterizing and the printing of the print job as the building of the second sheet mapping is in progress.

A control method causes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application to perform activating in response to a first print request from a drawing application, acquiring intermediate data based on drawing data generated by the drawing application, and outputting intermediate data. In a case where a second print request is issued by a printer driver that has acquired intermediate data output from a GUI application, the GUI application is re-activated in response to the second print request, and a predetermined screen is provided by the GUI application that has been activated in response to the second print request issued by the printer driver.

A printing computing device connects to a printing device using a fast data transfer connector to enable additional functionality and capabilities not offered by the printing device. The printing computing device connects to a network to receive print jobs from external devices within the network. The printing computing device processes the print jobs according to rules such that print jobs are processed accordingly. The printing computing device also includes firmware not available on the printing device such that print jobs not supported by the printing device still may be processed. The printing computing device also includes an engine that determines whether an incoming print job is a PDL print job or a command to perform a function not available on the printing device.

A method of controlling printing by print control script embedded in a web page acquired by a client terminal from a web application server includes, after the acquired web page is displayed, accepting an input operation on the displayed web page and drawing a result of the input operation in a specific drawing area, the accepting and drawing operations being performed by the client terminal. The method further includes generating print data by converting image data written in the specific drawing area to a form enabling processing by a printer as a result of a print operation performed on the displayed web page, and commanding the printer to print the print data.

A printing device includes: a printing unit performing printing; and a control unit that, when accepting a character code associated with a plurality of font designs, causes the printing unit to print a character indicated by the character code, based on a priority level allocated to each of the plurality of font designs. The control unit changes the priority level of the plurality of font designs in response to a first command that is accepted. The first command is a command indicating the priority level of the font design that is a part of the plurality of font designs.

A printing device determines whether a character string indicating argument corresponding to a first command has been registered as a registered virtual printer name, when an optional command of received print data includes the first command indicating a predetermined type of optional command and the character string indicating argument corresponding to the first command, generates a print job that prints the file data by using print settings associated with the registered virtual printer if the character string indicating argument corresponding to the first command has been registered as the virtual printer name, and generates a print job that analyzes the character string indicating argument corresponding to the first command and prints the file data by using the print settings specified based on the analyzed result if the character string indicating argument corresponding to the first command has not been registered as the virtual printer name.

A printing computing device connects to a multi-function printing (MFP) device to enable additional functionality and capabilities not offered by the MFP device. The printing computing device connects to a network to receive print jobs from external devices within the network. The printing computing device processes the print jobs according to rules such that print jobs are processed accordingly. The printing computing device also includes firmware not available on the MFP device such that print jobs not supported by the MFP device still may be processed. The printing computing device also includes an engine that determines whether an incoming print job is a PDL print job or a command to perform a function not available on the MFP device.

A printing computing device connects to a printing device using a fast data transfer connector to enable additional functionality and capabilities not offered by the printing device. The printing computing device connects to a network to receive print jobs from external devices within the network. The printing computing device processes the print jobs according to rules such that print jobs are processed accordingly. The printing computing device also includes firmware not available on the printing device such that print jobs not supported by the printing device still may be processed. The printing computing device also includes an engine that determines whether an incoming print job is a PDL print job or a command to perform a function not available on the printing device.