A system of facilitating printing of shipping labels includes a computing device and a label printer. The computing device receive shipment database data from a remote computing device, store the shipment database data in a shipment database, receive scan data associated with an object from a scanning device, determine whether shipment data for the object is in the shipping database, determine shipping information for the object based on whether shipment data for the object is in the shipping database, and send shipping information to the label printer. The shipping information for the object is based on whether shipment data for the object is in the shipping database. The label printer prints a shipping label for the object based on the shipping information.

According to an embodiment of this invention, an information processing apparatus that executes, by a processor, a program including a first program layer with an instruction set to be interpreted and executed by the processor and a second program layer with an instruction set interpreted in advance by a unit other than the processor has the following arrangement. That is, the first program layer holds image data to be processed in a first format. On the other hand, the second program layer holds it in a second format. When transferring image data between the first program layer and the second program layer, the format of the image data is converted between the first format and the second format.

Example implementations relate to fast page first print optimization. For example, a system according to the present disclosure, may include a host driver coupled to a printing device. The host driver may send a command to the printing device indicating implementation of a fast page first feature, implement a page description language (PDL) on the printing device that defines print parameters for a print job on a first command of each page of the print job. Moreover, in response to the definition of the print parameters, and during or prior to startup of a print engine on the printing device, the host driver may determine if a print optimization of the fast page first feature would reduce a first page out time (FPOT) of the print job.

Provided is an image forming apparatus that further improves performance of a printing process. A RAM (storage device) stores printing data. An image-processing unit performs image processing on the printing data. A printer unit forms an image on paper based on processed data that is processed by the image processing. A system-control unit, after printing data is selected via the panel unit, instructs the image-processing unit to perform image processing on the selected printing data, and after there is an instruction via the panel unit to start printing, instructs the printer unit to form the image. As a result, at the instant when printing data is selected via the panel unit, the image-processing unit 118 executes image processing on the printing data, and at the instant when there is an instruction via the panel unit to start printing, the printer unit executes image formation.

A printer driver has a single filter. The filter includes a program for constructing a pipeline consisted of a plurality of stages based on a print ticket. In one or more of the plurality of stages, a content box of print-target data is modified. When the content box is modified, commands respectively indicating affine transformation matrices are generated. The commands are pushed into a command stack. The pushed commands are used for modification of a visual element. Specifically, the affine transformation matrices are multiplied and thereby an integrated transformation matrix is generated. The visual element is modified by multiplying an affine transformation matrix of the visual element by the integrated transformation matrix.

This invention provides an apparatus use environment with higher flexibility and convenience. To achieve this, in a program including the first program layer with an instruction set to be interpreted and executed by a processor and the second program layer with an instruction set compiled in advance by a unit other than the processor, this invention controls to perform communication between an external device and the first program layer via the second program layer.

An information processing apparatus transmits printing data to a printing apparatus and includes: a beacon reception unit that receives a beacon signal including data amount information indicating an amount of data of a printing standby job accumulated in the printing apparatus from the printing apparatus; a distance measurement unit that measures a distance from the printing apparatus which is a transmission source of the beacon signal based on the beacon signal; and a selection unit that selects a printing apparatus which is a transmission destination of the printing data based on the distance and the data amount information of each printing apparatus.

The present application is directed to system and method for pre-generation of page description language (PDL) for printing. Aspects of the present disclosure relate to methods, systems, and computer readable mediums for pre-generating a page description language (PDL) print job for documents for printing. Such pre-generation of the PDL achieves almost instantaneous and efficient printing experience. The methods, systems, and computer readable mediums by pre-generation of the PDL achieves faster printing turnaround time from the time when user clicks OK to print the document to the time user picks up the print out is required. The method for pre-generating a PDL print job for a document for printing can determine an instance to pre-generate the PDL print job for the document before the manual election for printing, and issuing a printing instruction in response to a manual election, to send of the pre-generated PDL print job to a printing device.

An information processing apparatus is provided that includes a first determination unit configured to determine whether or not a print setting value specified in a print ticket exists in a database; a second determination unit configured to determine whether or not cache data exists if the first determination unit determines that the print setting value does not exist in the database; a display unit configured to display the print setting value based on the cache data if the second determination unit determines that the cache data exists, and display a print setting item of the print setting value in a particular state if the second determination unit determines that the cache data does not exist.

An information processing system includes processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is configured to analyze a print job taken out of a printer queue storing the print job for ordering an execution of printing; transmit the print job to an output device when an analysis of the print job indicates that the print job is a re-input job that is input to the printer queue again after being taken out of the printer queue; execute a predetermined processing when the analysis indicates that the print job is not the re-input job; embed re-input information indicating that the print job is the re-input job into the print job after the predetermined processing is executed; and return the print job having been edited to the printer queue.