In an operation assistance system, an operation assistance method, and a computer-readable recording medium recording an operation assistance program, each of which assists with making an operation setting of an image forming apparatus by using a mobile communication terminal, the mobile communication terminal wirelessly communicates with the image forming apparatus, and at least two types of setting items among plural types of the setting items for the image forming apparatus are simultaneously set by a single touch operation on an operation screen of the mobile communication terminal.

A technique for switching information shown on a portable communication terminal depending on a distance from an information processing apparatus is disclosed. Processing for determining information to be shown, by a portable communication terminal used by a serviceperson who does maintenance works for an information processing apparatus, includes determining whether or not the terminal is located at a distance equal to or shorter than a prescribed distance from the information processing apparatus, reading article information from a flash memory by the terminal when the portable communication terminal is not located at the distance equal to or shorter than the prescribed distance from the information processing apparatus, reading procedural information from the flash memory when the terminal is located at the distance equal to or shorter than the prescribed distance from the information processing apparatus, and reading a check item from the flash memory after a procedure ends.

An information processing apparatus configured to, on the basis of submitted data, generate a quality report for a printed material inspected by an inspection apparatus is provided. The apparatus comprises a first specifying unit that, when the submitted data is a new version and an old version of the submitted data is present, specifies a difference by comparing the new version of the submitted data with the old version of the submitted data; a second specifying unit that, on the basis of the difference, specifies an inspection for which an inspection result will be affected by the difference; and a creation unit that creates a quality report which makes it possible to distinguish, among inspection results received from the inspection apparatus, an inspection result for the inspection that will be affected from another inspection result.

A maintenance support device includes a memory that stores work result information that corresponds to a maintenance work that has been performed to solve a failure of an image processing apparatus. A processor is configured to acquire, and store in the memory, first work result information corresponding to a first maintenance work performed to solve a first failure type. After the first work result has been stored, the processor acquires, and stores in the memory, second work result information corresponding to a second maintenance work performed to solve a second failure type. It is then determined whether the first failure type matches the second failure type. Upon determining that the first and second failure types match, the first work result information is then updated to indicate that the first maintenance work has not been successful.

An example operating method of a server includes obtaining vertical streak information or scanning environment information about a vertical streak detected in a scanned image, diagnosing a severity of the vertical streak or predicting formation of the vertical streak based on the vertical streak information or the scanning environment information, and transmitting, to the image forming device or a management device managing the image forming device, action information for reducing a vertical streak occurrence, based on a result of diagnosing the severity of the vertical streak or predicting formation of the vertical streak.

An information processing system includes a reading device configured to perform reading processing for reading an original and one or more controllers configured to function as an acquisition unit that acquires a number of processing operations per unit time period of the reading processing, and an acquisition unit that acquires operation rate information about the reading device based on the number of processing Operations per unit time period of the reading processing and a predetermined number of processing operations of the reading processing.

An information processing apparatus configured to, on the basis of submitted data, generate a quality report for a printed material inspected by an inspection apparatus is provided. The apparatus comprises a first specifying unit that, when the submitted data is a new version and an old version of the submitted data is present, specifies a difference by comparing the new version of the submitted data with the old version of the submitted data; a second specifying unit that, on the basis of the difference, specifies an inspection for which an inspection result will be affected by the difference; and a creation unit that creates a quality report which makes it possible to distinguish, among inspection results received from the inspection apparatus, an inspection result for the inspection that will be affected from another inspection result.

The present invention provides systems and methods for the virtualization, aggregation, and distributed processing of facsimile communications. The Remote FAX Interconnect known as etherFAX® is a system and method that allows for the reception and delivery of information based on cloud computing infrastructure to or from one or more facsimile systems using Internet/web based communication protocols such as HTTP(S) as the transport between a facsimile capable application or hardware and the remotely accessible etherFAX® services.

The present disclosure discloses methods and systems for managing multiple scan requests received at a multi-function device. The method includes receiving a scan request from a remote computing device of a remote user. Before executing the scan request, two conditions are checked. It is checked if document is present on a scanning platform of the multi-function device and further it is checked if one or more activities on a user interface of the multi-function device, are being performed. Based on the presence of the document on the scanning platform and the one or more activities on the user interface, the scan request received from the remote user is disallowed. This way, multiple scanned requests are managed at the multi-function device.

An image forming apparatus that forms an image on a recording medium includes: an image forming unit that forms an image on a recording medium and is capable of forming an image for diagnosis, which is an image used for diagnosis of the image forming apparatus; and an adding unit that adds, to a recording medium on which the image for diagnosis has been formed by the image forming unit, information for control used to control output of a reading result from an apparatus used to read the recording medium, the reading result being obtained by reading the recording medium by the apparatus.