A printing device includes a controller configured to perform: (a) storing identification information and transmission address information in association with each other; (b) acquiring, in response to receiving a print job together with the identification information from an external device, the transmission address information stored in association with the identification information in the (a) storing on the basis of the received identification information; and (c) transmitting the transmission address information acquired in the (b) acquiring to a data processing server so that payment process information is transmitted to a transmission address corresponding to the transmission address information, the payment process information being information to pay a fee charged for performing printing based on the received print job.

Ink saturation for a print job varies according to prioritized elements identified within a given document or print job. Elements are prioritized according to pre-defined values according to document type and identified elements within the document type. High priority elements of a document are assigned greater ink saturation than lower priority elements of the same document. Automated prioritization is made possible by a crowd-sourced knowledge corpus including pre-defined document types and corresponding elements of the documents. Historic configurations accepted by a user drive a learning process using a feedback loop for refined decision-making as print jobs are submitted for printing.

A method for configuring a raster image processor (RIP) for a digital printing system includes receiving a file for a print job; receiving or determining job characteristics of the print job or the file for the print job; receiving or determining hardware characteristics of hardware upon which the RIP is operating; inputting the job characteristics and the hardware characteristics into a trained artificial intelligence (AI) module; and selecting, using the trained AI module, a configuration or settings for the RIP for processing of the file based on the plurality of job characteristics and the plurality of hardware characteristics.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a support program readable by a computer of an information processing device, the support program corresponding to a printer connected to the information processing device and supporting a general-purpose print program pre-installed in an operating system of the information processing device, the support program, when executed by the computer, causes the computer to perform: when a print instruction is output from an application program installed in the information processing device and transferred to the general-purpose print program to perform printing, receiving intermediate image data according to the print instruction from the operating system; determining whether a conversion is required; and when the conversion is required, causing the printer to print a converted image obtained by converting an image indicated by the received intermediate image data from color to monochrome.

An image forming apparatus includes a feeding unit, an image forming unit, a reading unit, a conveyance unit, a first discharge unit and a second discharge unit, a determination unit, and a control unit. When an (n)th sheet in a first copy is an abnormal sheet, remaining sheets include sheets fed by the feeding unit after the abnormal sheet is fed by the feeding unit until the image on the abnormal sheet is read by the reading unit, and the remaining sheets include a first group of remaining sheets and a second group of remaining sheets. The control unit is configured to execute an abnormal discharge mode in which the sheets of the first group of the remaining sheets are discharged to the second discharge unit and each of the sheets of the second group of the remaining sheets is discharged selectively to the first or the second discharge unit.

An apparatus includes a nonvolatile semiconductor storage having a semiconductor area and configured to execute erasure processing based on information about a storage area in which unused data is stored in the semiconductor area in a case where the information is received, and a controller having one or more processors which execute instructions stored in one or more memories, the controller being configured to notify the semiconductor storage of the information, cause the semiconductor storage to stop the erasure processing by reception of a signal related to a job while the semiconductor storage is executing the erasure processing, and transmit a response signal for the signal related to the job to the semiconductor storage.

For a plurality of types of print media, a pre-trained model is prepared, the pre-trained model being generated by machine learning based on spectroscopic information of an unprinted area on the print medium and an identifier indicating the type of the print medium and using the identifier as a trainer. The spectroscopic information of the unprinted area on the print medium to print on is acquired. The acquired spectroscopic information is applied to the pre-trained model. Using a result thereof, auxiliary information about the type of the print medium is outputted. A specification of the type of the print medium using the outputted auxiliary information is accepted. When the type of the print medium is thus specified, printing is performed using a print condition suitable for the print medium.

An image forming apparatus includes: a hardware processor that: executes processing corresponding to an instruction input via an external device; sends a first notification to the external device according to a completion of execution of the processing; and upon estimating that the execution of the processing is not completed before a timeout time, sends a second notification different from the first notification to the external device. The external device sets the timeout time for the first notification.

In a printing system, a smartphone reads a printer ID and transmits a smartphone's print command that includes the read printer ID and a user ID to a server; the server transmits a server's print command that includes the printer ID included in the received smartphone's print command to an office PC associated with the user ID included in the received smartphone's print command; the office PC creates print data based on the print job received from the server, according to the received server's print command; and a printer performs printing according to the received print data.

A plurality of electronic documents utilized in a transaction are automatically managed. For each separate document of the plurality, a custom printer driver receives instructions to a printer for printing the document. Instead of printing the document, the custom printer driver creates a file in a standard format such as PDF containing the document, based on the received print instructions. Content concerning the transaction is automatically added to at least one corresponding field of the file containing the document in the standard format. At least one electronic signature for the document is received, and automatically added to at least one corresponding location of the document in the standard format. The file containing the document in the standard format is saved with the added content concerning the transaction and the at least one electronic signature, and the saved file is associated with the transaction.