Systems and methods are described that facilitate parallel processing of PDF documents for printing, wherein the PDF documents comprise transparency effects. Transparent objects in the PDF document are identified, and the document is divided into subgroups of pages. The transparency objects are then flattened to enable conversion to PostScript format. The PostScript pages are processed and rendered to raster for printing.

A display screen generation apparatus includes: an acquisition portion acquiring for each of a plurality of print products produced through a plurality of processes, progress of the processes; and a display portion generating a display screen that displays for each of the plurality of print products, the process waiting to be executed, the process being executed, the process already executed, and the process not intended to be executed in a distinguishable manner from each other.

An information processing apparatus includes a print management unit configured to allocate a plurality of print data sets to a plurality of image forming apparatuses, respectively, the plurality of print data sets being obtained by dividing one print data set; a separator data generation unit configured to generate, for each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses, print data for a separator, the print data for the separator including management information that includes information regarding a particular print data set among the plurality of print data sets and information regarding a particular image forming apparatus among the plurality of image forming apparatuses to which the particular print data set is allocated; and an output unit configured to output, for each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses, the particular print data set and the print data for the separator to the particular image forming apparatus.

An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to: receive a print instruction to print an image rasterized by another information processing apparatus; associate the print instruction with any one of plural ejection destinations to which a recording medium printed in response to the print instruction is ejected; and, in a case where the ejection destination associated with the print instruction waits for ejection of a recording medium subsequent to the already ejected recording medium, execute a print instruction for the subsequent recording medium, and not execute a print instruction for ejecting a recording medium other than the subsequent recording medium to the ejection destination.

A method and apparatus to implement a unified and decentralized machine interface for control of multi-printer systems is disclosed. A master controller device accepts a selection control from a user indicating a plurality of selected printers from printers connected to the master controller device by a network. The master controller device accepts an operation control from the user, indicating at least one printer operation to be performed on the plurality of selected printers. The master controller broadcasts a simultaneous control signal to the plurality of selected printers with data instructing the printers to immediately perform at least one printer operation, triggering, substantially simultaneously with the broadcasting of the simultaneous control signal, performance of the at least one printer operation at the plurality of selected printers, and performing the at least one printer operation substantially simultaneously at the plurality of selected printers immediately upon receiving the simultaneous control signal.

Systems and methods are provided for event detection. One embodiment includes an interface that acquires logs, and a controller that is able to identify events recited in the logs, to include the events within a list sorted based on at least one of start times or end times indicated by the timing data, and to determine a longest duration of the events. The controller receives a requested time, calculates a prior time separated by the longest duration from the requested time, and processes the list by: identifying a first index of the list for a first event in time having a start time on or after the prior time, and identifying a last index of the list for a last event in time having a start time on or before the requested time. The controller generates a set of events bounded by the first index and the last index.

Provided is an image forming system including a determination processing portion and a sharing control portion. The determination processing portion determines share rates of an image forming job for each of a plurality of image forming apparatuses based on a startable timing at which a new job can be started by each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses. The sharing control portion causes the plurality of image forming apparatuses to share the image forming job based on the share rates of the image forming job determined in the determination processing portion.

An information processing apparatus that manages print processes of plural printing apparatuses, the information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to acquire execution information indicating an execution status of each printing apparatus from the plural printing apparatuses, in a case in which a predetermined condition regarding processing of converting print data into a raster image is satisfied in one printing apparatus, extract another printing apparatus capable of executing the processing of converting the print data into the raster image from among other printing apparatuses other than the one printing apparatus by using the execution information, cause the other printing apparatus, that is extracted, to execute the processing of converting the print data of a print job scheduled to be printed in the one printing apparatus into the raster image, and perform control to transmit the raster image created by the other printing apparatus to the one printing apparatus.

A method and apparatus to implement a unified and decentralized machine interface for control of multi-printer systems is disclosed. A master controller device accepts a selection control from a user indicating a plurality of selected printers from printers connected to the master controller device by a network. The master controller device accepts an operation control from the user, indicating at least one printer operation to be performed on the plurality of selected printers. The master controller broadcasts a simultaneous control signal to the plurality of selected printers with data instructing the printers to immediately perform at least one printer operation, triggering, substantially simultaneously with the broadcasting of the simultaneous control signal, performance of the at least one printer operation at the plurality of selected printers, and performing the at least one printer operation substantially simultaneously at the plurality of selected printers immediately upon receiving the simultaneous control signal.

Provided are: a main memory 14 that stores image data, a peripheral region 44 being set to a certain value; and a CPU 12 that performs tonal steps conversion processing on the image data. The CPU 12 includes: a plurality of cores 16 that have a parallel processing function due to a plurality of threads 18 and that execute the tonal steps conversion processing in parallel; and a data cache memory 22 and program cache memory 20 that are provided corresponding to each of the plurality of threads 18. The core 16 specifies a region smaller than a size of the data cache memory 22, of the image data as an operand region 48, and causes the image data corresponding to said operand region 48 to be acquired from the main memory 14 into the data cache memory 22 and executes the tonal steps conversion processing on said operand region 48 without distinction of a central region 42 and the peripheral region 44.