A digital printing process for printing an image (I) including a white area (W) and/or a coloured area (C) on a packaging material includes selecting a packaging material with a substantially white side, and preparing print data to be sent to a printing means taking into account that the side of the packaging material is substantially white. The print data represents one or more first image areas (A1) representing the image (I), and one or more second image areas (A2) representing a packaging look (L), to be printed on the substantially white side of the packaging material, outside the one or more first image areas (A1) where the image (I) is to be located. The method further includes printing by the printing means on the substantially white side of the packaging material using the print data.

Information apparatus and application software supporting printing over air or network are herein disclosed and enabled. The information apparatus may include one or more software components that include (1) a discovery component to discover a supported printer in a local area network (LAN) and to receive device information related to the printer (e.g., capability, language or format supported, identification) from the printer, and (2) a printing component to generate or obtain print data based on the device information received and to transmit the print data to the discovered printer. After establishing the connection to the LAN, application software (e.g., Internet browser, email, photos, documents) in the information apparatus may print digital content by using the discovery component to discover the printer in the LAN, and may use the printing component to obtain and transmit print data in a form that is acceptable to the printer for printing the digital content.

A digital printing process for printing an image (I) including a white area (W) and/or a coloured area (C) on a packaging material includes selecting a packaging material with a substantially white side, and preparing print data to be sent to a printing means taking into account that the side of the packaging material is substantially white. The print data represents one or more first image areas (A1) representing the image (I), and one or more second image areas (A2) representing a packaging look (L), to be printed on the substantially white side of the packaging material, outside the one or more first image areas (A1) where the image (I) is to be located. The method further includes printing by the printing means on the substantially white side of the packaging material using the print data.

A raster image conversion device is inputted with printing data and converts this printing data into raster image data to be outputted to a printing device. A storage unit stores printing environment data stipulating conditions for converting the printing data into the raster image data. An operating unit sets or edits the printing environment data. A conversion processing unit converts the printing data into the raster image data, based on the printing environment data. The printing environment data includes printing template information having a plurality of printing slots. The operating unit comprises an operating mode enabling the printing template information to be generated or edited. The conversion processing unit is inputted with or creates printing data made up of a plurality of pages, and, based on the printing template information, allocates a printing position and printing range of each page of the printing data to the printing slots.

A method and system for producing a plant-based image includes receiving a source image; screening the source image into a set of picture elements; and producing raster data indicating at least a type or density of seeds or plants to plant for each picture element.

In a case where image data for which brief spot color matching has been performed is stored by a BOX function, it is not possible to output the image data in correct color on a condition that the image data is transmitted to another device as it is. In a case where image data is stored by the BOX function, in a printer driver that generates PDL data therefor, a color matching method of type accompanied by the brief spot color matching is not allowed to be set.

A printing system is provided with a dummy data insertion unit configured to insert dummy data into print data based on waiting time occurring when post-processing is performed by a post-processing device (for example, a collating machine). In a printing unit, a dummy page is printed on the basis of the dummy data. A dummy page removing unit configured to remove a dummy page from printed printing paper so that the dummy page is not supplied to the post-processing device is provided between the printing device and the post-processing device.

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.

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.

Provided is a printing method for performing printing using a serial printer. In printing of a print image including a line image, the printing method includes a raster line forming step of forming each of raster lines configuring the image, by a plurality of pass operations. In the formation of each of the raster lines, when printing of a region corresponding to edge pixels of the line image by a first pass operation, which is one of the plurality of pass operations, is first printing, and printing of the region corresponding to the edge pixels by a second pass operation that is different from the first pass operation, of the plurality of pass operations, is second printing, a brightness of the printing by the second printing is higher than a brightness of the printing by the first printing.