A printing system includes a printing device, a color management server, and a client device. An estimated ink use is determined for a print job within printing system. After printing operations, a baseline average ink use is determined for a set of printed pages of the print job. If the baseline average ink use varies from the estimated ink use, then a corrective action is taken to adjust ink use to be closer to the estimated ink use. The corrective action is a global corrective action for the entire document of the print job or a targeted action that adjusts only specified features or pages of the document.

A method for attributing an amount of resource consumption to an individual printed image that is printed in a printer comprising a print job controller and a print engine, wherein the print job controller is configured to compile a print job that comprises at least two images to be printed, the print job controller comprising an estimation section arranged to estimate a respective amount of resource consumption for each of the at least two images on the basis of print data that define the images, the method comprising the steps of: a) compiling a print job with at least two images; b) printing at least a part of each of the at least two images while monitoring a total amount of resource consumption; c) estimating the amount of resource consumption for the printed part of each of the at least two images on the basis of the print data; and d) proportioning the monitored total amount in proportion to the estimated amounts.

A printing device includes a mounting part to which consumables to be used for printing is mounted, a print engine configured to print an image on a recording medium using the consumables, a display configured to display information regarding the consumables, and a controller. The printing device is operable based on a concluded contract with a contractor for the consumables used for printing. The controller is configured to perform obtaining arrival time information of a first consumable, determining a model of the consumables, and displaying consumable handling related information on the display based on the arrival time information and a determining result.

A liquid surface detector includes an electrode pad, a coil, a memory, and a detection control circuit. The electrode pad is attached to an outer side surface of a tank of the image forming apparatus. The coil is connected to the electrode pad. The memory stores initial values. The detection control circuit determines a capacitance (first capacitance) of a first resonance circuit including the coil and the tank with the electrode pad. When determining a liquid surface level value, the detection control circuit subtracts an error value from the first capacitance so as to determine a first corrected capacitance, and determines the liquid surface level value based on the first corrected capacitance and the initial value.

Provided are an automatic reset method for a consumable chip and the consumable chip. The automatic reset method includes: in response to determining that an ink amount state is an ink-out state, entering an automatic reset state and shielding a printer command; turning off a core of the chip and shielding a printer dock command in the automatic reset state; entering a reset allowing state after shielding N groups of printer dock commands in the automatic reset state; and resetting ink amount data and turning on the core of the chip in the reset allowing state.

An information processing apparatus is capable of communicating via a universal serial bus (USB) cable with a USB host device configured to transmit a first control transfer command at a start of communication. The information processing apparatus includes one or more controllers configured to function as a unit configured to acquire and hold predetermined data in response to having received the first control transfer command from the USB host device and a unit configured to transmit the held predetermined data to the USB host device on the basis of having received a second control transfer command from the USB host device.

A terminal device may obtain specific information stored in a memory. The specific information may include at least one of region information indicating a region where the terminal device is used and model information of a printing device used by the terminal device. The printing device may be configured to execute printing by using a plurality of cartridges corresponding to a plurality of colors. The terminal device may determine whether a predetermined condition is satisfied or not by using the specific information, and in a case where it is determined that the condition is satisfied, send a first page request and color information to a server. The color information may indicate a selected color selected from the plurality of colors.

A system is disclosed. The system at least one physical memory device to store ink estimation logic and one or more processors coupled with the at least one physical memory device, to execute the ink estimation logic to receive a histogram for each of a plurality of color planes, receive uncalibrated ink deposition data for a printing system, perform a direct conversion of the uncalibrated ink deposition data to generate first calibrated ink deposition data and generate estimated ink usage data for each of the plurality of color planes based on the histograms and the first calibrated ink deposition data.

An example method comprises setting a mixture of a plurality of print supplies of a print device to use for a process black print based on a plurality of supply levels corresponding to the plurality of print supplies. The example method further comprises initiating execution of the process black print of a print job by the print device using the set mixture of the plurality of print supply as overlapping colorant with the black print supply of the print device.

Provided are an automatic reset method for a consumable chip and the consumable chip. The automatic reset method includes: in response to determining that an ink amount state is an ink-out state, entering an automatic reset state and shielding a printer command; turning off a core of the chip and shielding a printer dock command in the automatic reset state; entering a reset allowing state after shielding N groups of printer dock commands in the automatic reset state; and resetting ink amount data and turning on the core of the chip in the reset allowing state.