USER-CONTROLLED COLOR DETECTION AND OPTIMIZATION DURING DOCUMENT ANALYSIS PRIOR TO PRINTING
In a print shop system including a plurality of printers and a print shop management server which manages print jobs, an improved method is described for controlling a document color detection method for purposes of assigning documents to appropriate printers for printing. A user interface is provided for the user to specify a set of criteria for selectively forwarding the color detection task to another server or for rejecting the print job. In a first embodiment, if one or more specified criteria are met, the print shop management server forwards the print job to another server to perform color detection. In a second embodiment, if one or more specified criteria are met, the print shop management server rejects the print job and notifies the user.
1 . A method implemented on a server computer for detecting color contents in a document, comprising:
(a) determining whether the document exceeds one or more pre-defined size limits, and if it does, either forwarding the document to another server or rejecting the document;
(b) if the document does not exceed the one or more size limits, analyzing a page of the document to determine whether it contains color content, and maintaining a count of colored pages in the document analyzed so far;
(c) determining whether the count of colored pages exceeds a pre-defined color page number limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document; and
(d) if the count of colored pages does not exceed the color page number limit, repeating steps (b) and (c).
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving values of the one or more pre-defined size limits from a user.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein step (a) includes:
(a1) determining whether a size of the document exceeds a pre-defined document size limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document.
4 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising receiving values of the document size limit from a user.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein step (a) includes:
(a2) determining whether a size of any embedded raster image component of the document exceeds a pre-defined image size limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document.
6 . The method of claim 5 , further comprising receiving values of the image size limit from a user.
7 . A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embedded therein for controlling a data processing apparatus, the computer readable program code configured to cause the data processing apparatus to execute a process for detecting color contents in a document, the process comprising:
(a) determining whether the document exceeds one or more pre-defined size limits, and if it does, either forwarding the document to another server or rejecting the document;
(b) if the document does not exceed the one or more size limits, analyzing a page of the document to determine whether it contains color content, and maintaining a count of colored pages in the document analyzed so far;
(c) determining whether the count of colored pages exceeds a pre-defined color page number limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document; and
(d) if the count of colored pages does not exceed the color page number limit, repeating steps (b) and (c).
8 . The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the process further comprises receiving values of the one or more pre-defined size limits from a user.
9 . The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein step (a) includes:
(a1) determining whether a size of the document exceeds a pre-defined document size limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document.
10 . The computer program product of claim 9 , wherein the process further comprises receiving values of the document size limit from a user.
11 . The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein step (a) includes:
(a2) determining whether a size of any embedded raster image component of the document exceeds a pre-defined image size limit, and if it does, either forwarding the document to the other server or rejecting the document.
12 . The computer program product of claim 11 , wherein the process further comprises receiving values of the image size limit from a user.