NL2021943B1

NL2021943B1 - A Method of Creating a Print Job for a Multi-Page Print Product

Info

Publication number: NL2021943B1
Application number: NL2021943A
Authority: NL
Inventors: P Brunner Marvin; H Geels Jan; B Roelfs Harmannus; Blasiak Daniël
Original assignee: Canon Production Printing Holding Bv
Priority date: 2018-11-06
Filing date: 2018-11-06
Publication date: 2020-05-15
Also published as: DE102019126561A1

Abstract

A method of creating a printjob for a print and finishing process for forming a multi-page print product (20), the method comprising the steps of: - assembling a collection of reader spreads of the print product (20) by specifying image contents to be printed on each page (22) of the print product; and - transforming the reader spreads into a printer spread (28) by impositioning the contents on a print substrate in accordance with a finishing process to be performed on the print substrate after the contents have been printed thereon; characterized by further comprising the steps of: - identifying a non-printable area (44) on the printer spread (28); and - using a computer for locating the non-printable area (44) on the reader spreads by retransforming the printer spread (28) into the reader spreads.

Description

A Method of Creating a Print Job for a Multi-Page Print Product

The invention relates to a method of creating a print job for a print and finishing process for forming a multi-page print product, the method comprising the steps of:

assembling a collection of reader spreads of the print product by specifying image contents to be printed on each page of the print product; and transforming the reader spreads into a printer spread by impositioning the contents on a print substrate in accordance with a finishing process to be performed on the print substrate after the contents have been printed thereon.

A process of forming a multi-page print product generally comprises a print process in which image contents that are to appear on the pages of the print product are printed on a print substrate or a plurality of print substrates (in this application, the words “a” or “an” mean an indefinite article, not a number). In a finishing process that follows the print process, the print substrate or substrates are subjected to operations such as cutting, stacking, folding, flipping, rotating, gathering, collecting, binding, stapling, punching, and the like in order to form the print product in which the pages are arranged in a desired configuration such as a book or booklet, a brochure, a signature or a folded sheet. Depending upon the finishing operations to be performed and upon the sequence in which they are performed, the so-called production route, the required arrangement of the image contents on the print substrates, as represented by the printer spread, may be quite different from the arrangement in which the printed pages appear in the final product. The appearance of the pages in the final product is represented by the reader spreads, a reader spread being an image showing the image contents of one or more pages that are visible at the same time when the reader looks at and leafs through the final print product. The process of deriving the printer spread for a given reader spread and a given production route is called impositioning.

WO 2016050581 A1 discloses a software tool which uses a production route model for automating the impositioning process by simulating the effect of the various finishing operations.

It is generally known that, when a print product with given specifications is formed by means of a given printer and finisher hardware, the pages of the product will include

P4060NL01 certain areas where image contents cannot be printed or should not be printed. These areas will be designated as non-printable areas in this specification. Typically, such nonprintable areas result from certain constraints of the printer which restrict the area of a print substrate where an image can be formed. Typically, a printer is not capable of forming a full-bleed print in which the image contents reach up to the very edges of a substrate sheet. Consequently, a certain margin along the edges of the sheet remains as a non-printable area.

Other possible causes for non-printable areas comprise punch holes and a so-called gripper white, i.e. an area where a substrate sheet or a finished or semi-finished print product is mechanically seized by grippers, so that the grippers leave some traces on the sheet and these traces would disturb the printed image. Other examples are areas where a glue seam has to be formed or areas where the substrate sheet has been preperforated, so that the printed image would be disturbed by the glue and the perforations, respectively.

In general, it is relatively easy to identify non-printable areas on the printer spread. However, with increasing complexity of the finishing process, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of the effects of the finishing operations on the non-printable area and to locate the non-printable area on the reader spreads.

It is an object of the invention to assist a creator of a print job in taking the non-printable areas into account.

In order to achieve this object, the method according to the invention comprises the steps of:

identifying a non-printable area on the printer spread; and using a computer for locating the non-printable area on the reader spreads by retransforming the printer spread into the reader spreads.

Once the locations of the non-printable areas have been identified on the reader spreads, it is easy to check manually or automatically whether there is an undesired overlap between the image contents to be printed and the non-printable areas.

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More specific optional features of the invention are indicated in the dependent claims.

When the job creator imports source files that specify the image contents to be printed on each page and places the image contents into a reader spread preview, the nonprintable areas may be displayed in the preview, so that the creator can properly place the image contents so as to avoid any conflict with the non-printable area.

Conversely, if the image contents have been placed already, the computer may be programmed to automatically check whether there is any overlap between the contents and the non-printable areas and, if that is the case, automatically alert the job creator of this fact. Optionally, a proposal for shifting or otherwise transforming the image contents may be generated automatically.

Thus, in one embodiment the steps of assembling the reader spreads and of impositioning may be performed before the non-printable area is retransformed from the printer spread to the reader spreads. In another embodiment, the impositioning step may be performed on an empty reader spread preview or template which specifies only the size, shape and configuration of the pages in the print product but does not yet specify the image contents. The result will be an “empty” printer spread on which the non-printable area can be identified and can then be retransformed into the reader spread preview. As a consequence, the non-printable areas on each page will be known at the time when the user finally inserts the image contents.

In some cases, the occurrence of a non-printable area may become evident only in a certain stage of the finishing process. For example, if punch holes are punched into a folded sheet or a stack of folded sheets, these punch holes can be identified most easily in a graphic representation of the intermediate product in the state in which the punch holes are formed. It is possible however to reverse-simulate the finishing process from the punching step back to the printed sheet at the stage before finishing. By doing so, the non-printable area (punch holes) can be projected back onto the printer spread.

Embodiment examples will now be described in conjunction with the drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a view of a multi-page print product and a related printer spread;

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Figs. 2 to 4 illustrate several steps in a finishing process for forming the print product shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 5 is a collection of reader spreads for the print product shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 6 is a block diagram of a document processing system to which the invention is applicable;

Fig. 7 is a flow diagram of a method according to the invention; and

Fig. 8 is a flow diagram of a method according to a modified embodiment.

As an example of a multi-page print product 20, a booklet has been shown in the top part of Fig. 1. The booklet has sixteen pages 22 printed on the front and back sides of eight leaves 24 that are bound together at a spine that has been designated here by a spine marker 26 in the form of a dashed line. Each page 22 of the booklet has image contents printed thereon, these image contents being represented here by a page number (ranging from 1 to 16) and arrows that indicating the orientation of the image.

The pages 22 of the booklet have been formed by printing on the front side and the back side of a single substrate sheet S (Fig. 2) which is then subjected to a finishing procedure in order to form the booklet.

The bottom part of Fig. 1 shows a printer spread 28 of the print product 20. The printer spread 28 comprises images 30, 32 of the front side and the back side of the substrate sheet with the image contents of the pages 22. Each of the images 30, 32 contains image contents of eight pages 22 of the booklet. The specific arrangement and orientations of the pages 22 in the printer spread 28 are determined by a production route that defines the finishing process for obtaining the final product 20. Some essential steps of the finishing process have been illustrated in Figs. 2 to 4.

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In Fig. 2, the substrate sheet S has been folded over by 180° along a fold line 34 that separates the pages “1” and “12” from the pages “4” and “9” (see Fig. 1). Further, the two layers of the folded sheet have been cut along a cut line 36 that separates the pages “1” and “12”.

The configuration shown in Fig. 3 has been obtained by the following steps, starting from the configuration in Fig. 2. One half of the rear layer of the sheet S, said half containing the pages 5 and 8, has been folded by 180° at a fold line 38 (Fig.2), and the central part of the sheet, containing the four pages 1,4, 9 and 12 has been erected, i.e. has been folded upwards by 90° at a fold line 40. The parts containing the pages 1 and 4 on the one hand and the pages 9 and 12 on the other hand are separated by the cut line 36 and each assume a roof-shaped configuration in Fig. 3. Then, the top part of the sheet containing the pages 1, 4, 5 and 16 has been folded 90° backwards along a fold line 42.

Then, the configuration shown in Fig. 4 is obtained by folding the bottom part of the sheet back onto the top part along the fold line 42.

In Fig. 4 (and also in the printer spread in Fig. 1), the position of the spine of the booklet to be formed has been designated by the spine marker 26. The roof-shaped structures are collapsed so that the edge separating the pages “4” and “5” meets the edge that separates the pages 1 and 16 at the position of the spine marker 26. This results in a cross-shaped configuration wherein each arm of the cross is constituted by two layers of the sheet. Then, the collapsed roof structures are folded back onto the top side and the bottom side, respectively of the arm that contains the page “5”. The arm on the opposite side, containing the page “16” is folded back by 180°, so that a booklet configuration is obtained, with the spine at the position of the spine marker 26. However, the leaves of this booklet are still connected to one another via the fold lines. In order to separate the leaves from one another, the entire booklet is trimmed along the three edges other than the spine edge. The process of forming the print product 20 (Fig. 1) is completed by binding the leafs together at the spine.

In the booklet obtained by the process described above, the page “1” will be the cover page, and all the other pages “2” - “16” will be arranged in the correct order. In this way,

P4060NL01 the production route that specifies the finishing process determines the imposition, a signature imposition in this example, of the pages in the printer spread 28.

It will be understood that other finishing and impositioning procedures may be used. For example, a cut-and-stack finishing process may be applied in which the printed sheet S is cut into separate leaves, some of the leaves are optionally flipped or rotated, and the leaves are then stacked one upon the other and bound at one edge. The corresponding impositioning procedure would be a cut-and-stack impositioning. In general, the production route of any finishing process will define an impositioning scheme from which the arrangement of the pages on the printer spread may be derived.

As is shown in Fig. 1, each of the images 30, 32 of the printer spread has a hatched margin that designates a non-printable area 44 (not necessarily identical for the front and the back side of the substrate sheet). In this example, the non-printable area 44 results from constraints of the printer that is used for printing the image contents on the substrate sheet S.

In the top part of Fig. 1, a part of the non-printable area 44 has also been shown on the first page of the booklet.

Fig. 5 shows a collection 46 of reader spreads 48, 50, 52 of the print product 20. A reader spread is a graphic representation of one or more pages of the print product that can be seen simultaneously when a reader leafs through the print product. Thus, in this example, the spreads 48 and 52 consist only of one page, i.e. the front page “1” and the back page “16” of the booklet, whereas the spreads 50 each consist of two pages of the booklet.

More precisely, what has been shown in Fig. 5 is only a reader spread template wherein the pages of the spreads are all empty, i.e. do not yet contain any image contents. A job creator who wants to create a print job for the print product 20 may start with such an empty reader spread template and may then insert the image contents into the areas of the respective pages 22. Of course, it would be desirable that no image contents are placed in a portion of the page that belongs to the non-printable area 44. For that reason, an algorithm that is in a certain sense the reverse of the impositioning algorithm

P4060NL01 has been employed for retransforming the non-printable area 44 from the printer spread 28 into the reader spreads 48, 50 and 52. When the reader spreads are shown on a display of a user interface, the locations of the non-printable area 44 on each page can also be shown as has been illustrated in Fig. 5. This will help the job creator to observe the constraints that result from the non-printable area.

Fig. 6 is a schematic view of a document processing system 54 embodying the invention. This document processing system comprises a printer 56 connected to a network N, an inline finisher 58 connected to the network N or remotely connected to the printer 56, a print interface 60 in the printer 56, a finishing interface 62 in the finisher 58, an optional data connection 64 between the print interface 60 and the finishing interface 62, a finishing module console 66, a print module console 68, a sheet outlet 70 in the printer 56, a sheet inlet 72 in the finisher 58, a control unit 74 in the printer 56, a finisher memory 76 in the finisher 58, an optional document feeder 78 on the printer 56 for feeding the substrate sheets S to the printer, an input holder 80 for holding a stack of substrate sheets, and an output holder 82 on the finisher 58 for receiving and holding the finished print products 20. The print interface 60 and the finishing interface 62 are configured to exchange digital information about printing and finishing instructions that are needed for processing a print job in order to obtain the desired print products.

In this example, when a printed sheet arrives at the sheet outlet 70, it is automatically passed on to the sheet inlet 72 of the finisher as indicated by an arrow in Fig. 6. In another embodiment a manual transfer of the sheets from the printer to the finisher may be provided.

Pre-printing instructions, printing instructions and finishing instructions may be part of specifications in a print job received via the network N. As an alternative, printing and finishing instructions may also be entered via the print module console 68 and stored in the control unit 12 of the printer, and finishing instructions may also be entered via the finishing module console 66 and stored in the finisher memory 76.

In the example shown, a workstation 84 having a user interface with a display screen 86 is connected to the network N, so that a job creator may communicate with the document processing system 54 via the network N. The workstation 84 may be used for

P4060NL01 creating print jobs including printing and finishing instructions that define the physical properties of the desired print product 20 and specify the image contents to be printed on each page of the print product. For example, the reader spread template shown in Fig. 5 may be displayed on the screen 86, and the creator may then insert the image contents into the area of each page.

The control unit 74 includes an imposition module 88 configured to calculate an imposition recipe on the basis of the properties and settings of the finisher 58 and the finishing instructions contained in the print job. On the basis of this impositioning recipe, the imposition module 88 may transform the collection of reader spreads as designed by the job creator into the printer spread 28 that will then be used for controlling the printer 56.

The control unit 74 further includes a retransformation module 90 that is configured to retransform the printer spread 28 into the reader spreads 58, 50, 52 in order to locate the non-printable area 44 on the reader spreads displayed on the screen 86.

In another embodiment, the functions of the impositioning module 88 and of the retransformation module 90 may be implemented in the workstation 84.

It will be observed that the non-printable area 44 may be fixed for the printer 56 or may be variable depending upon the settings of the printer and possibly depending also on the properties and settings of the finisher 58 (e.g. in case of punching operations).

An example of the method according to the invention to be performed by the control unit 74 cooperating with the workstation 84 will now be described in conjunction with Fig. 7.

In step S1, the job creator assembles the reader spreads 48, 50, 52 on the workstation 84 and sends the corresponding data to the control unit 74. Typically, the creator will leave a certain blank margin at the edges of each page in order to account for a nonprintable area. However, since the exact size and shape of the non-printable area is not yet known at this stage, a conflict might still arise. In step S2, the user selects a production route model that defines the finishing process. These data are also sent to the control unit 74. Then, in step S3, the impositioning module 88 calculates the printer

P4060NL01 spread 28. If the non-printable area or areas 44 are not fixed for the given printer 56, these non-printable areas are identified in step S4. If the non-printable areas are defined by the printer 56 alone, they may be identified directly in the printer spread 28. If the finisher 58 is also involved, an optional step S5 for projecting the non-printable areas onto the printer spread 28 may be needed.

Then, in step S6, the retransformation module 90 retransforms the non-printable areas from the printer spread 28 onto the reader spreads 48, 50, 52. In an optional step S7 the locations of the non-printable areas 44 in the reader spreads are displayed on the screen 86.

In step S8, it is checked either manually or by a suitable algorithm whether there is an overlap between the image contents to be printed and a non-printable area on the reader spread. This check is performed for each page 22 to be printed. If an overlap is found (Y), the image contents are edited either manually or by a suitable algorithm in step S9, whereupon the print job is finally sent to the control unit 74.

If no overlap is found in step S8 (N), the editing step S9 is skipped.

A modified version of a method according to the invention is illustrated in Fig. 8. In this embodiment, the process starts with a step S11 in which the job creator assembles an empty reader spread template, i.e. a collection of reader spreads without image contents inserted.

The steps S12 to S15 are equivalent to the steps S2 to S6 in Fig. 7. In step S16, the non-printable areas are retransformed onto the reader spread template. Then, in step S17, the reader spreads are displayed together with the non-printable areas, but still without image contents. The image contents are inserted by the job creator in step S18. Step S19 is a step of sending the job data to the control unit 74 where the print job is completed by calculating the printer spread with image contents.

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Embodiments

1. A method of creating a print job for a print and finishing process for forming a multi-page print product (20), the method comprising the steps of:

assembling a collection (46) of reader spreads (48, 50, 52) of the print product (20) by specifying image contents to be printed on each page (22) of the print product; and transforming the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) into a printer spread (28) by impositioning the contents on a print substrate (S) in accordance with a finishing process to be performed on the print substrate after the contents have been printed thereon;

characterized by further comprising the steps of:

identifying a non-printable area (44) on the printer spread (28); and using a computer (84; 74) for locating the non-printable area (44) on the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) by retransforming the printer spread (28) into the reader spreads.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the steps of assembling the collection (46) of reader spreads and transforming the reader spreads into a printer spread (28) are performed before the step of retransforming the printer spread (28) into the reader spreads, and it is then checked whether the image contents overlap with the nonprintable area (44) in any of the reader spreads (48, 50, 52).

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of transforming the reader spreads into the printer spread (28) is at first performed on a collection of empty reader spreads which do not yet contain image contents, and the image contents are inserted after the non-printable area (44) has been retransformed into the empty reader spreads.

4. The method according to any of the preceding claims, comprising a step of displaying the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) together with the retransformed non-printable area (44) on a screen (86).

5. A document processing system (54) comprising a printer (56), a finisher (58) and a control unit (74), wherein the control unit is configured for receiving a print job that contains reader spreads (48, 50, 52) of a print product (20) and to transform the reader

P4060NL01 spreads into a printer spread (28), characterized in that the control unit (74) is configured to retransform a non-printable area (44) that has been identified on the printer spread (28) into the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) on the basis of finishing instructions that are contained in the print job.

6. The document processing system (54) according to claim 5, wherein the control (74) is configured to control the operations of the printer (56) and the finisher (58).

7. A software product comprising program code on a computer-readable non- transitory medium, said program code, when run on a computer, enabling the computer to perform the following steps of the method according to claim 1:

identifying a non-printable area (44) on the printer spread (28); and locating the non-printable area (44) on the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) by retransforming the printer spread (28) into the reader spreads.

Claims

A method of creating a print job for a printing and finishing process to form a multipage printing product (20), the method comprising the steps of:

assembling a collection (46) of reader spreads (48, 50, 52) of the print product (20) by further specifying print image contents on each page (22) of the print product; and transforming the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) into a print spread (28) by placing the contents on a print substrate (S) in accordance with a finishing process to be performed on the print substrate after the contents have been printed thereon;

characterized by further comprising the steps of:

identifying a non-printable area (44) on the print spread (28); and using a computer (84; 74) to locate the non-printable area (44) on the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) by reforming the print spread (28) into the reader spreads.

The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of assembling the collection (46) of reader spreads and transforming the reader spreads into a print spread (28) are performed before the step of reforming the print spread (28) into the reader spreads, and then whether the image contents overlap with the non-printable area (44) in each of the reader spreads (48, 50, 52).

The method of claim 1, wherein the step of transforming the reader spreads into the print spread (28) is first performed on a set of empty reader spreads that do not yet contain image contents, and the image contents are inserted after the non-printable area (44) again turned into empty reader spreads.

The method of any preceding claim, comprising a step of displaying the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) together with the transformed non-printable area (44) on a screen (86).

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A document processing system (54) comprising a printer (56), a finisher (58) and a control unit (74), the control unit being configured to receive a print job containing reader spreads (48, 50, 52) a print product (20) and to convert the reader spreads into a print spread (28), characterized in that the control unit (74) is configured to identify a non-printable area (44) on the print spread (28) to convert the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) based on finishing instructions contained in the print job.

The document processing system (54) of claim 5, wherein the controller (74) is configured to control the operations of the printer (56) and the finisher (58).

Software product comprising program code on a computer-readable non-transitional medium, said program code, when executed on a computer, enabling the computer to perform the following steps of the method of claim 1:

identifying a non-printable area (44) on the print spread (28); and locating the non-printable area (44) on the reader spreads (48, 50, 52) by transforming the print spread (28) back into the reader spreads.