DOCUMENT PROCESSING APPARATUS AND A METHOD FOR CONTROLLING A DOCUMENT PROCESSING APPARATUS

• US 20080024802A1
• Filed: 07/25/2007
• Published: 01/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Kato, Hisashi
• Granted Patent: US 7,916,332 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1205 resulting in increased flexibility in print job configuration, e.g. job settings, print requirements, job tickets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1208 resulting in improved quality of the output result, e.g. print layout, colours, workflows, print preview
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1246 by handling markup languages, e.g. XSL, XML, HTML
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1254 Automatic configuration, e.g. by driver
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1258 by updating job settings at the printer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/127 by using hot folders, e.g. folder for which print settings or print data management rules are set in advance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1285 Remote printer device, e.g. being remote from client or server

Abstract

The present invention enables page-level or document-level print setup of an XPS document via a user interface. The print ticket of a page of interest is obtained by merging a job-level print ticket 1804, to which the page of interest belongs, a document-level print ticket 1805, to which the page of interest belongs, and a page-level print ticket 1806 of the page of interest. The obtained individual page print tickets are compared with the job-level print ticket and if there are differences, it is determined that this particular page has exception settings and the exception settings are saved and displayed.

Claims

1. A document processing apparatus, in which document data having a tree structure made up of a plurality of hierarchical levels and allowing print attributes to be associated with nodes at each hierarchical level can be operated upon by a printer driver used to handle the print attributes, the apparatus comprising:

a document reading unit configured to read the document data in accordance with a read instruction;

an attribute reading unit configured to read print attributes associated with the nodes in the document data read by the document reading unit;

an extracting unit configured to extract an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read by the attribute reading unit; and

a first displaying unit configured to display the exception setting extracted by the extracting unit in the user interface of the printer driver.

2. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a range selecting unit configured to select a hierarchical option read in by the attribute reading unit from among the plurality of hierarchical structures of the document data in accordance with a selection instruction entered through the user interface of the printer driver,

wherein the attribute reading unit reads print attributes from the document data in accordance with a selected read range.

3. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a feature selecting unit configured to select a print attribute feature option read in as an exception setting from among the print attribute features of the hierarchical levels of the document data in accordance with a feature selection instruction entered through the user interface of the printer driver,

wherein the attribute reading unit reads print attributes from the document data for the print attribute feature selected by the attribute feature selecting unit.

4. The document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a processing unit configured to reconcile attribute values to produce a correct combination of attributes when there are attribute features with incompatible setup values in the print attributes associated with the nodes of the hierarchical levels read in by the attribute reading unit;

a holding unit configured to hold information on attributes reconciled by the processing unit; and

wherein the displaying unit is configured to displaying the reconciliation information held by the holding unit.

5. A method for controlling a document processing apparatus, in which document data having a tree structure made up of a plurality of hierarchical levels and allowing print attributes to be associated with nodes at each hierarchical level can be operated upon by a printer driver used to handle the print attributes, the method comprising:

a document reading step, in which document reading unit reads the document data in accordance with a read instruction entered through a user interface;

an attribute reading step, in which attribute reading unit reads print attributes associated with the nodes in the document data read in the document reading step;

an extraction step, in which extracting unit extracts an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read in the attribute reading step; and

a first displaying step, in which first displaying unit displays the exception setting extracted in the extraction step in the user interface of the printer driver.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

a range selection step of selecting a hierarchical option read in the attribute reading step from among the plurality of hierarchical structures of the document data in accordance with a selection instruction entered through the user interface of the printer driver,

wherein in the attribute reading step, print attributes are read from the document data in accordance with a read range obtained in the range selection step.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

a feature selection step of selecting a print attribute feature option read in as an exception setting from among the print attribute features of the hierarchical levels of the document data in accordance with a feature selection instruction entered through the user interface,

wherein in the attribute reading step, print attributes are read from the document data for the selected print attribute feature.

8. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

a processing step of reconciling attribute values to produce a correct combination of attributes when there are attribute features with incompatible setup values in the print attributes associated with the nodes of the hierarchical levels read in the attribute reading step;

a holding step of holding information on attributes reconciled in the processing step; and

a second displaying step of displaying the reconciliation information being held.

9. A computer readable storage medium storing a program for making a computer execute a method for controlling a document processing apparatus, in which document data having a tree structure made up of a plurality of hierarchical levels and allowing print attributes to be associated with nodes at each hierarchical level can be operated upon by a printer driver used to handle the print attributes, the method comprising:

a document reading step, in which document reading unit reads the document data in accordance with a read instruction entered through a user interface;

an attribute reading step, in which attribute reading unit reads print attributes associated with the nodes in the document data read in the document reading step;

an extraction step, in which extracting unit extracts an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read in the attribute reading step; and

a first displaying step, in which first displaying unit displays the exception setting extracted in the extraction step in the user interface of the printer driver.

10. A document processing apparatus has a printer driver, the apparatus comprising:

a document reading unit configured to read document data in accordance with a read instruction entered through a user interface of the printer driver;

an attribute reading unit configured to read print attributes set the document data read by the document reading unit;

an extracting unit configured to extract an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read by the attribute reading unit; and

a first displaying unit configured to display the exception setting extracted by the extracting unit in the user interface of the printer driver.

11. A method for controlling a document processing apparatus has a printer driver, the method comprising:

a document reading step, in which document reading unit reads document data in accordance with a read instruction entered through a user interface of the printer driver;

an attribute reading step, in which attribute reading unit reads print attributes set the document data read by the document reading unit;

an extraction step, in which extracting unit extracts an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read by the attribute reading unit; and

a first displaying step, in which first displaying unit displays the exception setting extracted by the extracting unit in the user interface of the printer driver.

12. A computer readable storage medium storing a program for making a computer execute a method for controlling a document processing apparatus has a printer driver, the method comprising:

a document reading step, in which document reading unit reads document data in accordance with a read instruction entered through a user interface of the printer driver;

an attribute reading step, in which attribute reading unit reads print attributes set the document data read by the document reading unit;

an extraction step, in which extracting unit extracts an exception setting different from the print attributes associated with the whole document from among the print attributes read by the attribute reading unit; and

a first displaying step, in which first displaying unit displays the exception setting extracted by the extracting unit in the user interface of the printer driver.