ELECTRONIC DEVICE THAT DISPLAYS DEGREE-OF-RECOMMENDATION, IMAGE FORMING SYSTEM, AND RECORDING MEDIUM

• US 20160313952A1
• Filed: 04/22/2016
• Published: 10/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions, Inc. (Kyocera Corporation)
• Original Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions, Inc. (Kyocera Corporation)
• Inventors: KAWASAKI, Tomohiro, MATSUKI, Yoshitaka, SHIMAMOTO, Kunihiko
• Granted Patent: US 9,658,804 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1219 with regard to consumables, e.g. ink, toner, paper
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1229 Printer resources management or printer maintenance, e.g. device status, power levels
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1235 caused by end of consumables, e.g. paper, ink, toner
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1285 Remote printer device, e.g. being remote from client or server

Abstract

An electronic device includes: a display device; a toner color determining section configured to determine, from print data, one or more use toner colors as the colors of toners for use during printing based on the print data; a degree-of-recommendation determining section configured to determine a degree of recommendation of the image forming apparatus according to a probability of a situation preventing printing on the image forming apparatus; and a degree-of-recommendation display section configured to allow the display device to display the degree of recommendation determined by the degree-of-recommendation determining section, wherein the degree-of-recommendation determining section is configured to acquire apparatus information about the image forming apparatus from a server on a network and determine the probability according to whether information, included in the apparatus information, on the toners of the use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section meets a specified criterion.

Claims

1. An electronic device comprising:

a display device;

a toner color determining section configured to determine, from print data of an image forming apparatus, one or more use toner colors which are colors of toners for use during printing based on the print data;

a degree-of-recommendation determining section configured to determine a degree of recommendation of the image forming apparatus according to a probability of a situation preventing implementation of the printing on the image forming apparatus; and

a degree-of-recommendation display section configured to allow the display device to display the degree of recommendation determined by the degree-of-recommendation determining section,

wherein the degree-of-recommendation determining section is further configured to acquire apparatus information about the image forming apparatus from a server on a network and determine the probability according to whether or not information, included in the apparatus information, on the toners of the use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section meets a specified criterion.

2. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein

the toner color determining section is configured to determine which of black-and-white printing and multicolor printing is a type of printing to be performed based on a designation of printing included in the print data,

when determining that the black-and-white printing is the type of printing to be performed based on the designation of printing included in the print data, the toner color determining section determines that the use toner color is black, and

when determining that the multicolor printing is the type of printing to be performed based on the designation of printing included in the print data, the toner color determining section determines what is the use toner color by subjecting the print data to color conversion.

3. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein when the use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section include a color other than black, the degree-of-recommendation determining section acquires, among information about the image forming apparatus exclusive for black-and-white printing and information about the image forming apparatus capable of performing multicolor printing, only the information about the image forming apparatus capable of performing multicolor printing as the apparatus information from the server.

4. The electronic device according to claim 1,

further comprising an acquisition target acceptance section that, when the use toner color determined by the toner color determining section is black only, accepts a target about which the apparatus information is to be acquired, wherein

when the use toner color determined by the toner color determining section is black only, the degree-of-recommendation determining section acquires the apparatus information about the target already accepted by the acquisition target acceptance section, and

the acquisition target acceptance section is capable of accepting as the target either:

only the image forming apparatus exclusive for black-and-white printing;

or

both of the image forming apparatus exclusive for black-and-white printing and the image forming apparatus capable of performing multicolor printing.

5. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the degree-of-recommendation display section is further configured to allow the display device to display, together with the degree of recommendation, the apparatus information including information on the toners of the one or more use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section.

6. The electronic device according to claim 1,

further comprising an image pickup device,

wherein the degree-of-recommendation display section is further configured to allow the display device to display a synthetic image in which the degree of recommendation determined by the degree-of-recommendation determining section is synthesized with an image of the image forming apparatus shot by the image pickup device so that the degree of recommendation is located at a position corresponding to the image forming apparatus in the shot image.

7. An image forming system comprising:

an electronic device including a display device;

an image forming apparatus configured to perform printing on a recording medium based on print data;

a toner color determining section configured to determine, from the print data, one or more use toner colors which are colors of toners for use during printing based on the print data on the image forming apparatus;

a degree-of-recommendation determining section configured to determine a degree of recommendation of the image forming apparatus according to a probability of a situation preventing implementation of the printing on the image forming apparatus; and

a degree-of-recommendation display section configured to allow the display device to display the degree of recommendation determined by the degree-of-recommendation determining section,

wherein the degree-of-recommendation determining section is further configured to determine the probability according to whether or not the information about the image forming apparatus which includes information on the one or more use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section and from which information on one or more toner colors other than the one or more use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section has been excluded meets a specified criterion.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium that stores a degree-of-recommendation display program, the degree-of-recommendation display program causing a computer to function as:

a toner color determining section configured to determine, from print data of an image forming apparatus, one or more use toner colors which are colors of toners for use during printing based on the print data;

a degree-of-recommendation determining section configured to determine a degree of recommendation of the image forming apparatus according to a probability of a situation preventing implementation of the printing on the image forming apparatus; and

a degree-of-recommendation display section configured to allow the display device to display the degree of recommendation determined by the degree-of-recommendation determining section,

wherein the degree-of-recommendation display program further causes the computer to function so that the degree-of-recommendation determining section acquires apparatus information about the image forming apparatus from a server on a network and determines the probability according to whether or not information, included in the apparatus information, on the toners of the use toner colors determined by the toner color determining section meets a specified criterion.