1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system including a plurality of printers on which printing of print data, provided by a request source, is carried out, and particularly relates to a printing system and a method in which common electronic printing data is sent to a plurality of middle- or small-printers to perform printing of the common printing data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Even in the surging innovation of the present information technology generation, people wish to take a close look at electronic data, which is printed on a medium such as paper. This results in consumption of 160 million sheets of A4-sized paper in a single year in Japan (as of year of 2001). There is a ten percent growth every year in the number of mediums, on which high-quality graphic art is printed, despite the reduction of its share rate of printed matter.
Furthermore, it is becoming routine for information to be exchanged using electronic data, however, newspaper and other print mediums still play an important role in information circulation in social systems. Newspaper fulfils various requirements that electronic data alone cannot satisfy.
Accompanying drawing FIG. 8 schematically shows a conventional printing system. In conventional printing system 200 in FIG. 8, print mediums, such as newspaper or magazines, are created by printing electronic printing data (data to be printed) and then delivered to delivery destinations, clients or bookstores. Print system 200 comprises a printing station 250, a distributor 220, destination clients 230, a request source 240, and a delivery destination 260.
Request source 240 previously prepared printing data and provided printing station 250 with the printing data to request printing. For example, if the print mediums in question are newspaper, request source 240 corresponds to a newspaper publisher. If such print mediums are magazines, request-source 240 will be a magazine press.
Print station 250 includes a large-scale printer 210, which carries out printing of printing data provided by request source 240. Print station 250 delivers print mediums, as the result of printing, to distributor 220, request source 240, and/or delivery destination 260. Large-scale printer 210 is able to perform high-speed large volume printing, thereby carrying out printing on thousands of mediums per minute.
A plurality of printing stations 250 are installed, one in an individual particular area, however only one printing station 250 appears in FIG. 8.
Distributor 220 delivers print mediums (e.g., newspaper), on which large-scale printer 210 has carried out printing, to destination clients 230. The print mediums are also delivered to delivery destination 260 other than distributor 220 or request source 240. Delivery destination 260 may be a wholesale merchant.
In conventional printing system 200, since large-scale printer 210, installed in printing station 250, carries out printing on a large number of mediums at a time, printing cost per medium is minimized. At the same time, printing station 250 delivers a large number of mediums to a plurality of distributors 220 or delivery destinations 260 at once thereby further reducing transportation costs for a single print medium.
Nevertheless, it is difficult for large-scale printer 210 to perform printing on a small number of mediums due to its high-speed printing performance. Because operation of large-scale printer 210 only for a couple of minutes creates thousands of print mediums, test printing is prohibitively expensive.
Therefore, large-scale printer 210 is preferably not applied to large item small volume printing, and test printing is rarely performed on large-scale printer 210 that actually performs printing of particular printing data on a large number of mediums.
In the meantime, request source 240 may wish to confirm and examine a result of printing of print data (i.e., a print medium on which the print data is printed), prior to the printing of the printing data on a large number of mediums (a large-scale printing). For this purpose, conventional printing system 200 includes color correction equipment (not shown in FIG. 8) which estimates a result of printing of the particular printing data, whereupon request source 240 examines the estimated result.
The color characteristic information of the color correction equipment may however frequently differ from that of large-scale printer 210. Therefore colors in the result of printing carried out on large-scale printer 210 occasionally do not coincide with those of the estimated result, which has been examined by a request source prior to the printing being carried out on large-scale printer 210, whereupon the examination of the estimated result may be ultimately futile.
The delivery of newspaper as a print medium may take an extra long time in accordance with distance between each distributor 220 and printing station 250, where large-scale printer 250 carries out printing. Namely, a length of time required for delivery forces newspaper manuscript deadlines to be set much earlier than the time when the newspaper is delivered to subscribers. Therefore newspaper has a disadvantage in terms of speed of news reporting compared with other media, such as television or radio.
Further, as specific printing data is printed on a large number of mediums at a single printing station 250 at a time, it is almost impossible to modify the particular printing data for each of destination clients 230. Conventional printing system 200 cannot grant a request from an individual destination client 230 even when each of the destination clients 230 wants a print medium without a particular article or a particular advertisement.
When a plurality of retail stores or the like use advertisement sheets identical in contents, such advertisement sheets are printed at printing station 250 and delivered to clients over the areas targeted by the retail stores. Such large-scale printing prevents the contents of the advertisement from being modified or changed to suit each delivery destination, or each of the plural retail stores. For that reason, clients may complain about the advertisement sheets and blame the retail stores when a particular commodity on the advertisement sheet is not sold at some of the plural retail stores (especially, at a retail store at which an individual client intends to purchase the commodity) and when a client assumes that a particular commodity is sold at a store which does not sell the commodity.
Operations carried out on large-scale printer 210 require a skilled engineer thereby boosting labor cost.
In conventional printing system 200, large-scale printers 210, installed in each of print stations 250 in a respective area, carry out printing. However, the color characters unique to each of the plural large-scale printer 210, are not managed by printing system 200. Therefore, when the plural large-scale printers perform printing based on common electronic printing data, the results of printing on respective large-scale printer 210 may not coincide.
With the foregoing problems in view, it is a first object of the present invention to provide printing system and method suitable for large item small volume printing at a low cost, reducing a length of time required for delivering print mediums to delivery destinations from a place where each printer is installed. It is a second object to provide printing system and method that is operable to provide a print medium that meets a request from an individual client. It is a third object to provide printing system and method for realizing print mediums, on which common electronic printing data is printed by each one of plural printers, identical in colors.
To attain the first through third objects, there is provided a tele-printing system comprising: a plurality of printers each for performing printing on a medium based on common electronic printing data at a printing request from a request source; a plurality of color conversion tables, created one for each of the plural printers, each color conversion table containing printing characteristic information unique to the respective printer; and a management unit, communicably connected to the plural printers through a network, for sending the printing data to the plural printers and managing the printing of the printing data, which is carried out on each the printer, in accordance with the unique printing characteristic information contained in the corresponding color conversion table.
As a preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a confirmation unit for confirming, prior to the printing of the printing data to be carried out on each of the plural printer, a result of test printing of the printing data, which has been carried out on one of the plural printers, or may a proofing unit for correcting the printing characteristic information of the color conversion tables based on the result of the test printing on the last-named one printer, which result has been confirmed by the confirmation unit. Further, as another preferable feature, the tele-print system may further comprise: a delivery specification determination unit for determining a delivery specification of the print mediums, on which the printing data has been printed by each of the plural printers; and delivery means for delivering the print mediums to delivery destinations based on the determined delivery specification.
As an additional preferable feature, the management unit may manage states of operations of the plural printers and sends the electronic printing data to the individual printers in accordance with the states of operations.
As a further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a print specification determination unit for determining a print specification of the printing of the printing data, which is to be carried out on each the printer, in such a manner that each the printer performs the printing of the printing data in accordance with the determined print specification. As still further preferable feature, said management unit may manage the state of delivering of the print mediums, which delivering is performed by the delivery means.
As still further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a station that includes the delivery means and at least one of the plural printers, and edits the unique printing characteristic information of the color conversion table corresponding to the last-named one printer. As still further preferable feature, the station may edit the unique printing characteristic information of the color conversion table corresponding to the last-named one printer, or may edit the determined delivery specification corresponding to the print mediums that are to be delivered by the delivery means associated with the station.
As still preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprising: a print specification determination unit for determining a print specification of the printing of the printing data, which is to be carried out on each the plural printer; and a station including the delivery means and one of the plural printers, and operable to edit the determined print specification corresponding to the last-named one printer.
As still preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a station that includes the delivery means and at least one of the plural printers, and edits the determined delivery specification corresponding to the delivery means associated with the station.
As still further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a printing fee calculation unit for calculating, prior to the printing of the printing data, an estimated printing fee for the printing of the printing data performed by each the printer, which fee is to be paid by the request source.
As still further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise a printing progress management unit for managing progress of printing on each the printer; and a printing time estimation unit for estimating, prior to the printing of the printing data by each the printer, a length of time required by each the printer for the printing of the printing data, which is to be carried out at the printing request from the request source, based on the progress of printing.
To accomplish the first through third object of the present invention, as a second generic feature, there is provided a tele-printing method for performing printing of common electronic printing data on a plurality of printers, which are communicably connected to one another through a network, at a printing request from a request source comprising the steps of: (a) creating a plurality of color conversion tables one for each of the plural printers, each color conversion table containing printing characteristic information unique to the respective printer; at the request source where the one printer is installed (b) sending the common electronic printing data to the plural printers; and at each the printer (c) printing on a medium based on the received common electronic printing data in accordance with the unique printing characteristic information contained in the corresponding color conversion table.
As a preferable feature, the tele-printing method may comprise the step of confirming, prior to the printing data printing step (c), a result of test printing of the received common electronic printing data, which has been carried out on the one printer and may further comprise the step of proofing the unique printing characteristic information of the color conversion tables based on the confirmed result of the test printing.
As another preferable feature, the tele-printing method may further comprise the step of managing states of operations of the plural printers, and the sending of the received common electronic printing data being performed in accordance with the last-named states of operations so that the printing of the received common electronic printing data in the printing step (c) is carried out on the plural printers in a distributed way.
As an additional feature, the tele-printing method may further comprise the step of determining a print specification of the printing of the received common electronic printing data in such a manner that the printing of the received common electronic printing data in the printing data printing step (c) is carried out in accordance with the determined print specification, and may further comprise the step of editing the determined print specification at a request from an individual delivery destination of the print medium.
As further additional preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise the steps of: determining a delivery specification of the print mediums; and delivering the print mediums to individual destinations based on the delivery specification.
As a further preferable feature, the tele-printing method may further comprise the step of editing the determined delivery specification at a request from an individual delivery destination of the print medium.
As still further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may comprising the step of managing progress of the delivering of the print mediums in the delivering step, or may further comprise the step of calculating, prior to the printing data printing step (c), an estimated printing fee for the printing of the received common electronic printing data by each the printer, which fee is to be paid by the request source.
As still further preferable feature, the tele-printing system may further comprise the steps of: managing progress of operation of each the printer; and estimating, prior to the printing data printing step (c), a length of time required for the printing of the printing data based on the progress of operation.
As mentioned above, it is possible for the printing system and method of the present invention to guarantee the following advantageous results:
(1) Common electronic printing data is converted based on printing characteristic information, which is unique to each of the plural printers and is contained-in the color conversion tables, whereupon the converted data are sent to each of corresponding printers, which carry out printing of the common electronic printing data in a distribute way. It is possible to meet various requests from the request source and delivery destinations, and to keep the quality of the print mediums constant.
(2) The request source can confirm the result of test printing that has been performed prior to printing of the printing data to be carried out on each of the plural printers. Since the results of printing of the printing data carried out on each of the plural printers are identical with that of the test printing, it is possible to boost the efficiency of printing by eliminating the possibility of re-printing of the printing data and also to improve the service to the request source.
(3) Because the printing characteristic information of the color conversion tables is corrected based on the result of test printing, the request source can obtain a result of printing of the printing data carried out on each of the plural printers as desired.
(4) Since the state of operations of said plural printers is managed and the electronic printing data is sent to the individual printers in accordance with the states of operations to carry out printing thereon, it is possible to work each of the plural printers with high efficiency, and also to reduce time required for printing on a large number of print mediums.
(5) A delivery destination of the print mediums, on which the printing data has been printed by each of the plural printers, and the print mediums, are delivered to delivery destinations based on the delivery specification determined. As a result, it is possible to deliver the print mediums at the request of the request source thereby improving service to the request source. Further, a delivery destination would attain a greater level of satisfaction with delivery based on the determined delivery specification.
(6) The management of the state of delivering of the print mediums improves service to the request source and the delivery destinations because they can grasp the states of delivering of each of the print mediums.
(7) The print specification of the printing of the printing data, which is to be carried out on each of the plural printers, in such a manner that each printer performs the printing of the printing data in accordance with the determined print specification. This improves service to the request source, which would be pleased with the result of the printing because the request source can obtain the print mediums as desired.
(8) Prior to the printing of the printing data carried out on the plural printers, an estimated printing fee that is to be paid by the request source for printing of the print data is calculated. Therefore, it is possible to improve the service to a request source because the request source can obtain an estimated printing fee.
(9) Prior to the printing of the printing data carried out on the plural printers, the request source can establish a length of time required for each of the plural printers for printing of the printing data, which has been estimated based on the progress of printing. This can improve the service to the request source.