Importance

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Abstract

A method for communicating accounting information from a printer driver to an accounting system, wherein the printer driver inserts accounting information into a print stream, which is monitored by the accounting system. PDL comments contain per-page accounting information, obtained by the printer driver analyzing printing and drawing GDI and API functions. Methods include per-job cumulative accounting information in a separate log file; enabling monitoring by any accounting system cognizant of the accounting data formats; accounting color mode information, media type, layout, duplex, finishing option, imaging, output option, watermark, etc.; a color page contains at least a single color pixel, and determining a monochrome print object if red, green, and blue components are equal; and color mode detection comprising a parser to check for color commands in Passthrough data and presence of image data, checking JPEG header for number of components, whose value of 1 indicates monochrome, decompressing using decoder, and checking for R-G-B components.

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First Claim