System for providing an alternative control interface to specialty printing devices

摘要

The invention provides an alternative applications programming interface (API) for a software application to interface with and to control the operation of a variety of one or more specialty printing devices. The alternative API provides a superset of control functionality relative to an API that would typically be provided by a specialty printing device driver. In some embodiments, this alternative API is provided via a specialty printing module (SPM) that is remotely accessible to a software application via a computer network. The SPM can provide for interface and control of specialty printing devices that would otherwise be un-accessible to a software application via a specialty printing device driver, and can provide such locally or remotely accessible functionality to the software application, without necessarily requiring employment of a specialty printing device driver.

主权项

1. An apparatus for enabling operation of a specialty printer to be controlled from a software application; said apparatus including:
a specialty printing module that is configured for communicating with a software application and configured for communicating with a specialty printer, via at least one communication channel; said software application executing on a first platform and said specialty printing module executing on a second computing platform; and wherein said specialty printer is a device having functionality for transferring information onto media and wherein control of at least some of said functionality is not directly accessible to said software application via said operating system or its associated device drivers at a first time; and wherein said specialty printing module provides control to said software application of at least a portion of said at least some of said functionality, that is not otherwise provided to said software application via said at least one of an operating system and its associated device drivers.