Printing and mailboxing system with sensing when bins are almost full

摘要

A networked or other shared users electronic printing system for printing plural print jobs of plural printed sheets of the different users, includes a printer mailbox system (10) having a sheet distribution system (16) for automatically directing and stacking the print jobs into different individual mailbox bins (11). The mailbox bins (11) are electronically assigned to different respective users. A bin almost-full sensing system (12) detects and signals that the stacking level of the printed sheets in the bin has reached a preset almost-full level (12b) which is less than the preset limited sheet full stacking capacity (32) of the bin. A connecting mailbox control system may indicate to that user at that user's remote terminal that only a preset limited further number of printed sheets may be directed to that same bin upon the actuation of the bin almost-full sensing system. The control system may provide several user options, and/or automatically control the mailbox sheet distribution system to direct subsequent print jobs or a split portion of a print job to a different mailbox bin, or to a higher sheet stacking capacity overflow bin (11a). <IMAGE>