PRINTING ASSEMBLY FAILURE RECOVERY SYSTEM AND METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To recover a damaged printer/collation job by reprinting only damaged sheets with respect to a printer having a multistage printing engine together with a single printing engine printer. SOLUTION: A first printing set including a plurality of physical medium sheets is generated, and is stacked on a first intermediate stacker. A second printing set including a plurality of physical medium sheets is generated. A sheet is accessed from the first intermediate stacker and is assembled to a sheet from the second printing set. Due to this, a final printing set including a plurality of sheets is generated in first order. The final printing set is stacked on an output stacker. When a failure of the first printing set occurs, a substitution sheet of the first printing set is generated. At one stage, the substitution sheet of the first printing set is directly merged with a sheet from the second printing set by bypassing the intermediate stacker, to generate a final printing set. COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT