Architectures of Advanced Function Printing

Discussed is the use of the capabilities of all-points-addressable laser (page) printers in applications involving pages composed of text, image, and vector data in a device-independent way. Also presented is the ability to describe and print complex documents composed of multiples of such pages. Provision is made for the migration of current line-printer applications to print using these new page printers. Three architectures are described that—along with an Advanced Function Printing (AFP) model—support these capabilities. Each of these architectures is described in the context of the current implementation of the Advanced Function Printing software.