Class MultipleDocumentHandling is a printing attribute class, an enumeration,
that controls finishing operations and the placement of one or more
print-stream pages into impressions and onto media sheets. When the value of
the {@link Copies Copies} attribute exceeds 1, MultipleDocumentHandling also
controls the order in which the copies that result from processing the
documents are produced. This attribute is relevant only for a multidoc print
job consisting of two or more individual docs.
Briefly, MultipleDocumentHandling determines the relationship between the
multiple input (electronic) documents fed into a multidoc print job and the
output (physical) document or documents produced by the multidoc print job.
There are two possibilities:
-
The multiple input documents are combined into a single output document.
Finishing operations ({@link Finishings Finishings}),
are performed on this single output
document. The {@link Copies Copies} attribute tells how many copies of this
single output document to produce. The MultipleDocumentHandling values
SINGLE_DOCUMENT and SINGLE_DOCUMENT_NEW_SHEET specify two variations of
this possibility.
-
The multiple input documents remain separate output documents. Finishing
operations ({@link Finishings Finishings}),
are performed on each output document
separately. The {@link Copies Copies} attribute tells how many copies of each
separate output document to produce. The MultipleDocumentHandling values
SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_UNCOLLATED_COPIES and SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES
specify two variations of this possibility.
In the detailed explanations below, if "a " represents an
instance of document data, then the result of processing the data in
document "a " is a sequence of media sheets represented by
"a(*) ".
The standard MultipleDocumentHandling values are:
-
{@link #SINGLE_DOCUMENT
SINGLE_DOCUMENT }. If a print job has multiple
documents -- say, the document data is called a and
b -- then the result of processing all the document data
(a and then b ) must be treated as a single sequence
of media sheets for finishing operations; that is, finishing would be
performed on the concatenation of the sequences a(*),b(*) . The
printer must not force the data in each document instance to be formatted
onto a new print-stream page, nor to start a new impression on a new media
sheet. If more than one copy is made, the ordering of the sets of media
sheets resulting from processing the document data must be
a(*),b(*),a(*),b(*),... , and the printer object must force
each copy (a(*),b(*) ) to start on a new media sheet.
-
{@link #SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_UNCOLLATED_COPIES
SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_UNCOLLATED_COPIES }. If a print job
has multiple documents -- say, the document data is called a and
b -- then the result of processing the data in each document
instance must be treated as a single sequence of media sheets for finishing
operations; that is, the sets a(*) and b(*) would
each be finished separately. The printer must force each copy of the result
of processing the data in a single document to start on a new media sheet.
If more than one copy is made, the ordering of the sets of media sheets
resulting from processing the document data must be
a(*),a(*),...,b(*),b(*)... .
-
{@link #SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES
SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES }. If a print job
has multiple documents -- say, the document data is called a and
b -- then the result of processing the data in each document
instance must be treated as a single sequence of media sheets for finishing
operations; that is, the sets a(*) and b(*) would
each be finished separately. The printer must force each copy of the result
of processing the data in a single document to start on a new media sheet.
If more than one copy is made, the ordering of the sets of media sheets
resulting from processing the document data must be
a(*),b(*),a(*),b(*),... .
-
{@link #SINGLE_DOCUMENT_NEW_SHEET
SINGLE_DOCUMENT_NEW_SHEET }. Same as SINGLE_DOCUMENT,
except that the printer must ensure that the first impression of each
document instance in the job is placed on a new media sheet. This value
allows multiple documents to be stapled together with a single staple where
each document starts on a new sheet.
SINGLE_DOCUMENT is the same as SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES with
respect to ordering of print-stream pages, but not media sheet generation,
since SINGLE_DOCUMENT will put the first page of the next document on the
back side of a sheet if an odd number of pages have been produced so far
for the job, while SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES always forces the
next document or document copy on to a new sheet.
In addition, if a {@link Finishings Finishings} attribute of
{@link Finishings#STAPLE STAPLE } is specified, then:
-
With SINGLE_DOCUMENT, documents
a and b are
stapled together as a single document with no regard to new sheets.
-
With SINGLE_DOCUMENT_NEW_SHEET, documents
a and b
are stapled together as a single document, but document b
starts on a new sheet.
-
With SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_UNCOLLATED_COPIES and
SEPARATE_DOCUMENTS_COLLATED_COPIES, documents
a and
b are stapled separately.
Note: None of these values provide means to produce uncollated
sheets within a document, i.e., where multiple copies of sheet n
are produced before sheet n+1 of the same document.
To specify that, see the {@link SheetCollate SheetCollate} attribute.
IPP Compatibility: The category name returned by
getName() is the IPP attribute name. The enumeration's
integer value is the IPP enum value. The toString() method
returns the IPP string representation of the attribute value.
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