An increasing number of consumers are printing copies of books, magazines, newspapers and other collections of digitized content on an on-demand/as-needed basis. A consumer may choose to print a hard copy of the content via the consumer's printing device. Alternatively, a consumer may choose to have a hard copy printed at a print service provider, to be subsequently delivered to the consumer.
Such on-demand printing is an attractive alternative for the consumer to more traditional means of acquiring hard copy content, such as purchasing the item at a retailer or checking the item out at a library. By utilizing on-demand printing, a consumer can promptly obtain a copy of contemporary and historic books and other collections that would otherwise be difficult and/or prohibitively expensive to retrieve.
Likewise, on-demand printing is attractive to publishers and retailers as it improves profit margins by reducing many of the major expenses associated with traditional publishing and retailing of physical articles. Expenses that may be reduced, and in some cases eliminated, include costs associated with retail and warehousing facilities, and inventory maintenance costs such as financing expense, and financial losses associated with lost, stolen and damaged inventory. Further, the content provider or retailer may be removed from the difficult task of predicting future demand for a particular book or collection that is associated with traditional production runs and ordering.
One method that is used to provide content for on-demand printing is to utilize a scanner or a digital camera to scan the pages of the book, magazine, newspaper or other original article or collection. Digital representations of the scanned original pages are created and may be stored in a computer-readable medium.
The same part numbers designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures.