System and method for implementing compound documents in a production printing workflow

Abstract

A system and method for managing production printing workflow is disclosed. The system includes workflow management software which manages and facilitates the procedural stages of the workflow including job origination, job preparation, job submission and job fulfillment. The workflow management software provides an integrated object oriented interface which visually reflects and interacts with the workflow. The software further provides functionality to create, manage and manipulate compound documents as ordered collections of documents.

1 . An interface, implemented in a computer, for representing and controlling a production printing workflow comprising: 
 a display;    a first document object representing a document, said document further comprising content and formatting, said formatting defining at least one page in said document, said first document object being associated with a first visual representation on said display;    a document ticket object representing global document attributes, said document ticket object being associated with a second visual representation on said display and capable of being associated with said first document object;    a page object representing a page attribute of one of said at least one page, said page object being associated with a third visual representation on said display and capable of being associated with said first document object;    a book object capable of representing an ordered association of at least one of said first document object with a second document object, said second document object being associated with a book document containing an ordered assembly of all of the respective documents in each of said at least one of said first document object, said book object being further associated with a fourth visual representation on said display; and    a first user input device for selectively associating at least two of said first, second, third and fourth visual representations;    wherein association of said first, second, third and fourth visual representations results in association of said respective objects.