splaying to the user a “time to finish” for a print job that has been entered, so that the user will know in a advance how long she has to wait until her job will be completed. The time to finish is composed of print times which are needed for printing an image on an individual sheet, and of necessary inter-sheet time gaps, i.e. time intervals that separate the end of a print operation for one page from the start of a print operation for the next page. The print times are generally determined by the operating speed of the print station (or stations) and possibly also by the specific contents of the images to be printed. The inter-sheet time gaps must have a certain length in order to prevent the successive sheets from colliding with one another. More extended time gaps may be needed for example when the sheet transport path includes switches for directing the sheets to different destinations. In that case, a time gap of a certain length is necessary for operating the switch after the previous sheet has passed and before the next sheet arrives. Similarly, when the sequence of sheets includes two or more different media types which require specific adjustments of certain functional components, e.g. an adjustment of a print heat or print station, extended time gaps may be needed for making the necessary adjustments. Such extended times may also be referred to as setup times and transition times for transiting between different operational modes.
Naturally, the time to finish will depend upon the mode of operation to which the printing system has been set for processing the job. For example, printing in a duplex mode may take more time than printing in a simplex mode. Conversely, when a higher operating temperature is set for the fuse station, the sheets may pass the fuse station at a higher speed, so that the time to finish will be shortened. On the other hand, if the scheduled sequence of sheets includes a sheet of a media type that does not tolerate the high fuse temperature, a long inter-sheet time gap may be