Patent ID: 6738151
Filing Date: 2004-05-18
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A distributed processing system for an image forming apparatus, comprising a client for supplying an image; a distributed processing server capable of performing distributed processing for one job, which is inputted from said client and which consists of a plurality of pages, by a plurality of image forming apparatuses including at least one color image forming apparatus; and at least two image forming apparatuses which form an image of said job on a recording sheet based on a command from said server and which have different color image formation processing capabilities,said distributed processing server comprising a storage portion for previously storing data concerning the respective image formation processing capabilities including color reproduction capabilities in said plurality of image forming apparatuses; a job analysis portion for analyzing the contents of said job supplied from said client and an image formation request of said client concerning said job; a comparison portion for comparing an analysis result by said job analysis portion with data concerning capabilities of said plurality of image forming apparatuses stored in said storage portion; a correction portion for correcting the image formation contents of a job to be supplied to said image forming apparatus having a high image formation capability in accordance with a capability of said image forming apparatus having a low image formation processing capability based on a comparison result of said comparison portion to create an image formation command for performing image formation with the corrected contents; and an output portion for distributing and outputting said job corrected by said correction portion to each of said plurality of image forming apparatuses, said image forming apparatus having the high image formation capability among said plurality of image forming apparatuses comprising an interpretation portion for interpreting said image formation command added to said corrected job supplied from said distributed processing server; and an execution portion for executing image formation in accordance with the interpreted contents.