Patent ID: 7274484

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a private port selected from a group composed of a plurality of user's private ports assigned to a plurality of users, individually, and two or more function-only ports; a reception buffer which temporarily saves a print job received through the private port; a setting/save section which is provided corresponding to the private port and saves set data on the printing system; a printing section which reads the set data on the printing system from the setting/save section corresponding to the user's private port through which the print job is received when the print job stored in the reception buffer is printed and prints the print job in accordance with the read set data; at least one of a fax section which has a fax function, a scanner section having a scanner function and an electronic mail section having an electronic mail function when the private port is a user's private port, wherein the setting/save section saves at least one of set data on the fax function, scanner function, and electronic mail function; a user authentication section which accepts information indicative of the correspondence between the user setting/save section and the user; and an operation section which accepts operation to execute the function in accordance with the set data stored in the user setting/save section after the information is accepted by the user authentication section.