Patent ID: 7164867

Claim:
An image forming apparatus network system comprising a first image forming apparatus connected to a plurality of second image forming apparatuses over a network, wherein the first image forming apparatus includes, an image creating unit that creates an image with at least one toner based on an image data to be printed, an image data volume computing unit that computes a volume of the image data, a remaining toner information acquiring unit that acquires information on remaining toner from at least one second image forming apparatus of second image forming apparatuses, and a controlling unit that computes toner consumption from the volume of image data computed by the image data volume computing unit, selects a second image forming apparatus that has an amount of remaining toner larger than the computed toner consumption, and sends a command to form an image at the selected second image forming apparatus; and each of the second image forming apparatuses includes, a toner detecting unit that detects an amount of remaining toner in a corresponding second image forming apparatus, and a notifying unit that notifies the first image forming apparatus of information regarding the remaining toner detected by the toner detecting unit.