Patent ID: 8451470

Claim:
A print control apparatus that controls an interruption printing operation, to be performed by a printing section, for temporarily suspending a first print job that is currently in midcourse of its implementation so as to implement a second print job in an interruption printing mode, comprising: a job-status parameter acquiring section to acquire job-status parameters including a residual printing time of the first print job, a printing time of the second print job, a first priority degree representing an implementation priority of the first print job and a second priority degree representing another implementation priority of the second print job; and a controlling section to determine whether or not the interruption printing operation should be allowed, namely, an availability of the interruption printing operation, based on the residual printing time of the first print job, the printing time of the second print job, and at least one of the first priority degree and the second priority degree; wherein the controlling section calculates an interruption allowable time, based on the residual printing time of the first print job and said at least one of the first priority degree and the second priority degree; and wherein, when the printing time of the second print job is equal to or shorter than the interruption allowable time calculated by the controlling section, the controlling section determines that the interruption printing operation should be allowed.