Patent ID: 8405852

Claim:
An image forming system, comprising: a plurality of image forming apparatuses; a management apparatus configured to manage and operate the image forming system; and a plurality of communication control apparatuses each configured to control data communication between the management apparatus and a corresponding image forming apparatus, wherein the management apparatus is configured to receive a print request from an information processing apparatus and configured to send an image forming request to an image forming apparatus selected according to the print request as a printing apparatus through a corresponding communication control apparatus, the image forming request requesting to perform a predetermined image forming operation, and wherein the management apparatus includes: a software component storing unit configured to store one or more software components in a predetermined storage area of a storage device of the management apparatus, the one or more software components being each configured to generate print data recognizable by a corresponding image forming apparatus; a selecting unit configured to select a software component from the one or more software components stored in the storage device by the software component storing unit in response to the print request, the selected software component being used to generate print data corresponding to the image forming apparatus selected as a printing apparatus; and a transmission unit configured to transmit the print data generated by the selected software component selected by the selecting unit to the image forming apparatus selected as a printing apparatus through the corresponding communication control apparatus, and wherein each of the one or more software components is a printer driver of the corresponding image forming apparatus and located only in the management apparatus so that the information processing apparatus does not include the printer driver, and the management apparatus is configured to acquire image forming apparatus information including first information which is available regardless of product manufacturers of the image forming apparatuses, and is configured to perform an exclusion control for setting print conditions based on second information which is specific to each of the image forming apparatuses, said exclusion control for setting print conditions being performed by the image forming apparatuses instead of the management apparatus.