Patent ID: 7861172

Claim:
An information processing apparatus which connects to a printer and to a plurality of client computers, each of the plurality of client computers having a printer driver and a personal database, the apparatus having a server database which is shared by the plurality of client computers, the apparatus comprising: a control unit configured to store a first plurality of print profiles which are common for the plurality of client computers in the server database, and to cause the plurality of client computers to respectively store a second plurality of print profiles specific to respective client computers in the personal databases of the respective client computers, wherein each of the print profiles of the first and second plurality of print profiles includes a plurality of printer driver parameters of the printer driver for defining print settings of the printer; a printer designating unit configured to designate the printer; a setting unit configured to set a mode for displaying a print profile on a graphical user interface, the mode including a first mode and a second mode; a profile selecting unit configured to: (i) select a print profile of the printer driver of the designated printer from the first plurality of print profiles stored in the server database when the setting unit sets the first mode, and (ii) select a print profile of the printer driver of the designated printer from the first plurality of print profiles and the second plurality of print profiles stored in each of the server database and the personal database when the setting unit sets the second mode; and a display control unit configured to control the client computer to display the print profile selected by the profile selecting unit on the graphical user interface depending on the mode set by the setting unit, wherein, when the setting unit sets the first mode, the graphical user interface does not accept a user instruction for editing or adding a printer driver parameter of the printer driver so as to limit a user's setting parameters within the print profile selected by the profile selecting unit, and when the setting unit sets the second mode, graphical user interface accepts a user instruction for editing and/or adding a printer driver parameter of the printer driver.