Patent ID: 7027169

Claim:
A printing system including a plurality of data processing devices and a plurality of printing devices for executing a printing operation when a printing job signal is received from any one of the plurality of data processing devices, comprising: communication system for communicating data among the plurality of printing devices; printing system provided in at least one of the plurality of printing devices for executing a print job based on the print job signal; and a controller for executing the following steps: grouping the plurality of printing devices based on processing languages employed in the printing devices; designating a managing printing device among the printing devices belonging to the same language group; and wherein a first printing device transfers the printing job signal received from any one of the plurality of data processing devices to the managing printing device if the first printing device is inoperative to execute the printing job signal, and the managing printing device transfers the printing job signal received from the first printing device to a second printing device belonging to the same language group as the first printing device so that subsequent processing of the printing job signal is not performed by the managing printing device.