Patent ID: 8885200

Claim:
An image forming system comprising: a first image forming apparatus and a second image forming apparatus that are capable of being connected to each other through a network, wherein the second image forming apparatus includes: a first communication unit configured to communicate with the first image forming apparatus with a communication scheme that does not use the network and of which power consumption is smaller than power consumption of a communication scheme using the network; a second communication unit configured to communicate with each of a host apparatus and the first image forming apparatus through the network, and a first printing unit configured to perform printing in accordance with a print job from the host apparatus, and the first image forming apparatus includes: a third communication unit configured to communicate with the second image forming apparatus with a communication scheme that does not use the network and of which power consumption is smaller than power consumption of a communication scheme using the network; a fourth communication unit configured to communicate with each of the host apparatus and the second image forming apparatus through the network; a second printing unit configured to perform printing in accordance with the print job; a monitoring unit configured to monitor a print job amount indicating an amount of the print job; a first control unit configured to, when the print job amount monitored by the monitoring unit is equal to or smaller than a first threshold, perform control so that a first control signal is transmitted to the second image forming apparatus through the third communication unit or the fourth communication unit, the first control signal being a signal for causing the second image forming apparatus to shift into a first mode in which electric power is supplied to the first communication unit while stopping supply of electric power to each of the first printing unit and the second communication unit; and a second control unit configured to, when the second image forming apparatus is in the first mode and the print job amount for the first image forming apparatus is larger than a second threshold, perform control so that a second control signal is transmitted to the second image forming apparatus through the third communication unit, the second control signal being a signal for causing the second image forming apparatus to shift into a second mode in which electric power is supplied to each of the first printing unit and the second communication unit.