Patent ID: 8879098

Claim:
A distributed printing system, comprising: a first image forming apparatus as a parent device; and a second image forming apparatus as a child device, the second image forming apparatus connectable to the first image forming apparatus for executing a printing process, each of the first and the second image forming apparatuses including: an image data generator to generate image data for each scanned document; an image data dividing unit to divide the generated image data into first image data and second image data, the first image data to be edited by one image forming apparatus selectable from the first and the second image forming apparatus, the second image data being data that an image forming apparatus not selected for editing the first image data is requested to edit; an edited image data generator to edit the image data to generate edited image data; an image data sending/receiving unit to send and receive image data to and from other image forming apparatus; a printing unit; and an editing mode shift unit to select one of a collaborative processing mode in which editing of the image data is distributed between the first and second image forming apparatuses and a centralized processing mode in which the first image forming apparatus executes all editing of the image data, wherein the editing mode shift unit selects the collaborative processing mode if an edited image data generating time required to generate the edited image data is longer than edited image data sending time required to send the edited image data to the second image forming apparatus, wherein, in the collaborative processing mode, the first image forming apparatus generates the image data, sends the second image data to the second image forming apparatus, which shares printing with the first image forming apparatus, and the first image forming apparatus generates first edited image data by editing the first image data, and sends the first edited image data to the second image forming apparatus, the second image forming apparatus generates second edited image data by editing the second image data received from the first image forming apparatus, sends the second edited image data to the first image forming apparatus, and prints out the first edited image data received from the first image forming apparatus and the second edited image data sequentially, and the first image forming apparatus prints out the first edited image data and the second edited image data received from the second image forming apparatus sequentially.