Patent ID: 8300260

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an interface configured to connect an external storage device; an acquisition unit configured to acquire, from information about data stored in the storage device, a parameter for calculating a memory usage at the time of printing the data; a coefficient retaining unit configured to retain a coefficient value for the calculation of the memory usage, in association with each file type, the coefficient value characterizing the memory usage during printing on a per-page basis for a file type; a calculation unit configured to calculate the memory usage by acquiring from the coefficient retaining unit the coefficient value associated with the file type for calculating the memory usage, based on information indicating the file type of the parameter acquired by the acquisition unit, and then substituting the acquired coefficient value for calculating the memory usage into a set calculating formula; and a control unit configured to compare the memory usage calculated by the calculation unit and an available memory capacity in the image forming apparatus at the time of printing, and configured to control an image forming operation during printing depending on a comparison result.