Patent ID: 7339694

Claim:
A printing method in which a print request is transferred from a first information processing apparatus to a second information processing apparatus, and document data for printing is generated in accordance with the print request by a generating program provided in an image generating apparatus, and then the generated document data is transferred from the second information processing apparatus to the first information processing apparatus so that the document data is printed out, the method comprising: a registering step of registering a type of input data or a type of output data processable by the generating program provided in the image generating apparatus in the second information processing apparatus; a specifying step of specifying a type of input data necessary to generate the document data and a type which the document data is generated in, in accordance with the print request; a selecting step of selecting a generating program for generating the document data by comparing the specified type to the registered type; and a transferring step of transferring a generating request for generating the document data to the image generating apparatus having the selected generating program.