Patent ID: 7880920

Claim:
An image forming system, in which an image forming apparatus and an image processing apparatus that sends image data to the image forming apparatus are communicably connected, comprising: a first holding unit configured to hold in the image processing apparatus both a first paper information to be used in the image processing apparatus and a second paper information to be used in the image forming apparatus; a second holding unit configured to hold in the image forming apparatus both the first paper information and the second paper information, wherein the first paper information and the second paper information include data for each paper respectively, and a common identifier is conferred to paper data that corresponds between the first and second paper information; a merging unit configured to, when the image processing apparatus has been replaced by a new image processing apparatus, merge the first paper information held in the second holding unit and the first paper information held in the new image processing apparatus and, when the image forming apparatus has been replaced by a new image forming apparatus, merge the second paper information held in the first holding unit and the second paper information held in the new image forming apparatus; a change unit configured to change an identifier in regard to paper data in which identifiers are duplicated as a result of merging by the merging unit so as to eliminate duplication of identifiers; an update unit configured to update the first paper information to be used by the new image processing apparatus and the second paper information to be used by the new image forming apparatus based on a merging result obtained by the merging unit and the change unit, and a selecting unit configured to select, based on the identifier that is sent with image data by the image processing apparatus and the updated second paper information, paper to be used in carrying out image forming according to image data using the image forming apparatus.