Patent ID: 7173718

Claim:
A distributed printing control apparatus that controls distributed printing, comprising: a printer specification module that specifies multiple printers as destinations of distribution; a distributive output module that outputs print data, which is an object to be printed, to the multiple printers specified by said printer specification module in a distributive manner; a condition setting module that causes a data input box for setting a predetermined condition relating to a printing performance of each printer to be displayed on a display device, receives input data into the data input box from an input device, and sets the predetermined condition based on the input data; a printer performance information collection module that collects performance information with regard to the predetermined condition from each of the multiple printers specified by said printer specification module; and a data input restriction module that restricts the input data in the data input box according to the performance information of each printer collected by said printer performance information collection module, said data input restriction module specifying a set of performance information, which includes all the performance information of the respective printers collected by said printer performance information collection module, and restricting the input data in the data input box within a range of the specified set of performance information.