Patent ID: 8355172

Claim:
A color printer system comprising: an image data generating apparatus; and a printing apparatus, wherein the printing apparatus includes: an engine that superimposes a plurality of colors and performs printing; and a controller that controls the engine, the controller includes: a plurality of data transmitting units that transmits image data of each color to the engine; and a printing control unit that controls the plurality of data transmitting units, the printing control unit and the image data generating apparatus are connected to each other by a first transmission path through which control information is transmitted and received, the plurality of data transmitting units and the image data generating apparatus are connected to each other by a plurality of second transmission paths, which is allocated to each color that can be printed by the engine and through which the image data is transmitted, and the image data generating apparatus includes: an image data generating unit that performs bitmap expansion on a print job received from a host apparatus for each color that can be printed by the engine to generate image data; and a communication unit that sequentially allocates the image data of colors other than a color which is not used for the superimposed printing to the second transmission path, which is allocated to transmit the image data of the color that is not used for the superimposed printing, and transmits the image data in units of transmission when colors whose number is less by one or more than the number of all colors that can be printed by the engine.