Patent ID: 7054020

Claim:
A print job management apparatus that stores a plurality of print jobs sent from at least one print data generating apparatus into a buffer and causes a printer to adequately carry out printing operations corresponding to the plurality of print jobs, said print jobs including a non-interactive print job and an interactive print job that needs mutual communication established between said print data generating apparatus and said printer, said print job management apparatus comprising: a job form decision unit configured to determine whether each print job of interest among the plurality of print jobs is said interactive print job or the non-interactive print job; a print job input unit that stacks interactive print job data and non-interactive print job data into the buffer, the interactive print job data consisting of a predetermined type of data in a specific form without representing all drawing details of the print job, the non-interactive print job data including print data representing all drawing details of the print job; an interactive print job execution unit configured to establish mutual communication between said print data generating apparatus and said printer to carry out interactive printing at a specific timing determined by stacking condition of said predetermined type of data in the buffer; and a non-interactive print job execution unit configured to carry out non-interactive printing at a specific timing determined by stacking condition of the non-interactive print job data in the buffer by transmitting the non-interactive print data to said printer without establishing mutual communication between said print data generating apparatus and said printer.