Patent ID: 8917413

Claim:
An image forming system comprising: a plurality of image forming apparatuses and an information processing unit configured to request the plurality of image forming apparatuses to execute printing, wherein each of the plurality of the image forming apparatuses includes: a power-state switching unit configured to switch among a plurality of power states including an ordinary state and a power-saving state in which power consumption is lower than that in the ordinary state; the information processing unit includes: a proxy-unit search unit configured to search for a proxy unit serving as the image forming apparatus that executes a proxy process, which is a proxy process to halfway through a printing process to be executed by a target unit, when the power of the target unit that is the target image forming apparatus requested to execute printing is in the power-saving state; and a proxy-process request unit configured to request the proxy unit found by the proxy-unit search unit to execute the proxy process; the proxy unit includes: a proxy-process executing unit configured to execute the proxy process upon request; and a proxy-generation-information transmission unit configured to, when the power of the target unit is in the ordinary state, transmit proxy generation information to the target unit, the proxy generation information being information generated by the proxy process executed by the proxy-process executing unit; and the target unit includes: a printing-process take-over unit configured to, when receiving the proxy generation information, take over the printing from halfway based on the proxy generation information, wherein the plurality of power states includes a plurality of kinds of power-saving states, and wherein the proxy-unit search unit is further configured to determine whether to search for the proxy unit based on the kind of power-saving state of the target unit among the plurality of kinds of power-saving states.