Patent ID: 6914692

Claim:
A printing control apparatus comprising: plural expansion processing means for expanding printing data of a predetermined format to image data of a format to be output to a printer, wherein the output to the printer is performed on a segment basis; calculation means for calculating, before the expansion processing is performed by said plural expansion processing means, a processing time necessary to expand the printing data to the image data for each segment; and scheduling processing means for scheduling the expansion processing for each segment by said plural expansion processing means, based on the processing time calculated by said calculation means, wherein each of said plural expansion processing means has band raster memory areas, independent of the other plural expansion processing means, to hold output images, and wherein said scheduling processing means checks a plurality of schedule patterns obtained by assigning each segment to each band raster memory areas specifies one of the plurality of schedule patterns that has the smallest number of temporary band rasters, and schedules which segments should each of said plural expansion processing means perform the expansion process on.