Patent ID: 8130394

Claim:
A printing system comprising: a first printing apparatus; a second printing apparatus; a reception unit which receives a print job from an external apparatus; a first conversion unit which converts data of part of pages among data of a plurality of pages included in the print job into image data available for a print process in the first printing apparatus; a second conversion unit which converts, among the data of the plurality of pages included in the print job, data of pages other than the data of the pages to be converted by said first conversion unit into image data available for a print process in the second printing apparatus; a first holding unit which holds the image data converted by the first conversion unit in the first printing apparatus; a second holding unit which holds the image data converted by the second conversion unit in the second printing apparatus; a transmission unit which, after said first and second conversions units obtain images of all of the pages included in the print job and before the first and second printing apparatuses initiate the print processes based on the obtained images, if the number of page images held by the second holding unit is larger than that of the first holding unit, transmits part of images held by the second holding unit to the first holding unit so that the first and second printing apparatuses print the same number of pages; a first print unit which executes the print process based on the image data held in the first holding unit in the first printing apparatus; and a second print unit which executes the print process based on the image data held in the first holding unit in the second printing apparatus.