Patent ID: 7916323

Claim:
A printing system including a server and a plurality of printers, the server comprising: a print data memory portion that stores therein print data and printing conditions information indicating conditions relating to printing and used as a setting value in case of printing, and each of the plurality of printers comprising: a print portion; a detection portion that accesses the server to detect whether or not the server stores the print data regardless of whether the print data is designated to any printer; and a print data request portion that makes a request to the server for the print data when the print data is detected, wherein the server further comprises a print data transmission portion that transmits the print data and the printing conditions information stored in the print data memory portion to a printer, among the plurality of printers, which makes the request for the print data, wherein said each of the plurality of printers further comprises: a print data receiving portion that receives the print data and the printing conditions information; a print approval/disapproval judge portion to make a comparison, at the printer that has received the print data, the received printing conditions information and status information indicating at least specifications of the printer that has received the print data, and to judge whether or not printing can be performed based on a result of the comparison; and a print control portion that controls the print portion so that the printing is performed when the print approval/disapproval judge portion determines that the printing can be performed, and controls the print portion so that the printing is not performed when the print approval/disapproval judge portion determines that the printing can not be performed, and wherein, after the print data transmission portion transmits the print data stored in the print data memory portion to any one of the plurality of printers, the print data transmission portion does not transmit the print data to other of the plurality of printers even if the other of the plurality of printers makes a request for the print data, and, thereafter, when said one of the plurality of printers determines that the printing can not be performed and transmits a signal to the server indicating that printing can not be performed, the print data transmission portion begins transmitting the print data upon request from said other of the plurality of printers.