An image forming apparatus: upon determining that OR drawing of a first drawing object and a second drawing object included in received drawing data is not possible, drives one of a plurality of arithmetic processors to sequentially execute a first drawing process of the first drawing object and a second drawing process of the second drawing object in an original order of the first drawing object and the second drawing object in commands of the received drawing data; and, upon determining that the OR drawing is possible, distributes and assigns the first drawing process and the second drawing process to two or more of the plurality of arithmetic processors and drives the two or more arithmetic processors to execute the first drawing process and the second drawing process in parallel.

In a printing system capable of supplying a sheet of a job having undergone print processing by the printing unit of a printing apparatus to a post-processing unit capable of executing at least a specific type of post-processing among a plurality of types of post-processes, when the target job requires the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is inhibited from executing print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by a user using a user interface unit. When the target job does not require the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is permitted to execute print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by the user using the user interface unit.

Delaying processing based on received commands is suppressed while preventing executing parallel processes involving operation of hardware. Servers can send printing commands and non-printing commands to a printing device. When a printing command is received from a first server and a printing command is then received from another server different from the first server while a process based on the printing command received from the first server is executing, the printing device does not execute the process based on the printing command received from the other server; but if a non-printing command is received from another server, the printing device executes a process based on the non-printing command received from the other server parallel to the process based on the printing command received from the first server.

Functionality for issuing instructions related to the status of a printing device can be added to a control device capable of connecting to a printing device while suppressing modification of programs installed on the control device. A network system 1 includes a printer 9 that prints on recording media, and a control device 8 capable of communicating with the printer 9. The control device 8 has a control unit that generates and outputs by a printing program a command instructing the printer 9 to print; and a management unit that adds a maintenance command issuing an instruction related to the status of the printer 9 to the command output by the control unit, and sends the command with the added maintenance command to the printer 9, by a maintenance program that is different from the printing program.

An image forming apparatus: upon determining that OR drawing of a first drawing object and a second drawing object included in received drawing data is not possible, drives one of a plurality of arithmetic processors to sequentially execute a first drawing process of the first drawing object and a second drawing process of the second drawing object in an original order of the first drawing object and the second drawing object in commands of the received drawing data; and, upon determining that the OR drawing is possible, distributes and assigns the first drawing process and the second drawing process to two or more of the plurality of arithmetic processors and drives the two or more arithmetic processors to execute the first drawing process and the second drawing process in parallel.

In a printing system capable of supplying a sheet of a job having undergone print processing by the printing unit of a printing apparatus to a post-processing unit capable of executing at least a specific type of post-processing among a plurality of types of post-processes, when the target job requires the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is inhibited from executing print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by a user using a user interface unit. When the target job does not require the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is permitted to execute print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by the user using the user interface unit.

Systems and methods for secured printing are provided. The method includes receiving a nominally print-ready document with the nominally print-ready document including one or more references to one or more security elements. The method also includes replacing the one or more references with one or more identifiers, to generate an intermediate document, and associating the one or more security elements with the one or more identifiers. The method further includes transmitting instructions to a printing device, with the instructions being configured to cause the printing device to associate the one or more identifiers with the one or more security elements. The operations further include transmitting the intermediate document to the printing device.