An image forming system includes: a first image forming apparatus; and a second image forming apparatus connected on a downstream side of the first image forming apparatus in a paper conveying direction, wherein the first image forming apparatus includes: a first expander that expands a first image having image expansion time per page including first time; and a first image former that forms the first image expanded by the first expander, onto a first face of paper, and the second image forming apparatus includes: a second expander that expands a second image having image expansion time per page including second time longer than the first time; and a second image former that forms the second image expanded by the second expander, onto the first face on which the first image has been formed.

In one embodiment, a processor-readable medium stores code representing instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to print a print job, and determine target color data for each sheet of the print job while printing the job. The instructions further cause the processor to continually save the target color data to a server for each sheet of the print job as each sheet is printed.

Upon satisfaction of a predetermined trigger condition with a first hard disk drive mounted in a first controller, a first processor executes a first common file stored in a first common file storage region and write and store a first configuration file into a first configuration file storage region. The first processor executes the first common file and the first configuration file of a first firmware program and drives a first print engine to execute a first job segment stored in a first job segment storage region.

A print controller includes a plurality of processing units, a receiving unit, a generation unit, a first assignment unit, a second assignment unit, and a request unit. The generation unit generates print side job data for imposing multiple pages on a single print side. The first assignment unit assigns, to the print side job data, an image processing unit not assigned to other print side job data. The second assignment unit assigns at least one image processing unit not assigned to the other print side, job data, to page job data of each of the pages. The request unit requests the at least one image processing unit to execute image processing on the page job data of each page, and requests the image processing unit to execute image processing on the print side job data when the image processing on the page job data of each page is completed.

An information processing device includes a retaining unit and an image display. The retaining unit retains image-formation-related information of an image forming apparatus that forms an image. The image display causes a display section of a portable terminal having the display section and an image capturing section to display an image for assisting with an operation of the image forming apparatus based on a captured image result of the image capturing section and the image-formation-related information retained in the retaining unit.

A method is provided for printing a digital document on a plurality of cut sheets arranged in a cut sheet printing sequence order resulting in at least one reader spread in an end product, each cut sheet having a first side and a second side, the at least one reader spread consisting of two neighboring sides, each neighboring side of which is of a different cut sheet of the plurality of cut sheets and is intended to be printed upon by a digital page image of the digital document. The method includes the step of, for each reader spread in an end product, printing each digital page image corresponding to the reader spread on the first side of the corresponding cut sheet or printing each digital page image corresponding to the reader spread on the second side of the corresponding cut sheet. A cut sheet printing system is configured to apply the method.

A conveyance control device includes a memory, and a processor configured to control a conveyance device in a printing system. The printing system includes a plurality of printers, each of the printers being configured to perform printing on a recording medium based on print data, and the conveyance device configured to convey, to any one of the plurality of printers, a platen on which the recording medium is placed. The memory is configured to store computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform processes including receiving second print data included in the print data, and determining, among the plurality of printers, an execution printer that is a printer performing printing based on the second print data, based on the received second print data and history information stored in a storage.

An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to: receive a print instruction to print an image rasterized by another information processing apparatus; associate the print instruction with any one of plural ejection destinations to which a recording medium printed in response to the print instruction is ejected; and, in a case where the ejection destination associated with the print instruction waits for ejection of a recording medium subsequent to the already ejected recording medium, execute a print instruction for the subsequent recording medium, and not execute a print instruction for ejecting a recording medium other than the subsequent recording medium to the ejection destination.

A method and apparatus are disclosed that provide processing data associated with a job request. In one example, the job request may be a printer job to print a particular document based on predefined settings. The data processing operation may include determining at least one job specific resource available to fulfill the job request, and performing at least one of a prioritization computation, a job specific requirement computation, and a geographical determination computation. Additional operations may include selecting at least one appropriate device to fulfill the job request based on the at least one computation operation and the at least one available job specific resource, and processing and completing the job using the at least one appropriate device based on the at least one computation.

An information processing apparatus includes an image forming area setting unit and an output unit. In formation of an image on a first surface and a second surface of a recording medium, the setting unit sets a position of at least one image forming area on the second surface to be separated in a transport direction of the recording medium from an upstream end portion in the transport direction of the recording medium by a distance of a value obtained by subtracting from a length in the transport direction of the recording medium a distance in the transport direction from a downstream end portion in the transport direction of the recording medium to an upstream end portion in the transport direction of at least one image forming area on the first surface. The output unit outputs information representing the set position of the at least one image forming area.