An image forming system includes a terminal device, a management apparatus, and a plurality of image forming apparatuses. The terminal device includes a first controller that generates a print job, and transmits the print job to the management apparatus. The management apparatus includes a storage queue, and a second controller that stores the print job in the storage queue upon receipt thereof, determines one of the image forming apparatuses that completes a printing operation based on the print job most rapidly, as transfer destination, on a basis of printing ability of each of the image forming apparatuses, and transmits the print job to the image forming apparatus determined as the transfer destination. The image forming apparatuses each include an image forming device, and a third controller that causes the image forming device to execute the printing operation based on the print job, upon receipt thereof.

An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to: generate an identification image in response to at least one of a thread and a digital document posted on the thread being specified, the thread being displayed on a service screen of a message exchange service, the identification image being linked with information for accessing the thread; and perform control to output the generated identification image in a readable format.

Provided is an acquisition unit configured to, in a case where a predetermined function is newly added as a function related to a communication apparatus and of which execution is instructed with a voice input to a voice control device, after an input from the user who permits the execution of the at least one function is performed. The acquisition unit acquires information that is based on a predetermined voice input that indicates whether to permit the execution of the predetermined function and that has been received by voice from the user by the voice control device.

An information processing system includes an information processing apparatus that obtains a state of a job input to a printing apparatus, generates, based on the state of the obtained job, notification information including instruction information used to control the job, and transmits the generated notification information to a network. A mobile terminal apparatus receives the notification information from the network, and notifies, based on the received notification information, the instruction information used to control the job. The information processing apparatus also estimates an execution result of a job which has been input to the printing apparatus but is in an execution standby state, obtains, as a state of the job, the estimated execution result, and in a case in which the estimated execution result indicates abnormal completion, generates the notification information including the instruction information used to control the job.

By using the present disclosure, for example, a notification of an error that has occurred in a device can be received even in cloud printing. Some embodiments provide a method performed by executing an application using an information processing apparatus that transmits print data to be transferred to a printing apparatus by a server system, the method including transmitting, to the server system, a request to check a processing status of the print data in the printing apparatus, receiving the processing status of the print data from the server system having responded to the request, and displaying the received processing status on a display unit of the information processing apparatus.

A printing device comprises a housing, a communication interface configured to communicate with a server, and a controller. The printing device is configured to operate either in a contract mode or in a normal mode. The housing is configured such that one or more consumables including a first type consumable and a second type consumable are attachable. The first type consumable is dedicated for the contract printing, and the second type consumable is usable for printing in both the contract mode and the normal mode. The controller is configured to activate the contract mode in response to an activation instruction from the server. In a case where the second type consumable is attached to the housing when the contract mode is activated, the controller changes a state of the printing device to a contract printing state in which the contract printing is activated after activating the contract mode.

An image processing device may include a controller configured to, in a case where a disabling instruction to cause a service state to shift to a disabled state is obtained under a situation where the service state is an enabled state, shift the service state from the enabled state to the disabled state, and in the case where the disabling instruction is obtained under the situation where the service state is the enabled state, send an acceptance stop instruction to a server. The acceptance stop instruction may be an instruction to cause the server to stop acceptance of a job sending request.

A printing system manages printing devices. A managing server receives device update status information and pending job information from each of the printing devices. A status change for a component within a first printing device is detected, thereby updating the device information for the first printing device. The managing server parses a print job queue for the first printing device to update the pending job information to determine the print job will cause a first potential error related to the changed status of the first printing device. When a new print job is received, the managing server determines that the new print job will not occur according to the first potential error, identifies a second printing device, determines the new print job will not result in a second potential error at the second printing device, and sends the new print job to the second printing device.

Provided is a production printing system for production printing capable of variable printing for specifying printing, post-processing, and an output destination. The production printing system process variable data for production printing. The variable document creation unit creates a variable document in which condition is set for each record. The job ticket creation unit creates a job ticket that specifies prepress, printing, post-processing, and output destination according to the condition set for each the record of the variable document created by the variable document creation unit. The variable processing unit performs processing by using the job ticket created by the job ticket creation unit.

A job management server, which is connected to a Web application server and a job processing apparatus via a network, comprises: a registration unit which registers, when a job received from the Web application server is added with information indicating that a request source of the job is the job processing apparatus, the job in a first job queue, and to register, when the job is not added with the information, the job in a second job queue having a lower priority than the first job queue; and a transmission unit which transmits the job registered in the first job queue in response to a request from the job processing apparatus while a user utilizes a Web application via the job processing apparatus.