An information processing apparatus is configured to communicate with a server system with information about a first printing apparatus registered therein. The information processing apparatus includes an acquisition unit to acquire information about a first printing apparatus registered as a default printing apparatus in the server system, a storage unit to store information about a second printing apparatus to perform communication not using the server system, as information about the default printing apparatus to be used, a determination unit to determine which of the stored information about the second printing apparatus and the acquired information about the first printing apparatus is to be displayed as information about the default printing apparatus, and a display unit to display the information about the default printing apparatus based on a result of the determination by the determination unit.

A printer enables easily changing settings. The printer has storage 20c that stores settings information related to the printer 10; and a controller 20 changes, based on the power supply to the printer 10 turning on or off, settings information stored in the storage 20c.

A print process control system includes a plurality of printing devices and an order management system to manage print jobs to the printing devices. Each printing device has an achievable quality level corresponding to its ability to meet color printing requirements. Job data for a print job is parsed to identify spot colors related to colors to be reproduced at the printing device. The printing device receives a test chart with color patches for the spot colors. Measurement data is captured from the color patches of the test chart. Using the measurement data, the order management system confirms whether the printing device can reproduce the spot colors according to a required level of tolerance or quality level.

An information processing apparatus includes a detection unit and a control unit. The detection unit detects motion of a user made between a display surface that displays an image of an object to be operated and the user. The motion is made without contact with the display surface. The control unit instructs the object to execute an operation corresponding to the detected motion of the user.

A printing system includes at least one processor that acts as a storing unit and a determination unit. The storing unit causes history data about a print job to be stored into storage. The determination unit determines whether to cause a user to perform confirmation processing at a time of printing based on the history data about the print job that is stored in the storage.

An advertisement providing system is provided which outputs an advertisement when a printer prints a document. The system includes a display unit configured to display a screen for selecting a recipient that is to receive a printed matter of the document when a distance between a first position and a second position is longer than a predetermined distance, or, alternatively, when the first position and the second position are located in different areas, the first position showing where an instruction source giving a command to print the document is located, the second position showing where the printer is installed and an output interface configured to output, when the printer prints the document, an advertisement depending on attributes o the recipient selected.

An image forming apparatus includes a controller configured to perform a first storing process including storing into a storage first image data received from a first external device via a first communication interface, when a value representing a condition of a wireless connection between the first external device and the first communication interface is less than a threshold, perform a first image forming process including after completion of the first storing process, controlling the image former to perform image formation for the stored first image data, and when the value is less than the threshold, in response to receiving second image data from a second external device via a second communication interface during the first storing process, perform a second image forming process in advance of the first image forming process, the second image forming process including controlling the image former to perform image formation for the second image data.

The present disclosure is directed to a system, a method, and a device for monitoring printing devices using activity scores. In example embodiments, one or more printing devices are polled to monitor associated device states. A management device, using the associated device state and one or more requests transmitted to each of the one or more printing devices, generates an activity score. By comparing activity scores of the one or more printing devices, the management device can rank the printing devices against one another and assign priority levels to each printing device. These priority levels can then be used to establish frequencies for future polling of the one or more printing devices.

An image forming system of an embodiment includes a terminal device that transmits first print data to print an image in monochrome, second print data to print the image in color and a user ID; a print data storage section that stores the first print data, the second print data and the user ID transmitted from the terminal device in an associated manner; an authentication section that authenticates a user; a list acquisition section that acquires a list including the first and second print data associated with the user ID of the user authenticated by the authentication section; a print data acquisition section that acquires one print data selected from the acquired list by the list acquisition section; and an image forming section that prints an image formed with the print data acquired by the print data acquisition section.

A reference image generating apparatus includes: a reader that reads a printed matter transported from an image forming apparatus; a reference image generator that generates a reference image for automatically inspecting the printed matter based on a read image generated by reading the printed matter; and a hardware processor, wherein the hardware processor acquires, from the image forming apparatus, information on whether or not each paper of the printed matter to be transported to the reader is subject to automatic inspection.