1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing system that uses a plurality of printers, and in particular, it relates to a printing system in which a printer can obtain print data from another printer without the intermediary of a printer server, and printers and a program and a method for controlling the printer, which construct the printing system.
2. Related Art
For printing in general printers, when print instructions are sent from information processors capable of issuing print instructions, such as personal computers (PCs), to printers, printing is immediately executed. Accordingly, even confidential printed matters are left on the output tray of the printers until the person(s) who gave the print instructions go to the printers for the printed matters. This may produce problems in that the contents of the printed matters are exposed to others or the printed matters themselves are taken away by unauthorized persons.
In view of the foregoing problems, techniques for printing have been disclosed in which persons who give print instructions can obtain printed matters without exposing the printed matters to third persons including: a printer and a print control method disclosed in JP-A-4-364971 (Patent Document 1); and a method and an apparatus for outputting images disclosed in JP-A-2001-306273 (Patent Document 2).
With the printer and the print control method of Patent Document 1, even when a print job is sent from a print instruction terminal, the printer does not immediately execute printing, but holds the print job in standby and then executes printing after being instructed to execute printing in response to the print job via an instruction input mechanism of the printer.
With the method and apparatus for outputting images disclosed in Patent Document 2, when an authentication code is sent together with print data from a client unit, the printer system does not immediately execute printing, but generates reference data from the received print data, encrypts the print data using the authentication code to generate storage data, and stores the storage data in a storage unit in association with the reference data. When a user selects the storage data and inputs the authentication code, a printer server decodes the storage data using the inputted authentication code and determines whether or not the decoding has been executed correctly. When the decoding has been executed correctly, the decoded result is printed by the printer.
By the techniques disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, however, in the case where a print instructor cannot go to a remote printer for print output or in the case where a printer to which a print job is sent runs out of toner, the print instructor cannot change the destination of printing at the first print destination to obtain the printed matter by another printer (different from the initial destination printer).
Accordingly, another technique including a printing system, an output terminal, and a printing method is disclosed in JP-A-2003-140875 (Patent Document 3) in which a print instructor can select a destination printer on the spot.
The printing system, the output terminal, and the printing method of Patent Document 3 allow a print instructor to input authentication information onto printers in shops, and to print a corresponding print job. This system allows the print instructor to change a destination printer as deemed appropriate.
However, the printing system of Patent Document 3 needs an additional printer server for storing print information. This poses problems such as increasing the size of the system and complicating the maintenance of the system because printers for authentication printing must be registered in the printer server.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds