US Patent 7315387 Print control method and apparatus, and print system

A spool file (303) holds intermediate data of a print job to be executed. When a test print process is executed while designating this intermediate data, the intermediate data is converted into a command to be sent to a printer (1500), thus executing the test print process. In this case, the number of sets of copies set in the print job is decremented by 1. When an actual print process is done after the test print process, the number of sets of copies is reset to the designated value, and the print process then starts.